Children Catching the Bus

Hermia

Mojisola wrote: »

I don't need to "wise up" on this. We tend to do a lot of stuff with little kids about keeping themselves safe but it's worth reminding them as they start to do things independently - and that includes talking about people they know as well as strangers.

Most women who use public transport regularly have experienced being touched inappropriately. The same can happen to children. That kind of experience can knock a child's confidence.

With the public's reluctance to get involved these days, a child needs to be told tips to reduce the chances of this happening and ways to handle it if it happens.

I think that is true. Telling a child how to deal with problems is better than never mentioning them. I was quite busty at the age of 11 and as soon as my bosoms appeared I had men (usually middle-aged) leering at my bust. I think it would have been more unnerving if I had been very naive and not realised how men would react. My dad gave me a lot of advice on dealing with leering men. I think that is better than never letting your daughter out of the house.

securityguy

tyllwyd wrote: »

My biggest practical worry would be what would happen if things went wrong - her money got stolen or she lost her passport. She's still officially a minor, so would she have trouble sorting things out, even if she is a very capable person?

What did Captain Walker say? Oh yes:

BETTER DROWNED THAN DUFFERS IF NOT DUFFERS WON'T DROWN

barbarawright

I'm intrigued to know how everyone traveled to secondary school? Did you all go to one within walking distance or did you all get lifts? I used to walk to infant school (along a main road), train to junior school (from the age of 10) and two buses to secondary school. Nobody batted an eyelid back in the dim and distant 1970s. I had friends who were driven to school every day and I dread to think how they coped when they finally left home - there were some who had genuinely never been on a bus at the age of 15 (and this was in London).

I really can't see the problem with what the OP's child is being asked to do. I'm sure he'll enjoy the independence. I went to Cambridge on my own at 13 (met at each end, but an exciting stop-off at a motorway service station in the mddle :rotfl:) and I loved it!

Person_one

barbarawright wrote: »

I'm intrigued to know how everyone traveled to secondary school? Did you all go to one within walking distance or did you all get lifts? I used to walk to infant school (along a main road), train to junior school (from the age of 10) and two buses to secondary school. Nobody batted an eyelid back in the dim and distant 1970s. I had friends who were driven to school every day and I dread to think how they coped when they finally left home - there were some who had genuinely never been on a bus at the age of 15 (and this was in London).

I walked to primary school, but for secondary school there was no bus that came near us so the few parents in the area arranged a sort of 'car pool' and shared the lifts.

Shockingly, despite only getting the school bus a handful of times, I managed to go to uni in a different city, study abroad for a year and then move out to live on my own, all without collapsing under the pressure because I hadn't spent days of my life sat on a bus that stank of smoke with sticky seats!

jellyhead

barbarawright wrote: »

I'm intrigued to know how everyone traveled to secondary school? Did you all go to one within walking distance or did you all get lifts? I used to walk to infant school (along a main road), train to junior school (from the age of 10) and two buses to secondary school. Nobody batted an eyelid back in the dim and distant 1970s. I had friends who were driven to school every day and I dread to think how they coped when they finally left home - there were some who had genuinely never been on a bus at the age of 15 (and this was in London).

I really can't see the problem with what the OP's child is being asked to do. I'm sure he'll enjoy the independence. I went to Cambridge on my own at 13 (met at each end, but an exciting stop-off at a motorway service station in the mddle :rotfl:) and I loved it!

I've never needed to go more than 3 miles for school, and neither have my children. My eldest's high school is under 2 miles away so he walks. If he gets a bus that's different because it goes to school then everyone gets off. They don't have to say where they are going, or remember to get off at the correct stop.

Anyway, the OP isn't worried about the child doing the journey, he is trying to gauge how the child's mum will feel about the suggestion.

Gloomendoom

Hermia wrote: »

I was a teenager in the early 1990s and am so glad of that because parents didn't seem to fret so much then. I regularly travelled to London from my early teens and went on public transport on my own from the age of 11. My friends were all the same. The thing is I don't remember any of my friends or classmates being too immature to manage these things. Yet I regularly hear parents now saying their teenage children are too immature to cope with going anywhere on their own.

I does depend on the child. I was quite happily using public transport at age 9 including some long train journeys (I was put on the train at one end and met at the other.) At 11 I caught the bus, with a change at a busy bus station, to a school some 25 miles away. However, there was a man on one of the buses that used to make a bee line to sit next to me in the evening and bore the ãrse off me about bus timetables and rosters. I mentioned it to my parents and they promptly switched me to travelling by train. The significance of the sudden change was lost on me at the time.

On the other hand, my sister couldn't be trusted to get of a bus at the right stop until she was about 15.

Goldiegirl

barbarawright wrote: »

I'm intrigued to know how everyone traveled to secondary school? Did you all go to one within walking distance or did you all get lifts? I used to walk to infant school (along a main road), train to junior school (from the age of 10) and two buses to secondary school. Nobody batted an eyelid back in the dim and distant 1970s. I had friends who were driven to school every day and I dread to think how they coped when they finally left home - there were some who had genuinely never been on a bus at the age of 15 (and this was in London).

I really can't see the problem with what the OP's child is being asked to do. I'm sure he'll enjoy the independence. I went to Cambridge on my own at 13 (met at each end, but an exciting stop-off at a motorway service station in the mddle :rotfl:) and I loved it!

I always walked to school.

The infants and junior school were about 10 minutes away. There was always a group of us, and I seem to remember that from the age of about 8 we walked by ourselves without a parent. To start off with my mum used to see me across the main road, but after a few months my friends and I did the walk by completely by ourselves.

From age 11 the school was about 25 minutes walk away, again, we always walked. I might have got the bus a couple of times but it was rare. Sometimes I walked with friends, sometimes by myself, even in the winter when it was dark, but it was a busy town.

I certainly never got a lift in my parents car, they didn't have one until my mum passed her test when she was in her mid 50's

LittleMissAspie

barbarawright wrote: »

I'm intrigued to know how everyone traveled to secondary school?

Me too. I find this thread astounding, I thought the problem these days was that children were growing up too fast but there are 15 year olds that aren't allowed to get a bus?? Seriously how do they get around, I was dead lucky if my parents offered me a lift!

I started walking to primary school without my mum at 9 I think, a 30 minute walk and I collected two other girls along the way so not completely on my own. At some point the arrangements changed and I collected one girl, a different one. Often she was ridiculously late and I had to wait for ages at her house and sometimes her mum said not to bother waiting so I carried on on my own.

When I started secondary school I got the bus. My mum arranged for me to get the bus with some other girls who lived nearby but she never did a test run. The most difficult thing was reading the timetable but I knew what time I had to leave the house and I knew that buses were every 20 minutes. We got the bus together for a while and then people fell into different routines and I usually got to school by myself. Hardly anyone got a lift to school, only the people who lived a looong way away and they were usually quite well off. Some people got 2 buses to school.

At weekends I would get the bus into town to go around the shops, usually on my own and then meet my friends in town. As I said, we were lucky if any of our parents offered us a lift anywhere.

FBaby

nfollows1982 wrote: »

Hi all,

I just wanted to ask the opinion as to how old your kids were or will be before you considered it ok for them to use public transport rather than relying on lifts?

I'm not talking about on a regular basis, perhaps once a fortnight, and they would be seen on and met off the bus at either end. The journey will last approx 40 mins travelling between 5 and 6pm on a Saturday.

This is for an 11 soon to be 12 year old boy.

Thanks

What matters is:
- what he thinks about it
- what his mother think.

My two take the train alone every week-end to visit their dad. They were ready for this a year ago at just 9 and 12. I had mentioned it before, and we agreed it when they said they were ready. Their father was ok with it too. I drop them and pick them up from the station, but they walk to and from their father (10mns) After 6 months of it came the first occasion when my son had to travel on his own. Again, he was the one suggesting he was ok with it. He had a mobile and it was no problem.

We are extremely lucky at parents to raise children/teenagers with mobile phone facilities. It takes away all my worry knowing that if anything happened, they could just contact me.

Dunroamin

LittleMissAspie wrote: »

Me too. I find this thread astounding, I thought the problem these days was that children were growing up too fast but there are 15 year olds that aren't allowed to get a bus?? Seriously how do they get around, I was dead lucky if my parents offered me a lift!
.

There's another thread on here about a 14 year old having sex with her boyfriend and everybody seems fine about it and most people are saying it's up to her, her choice etc. At the same time, people are worrying about kids of much the same age getting the bus on their own.

Funny old world.