parenting randoms

[beerlover]

I'm just throwing a random question out there, and feel free to add yours too.

What age were you comfortable with your kid playing outside without you sitting out there, and what rules/parameters did you set for them? We've started to dip our toes into this a little this week. DS is a few months away from being 8. We live on a busyish street with houses close together and there is an alley behind our house that faces a bunch of backyards. The occasional car goes by in the alley but people are very cautious overall. He's been riding his scooter with some kids in the alley and occasionally going into one kid's backyard to play baseball or other stuff. I can sometimes see him from my kitchen window but not always because our detached garage blocks the view. I think I'm mostly comfortable with this. I do vaguely know the mom of the kid's yard that he's in. I've told him not to go inside any houses ever, if the mom in that house tells you to go home then you need to go, and to stay within our block, but that's about it. Are there any other rules you've set for your kid when they're playing outside without you? Sorry if this sounds dumb! The less supervision is new for us.

[fancynewbeesly]

I think it REALLY depends on the street and the kid. We live on a dead end, so not a lot of traffic unless you live here. My 5 year old goes out front to play. If she is by herself, I do feel comfortable leaving her out there for about 5-10 minutes if I need to go to the bathroom or switch at laundry. The laundry and the bathroom has a window that I can peak out for the front of the house.

It also depends on what she is doing. If she is riding her bike or scooter I tend to be outside watching more. But if she is on our front lawn playing with her dolls or throwing the softball or jumprope I leave her longer.

Right now she has to stay in the circle unless she is with DD1, they can walk/bike throughout the street and to their friends house.

[gerberdaisy]

We don't have any kids nearby that they would meet up with, but starting at 5.5 I was ok with DS playing outside by himself in the front yard. He's just scootering in the driveway or playing basketball usually. People tend to speed on our road, so lots of talks about not chasing balls into the road and where the do not pass line is in the driveway.

[expectantsteelerfan]

I think it was 5ish for my kids, although that was probably too young for ds, because he was constantly getting in fights with the next door neighbor. The other boy was the same age, and I would go out with ds and DD because she is younger, and the other boy would come over and ask ds to come to his yard to play (literally next door), so they'd go, but the neighbor's mom would not be out to watch them, and eventually I'd hear them yelling and have to go over with DD and moderate (this was before we knew ds has ADHD, the other kid probably did too, they were NOT a good fit, and I was so glad when they moved away...their constant playing but fighting continued for years unfortunately). I eventually tried to keep them in our yard or only them play if I was watching, but after setting the precedent that he could go over there, it was hard to stop it from happening. When DD was old enough to start going over there too, it got worse, because they would ASK her to go over, then both be mean to her, so she would come home in tears.

[osulori]

I feel like kid #1 was around 8, but we also live at the end of a cul de sac so the rule was he was not allowed to go past our next door neighbors and the house directly across the street from theirs (which gave him the closed end of the cul de sac to play in). Our living room windows face the street so it was easy to get eyes on him every so often plus with his (what we now know but didn't then) ADHD he'd get bored out there by himself anyway. Now he'll shoot baskets, kick the soccer ball around, time himself running laps around the cul de sac etc but it took 2.5 years to get to that point He doesn't have the restrictions on staying at the end of our street so much but he knows if he wants to ride his bike or walk to his friend's house he has to ask first.

Kid #2 is almost 5 so nowhere near ready yet, plus she has all the second child stereotypes wrapped up in her deceptively adorable little body so who knows how long it'll be until we can trust her unsupervised.

[shauni27]

we live in a rural area on a dead end street so really no traffic, no neighbors right next to us, etc. S has had our permission to play outside for a few minutes alone starting around 4 (where we could see him) but now really independently at 6; we just granted him permission to ride his bike to the end of our (dead end, private) road and back IF HE ASKS US FIRST, but he said he was too nervous to do that, haha.

[minniemouse]

We live in a suburban neighborhood. Dd1 was probably around 6ish? dd2 was 4-5 if she was with her older sister. They are 4 years apart. They had to stay in our yard or the next door neighbor’s yard

[ssmjlm]

She's been playing in various yards with neighbor kids since probably 7? I would say post COVID. We're on a culdesac off another culdesac everyone pretty much "knows" everyone even if we aren't BFFs.


I am finding that parents who parent differently are a struggle for us. Of course my kid wants to play with these kids, but we've had to have some conversations about when we say come home, come home, etc.

[simpsongal]

We've got a good gaggle of intergenerational kids and cul de sacs back in our hood, so like 4?

[beerlover]

Thanks all! This is our first time having kids actually around and visibly playing (aside from one girl he's played with on the sidewalk out front before, but she only lives here part time), so this hadn't really come up before.

DS is super excited to have kids to play with that he's a little obsessed with the idea now. Every night he has asked if he could go out and play, and if the kids were not outside, he was wanting me to text their mom to see if they would come out, lol. I talked to him about how families are doing different things in the evening like dinner and homework and sports and they're not always available, and that we're not going to bug them, but if I see them outside I'll let him know. And he was like "but their car is there, I know they're home!!"

[meanie]

Kids are 8 and 10 and we started letting them roam the neighborhood a bit last summer. They have certain streets they are allowed on and only go a max of 3 - 4 streets away (it's a good group of U shaped, dead end, otherwise not busy roads)

Along that route they have about 5 houses where friends live and they all bounce around the neighborhood together. They aren't allowed inside anyone's house with the exception of one family we know very well. They bring waters and snacks so they don't end up asking other parents for stuff. 

We did get them each a flip phone (tracfone) this year and we have all the cell numbers for the other parents so we can check in or have them sent home.

It has been mostly good, with some expected friend squabbles here and there. The first few times we let them go alone felt weird but also awesome.

[beerlover]

meanie, this is where I think it would be useful to be able to contact DS instead of yelling across the alley for him to come home, lol. I can see why people get watches and things like that for their kids. I'm not sure I am ready to jump to that yet. At least I do have the contact information for the mom of one of the kids hes been playing with the most.

[expectantsteelerfan]

May 1, 2024 8:15:02 GMT -5 beerlover said:

Thanks all! This is our first time having kids actually around and visibly playing (aside from one girl he's played with on the sidewalk out front before, but she only lives here part time), so this hadn't really come up before.

DS is super excited to have kids to play with that he's a little obsessed with the idea now. Every night he has asked if he could go out and play, and if the kids were not outside, he was wanting me to text their mom to see if they would come out, lol. I talked to him about how families are doing different things in the evening like dinner and homework and sports and they're not always available, and that we're not going to bug them, but if I see them outside I'll let him know. And he was like "but their car is there, I know they're home!!"

We did talk with the other neighbor parents about if they were ok with the kids knocking on their door to ask if their kid could come out and play (and if there were certain hours/times that were no-knock times).  It was good to set the boundary of not knocking before a certain time on the weekend/in the summer, although my kids were early risers so for us it was like 9 AM, and if they were out before then it was ok to join them.  And we said it you knocked once and got a no, that was it for either the whole morning or the whole afternoon (so if they got a no in the morning, they could try again once in the afternoon, but that was it).  We had to set up similar rules again when we moved even though the kids were much older (10 and 12 when we moved).  The girls down the street would come by and ask if DD could play, and I'd say she wasn't home, and they'd come back an hour later and ask again until we did.  

I like to keep texting the other parents out of it (so kids being in hearing range to hear me yell for them to come home was key until they were old enough to have a device I could contact them on).  When DD was older, like 8ish, but before she had a watch/phone, we did have walkie talkies for a while and she would go to a girl's house way down the street and I would be able to contact her on that to tell her to come home, and occasionally it wouldn't work and I would have to text the mom, but that was more of a 'set up' playdate.  

[redpenmama]

Probably around the same age, 7-8ish. We live in the suburbs on a pretty low-traffic street and know our neighbors. I let my 7-year-old walk to her friend's house about 5 houses up with me watching from the driveway. If they are playing out front, I let them do it on their own but I have pretty good visibility of them from inside. I give my older kids (12 and 10) more freedom but still keep an eye out and expect them to check in when they're playing outside.

[ssmjlm]

beerlover, definitely set some boundaries.

I had to basically shove some kids out of my house at 8pm last Saturday once the street lights were on. Their parents didn't even call them in for dinner (the live w/in shouting range). I was like "You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here!" and then embarrassed my kid by playing the semisonic song.

And my kid is in activities, but it's pretty obvious one of the other neighbor kids isn't. So I had to have my kid tell her that she can't play every day.

[starburst604]

I think when DD was 7ish we let her play outside our house alone. We lived on a busy road so she wasn't allowed to leave our front or back yard. Now she's about to turn 9 and we still live on a busy road, but there's a short path through the woods behind our yard to go play in a cul de sac with a bunch of kids she's friends with. She goes on her own there, but I am able to see the kids from an upstairs window, so I'll peek out from time to time. Sometimes she goes into one of the homes to play and we're ok with that too.

[beerlover]

I feel like everyone is so averse to people coming to their doors these days which is why I told DS not to do that to them yesterday, but then the little boy over there came over last night and knocked on our door anyway so I guess it's fine, lol.

[mccallister84]

May 1, 2024 11:28:10 GMT -5 beerlover said:

I feel like everyone is so averse to people coming to their doors these days which is why I told DS not to do that to them yesterday, but then the little boy over there came over last night and knocked on our door anyway so I guess it's fine, lol.

Really? That makes me so sad. I mean yes don’t go knocking every hour or anything but man are we really at the point where a kid can’t knock on a door to see if their friend can come out to play?

[beerlover]

mccallister84, I think I just have a complex about bothering people lol. Especially b/c it was like 7pm and I know people are doing dinner, homework, etc. This was only like their third time playing together so I wasn't sure if we were at door knocking status yet haha. I'm totally fine with being on the receiving end of it!

[niq]

We live on an arterial and don't have much of a front yard. We let them do pretend play, swordfights, etc. on the front porch, but that's about it. V is 10.5 and O is 7. I think we let them do it as early as ages 8 & 4 but for very short periods?

We are just now letting V walk around alone or with small groups of friends in our neighborhood.

[plutosmoon]

When DD was 6-8 we lived next door to her BFF, I let them play outside by themselves. BFF was a year older and BFF's younger sister was 2 years younger, they were all outside on their own together. I used to let her play out front by herself starting around 6, we had a huge year and big windows where I could easily see her.

We moved to our rental when DD was 8, it was on the state highway, I didn't like DD out front unless I was there. I did let her go out back on her own, but I watched from the windows.

We moved into our current house last fall right after she turned 11, it's all quiet side streets. She is allowed to roam around the neighborhood even when I'm not home, she has a street boundary limit and she also has a phone with her. I do tell her to text her friends before she randomly shows up at their doors.

[waverly]

The neighbors started sending their kids over at ages 8 and 6 (siblings). They would go to the park and scooter on sidewalks, nothing in the road. I think I usually went with them to the park which is only 2 houses down and I can see part of it from my yard. I slowly weaned off of that and would just go check on them lets say ages 9 and 7 and few less check ins at ages 10 and 8. They are 11 and 13 now and I don't really check on them at all anymore.

At the time, I let DH talk me into "hosting".  The idea that was held by everyone but me was that they were totally independent, and I didn't have to do anything, and if I took that on then I was being helicopter.  But then I think how 6 and 8 are SO young, and I think I was right to go with and check on them and think how the neighbors were taking advantage of me, and I didn't say anything because DH sided with them philosophically wise.  

It might have been different if it was a culdasack and I could just look out my window, but since the park was 2 houses down I had to check on them, and then in my yard, I had to referee fights and take care of injuries etc. I was also responsible for sending them home which was hard if they were resistant.  The mom would text me to send them home and I would have to walk to the park and let them know.  

[noodleoo]

My kids are 5 and almost 9 and this year is I'm leaning into letting them play outside alone. We're lucky that we are on a quiet street with lots of kids on it and our neighbors across the street are often out with their kids. But their kids are older, so I didn't want them to feel responsible for watching DD2, so I'd usually go outside to keep an eye on her. She's 5.5 now and DD1 is old enough to watch her so FREEDOM! For both them and me LOL! When they go out alone, they have to stay in our yard. If the neighbors are out, they are allowed to play between yards.

Last year DD1 had some friends start ringing our doorbell and asking her to go bike riding with them. I was a little more nervous about that because they go farther, so I made a lot of rules about where she can go and that she has to check in by a certain time. It didn't go great, I found out she broke my area rules once and she a few times came back late. She has a digital watch and we would set timers, but she'd "forget". Which I kind of get, but also I freaked out one time she was 20 mins late and I had to drive around and find her. That was last fall, I'm hoping she will be better about it this year. I might need to invest in a watch I can call her on. I also have phone numbers for the parents of all the kids she plays with so I can reach them if I need to find her.

[magpie]

My kids are 7 and 10 and run free between houses of their friends all over the block of bush/nature (the size of maybe 10 lots) across the street from us. They've been doing so since we moved here about a year ago. Our rule is that they have to let us know where they'll be, especially if they are going into someone's house because otherwise it is a pain to find them. I regularly stand on the front balcony/porch and yell their names to call them back. Lots of the other parents do this (one family even has a dinner bell they ring to call back their three boys!). We also knock on doors and have a "mum's group" of the immediate streets in our area on WhatsApp. My kids also walk home from school independently, often with all these same kids, every day and the older one goes on longer walks further afield with one of the kids her age sometimes, but always has to ask first.

[scm1011]

Mine are 5 and 7 and have been playing outside alone for a while. Prob since 3.5 and 5.5? They’ve been running back and forth to our neighbors a few doors down that long, too. They’re rule followers, and we have a small yard (plus an elderly Nextdoor neighbor always watching from the window lol). I’m definitely more free range than others though.

[lo]

My kids are pretty free range, as are most if not all the kids in our neighborhood. I can see the park/playground from my front porch and windows, which is where they mostly play. My twins are 4 and I do make sure I have my eyes on them because even though our speed limit is 20mph and we don’t have a super busy street, you never know. Both my older kids have to wear their Gizmo watches if outside.

[ssmjlm]

State testing is coming up, which means the emails where my kid's teachers tells me they don't have enough time to review XYZ for the state testing, or today's email about how there's an assignment she's making due the same time as the state testing, but WHOOPSIE we don't have enough time to do the assignment in class, so this will be on you parents to have your kid type up this document, share it with the teacher, etc.

Make it make sense. I actually asked the principal if it would be possible for the math teacher to stop emailing parents basically complaining she didn't have enough time to teach to state standards. I was like "it's not a good look." It was basically weekly.

[lo]

May 2, 2024 7:38:43 GMT -5 ssmjlm said:

State testing is coming up, which means the emails where my kid's teachers tells me they don't have enough time to review XYZ for the state testing, or today's email about how there's an assignment she's making due the same time as the state testing, but WHOOPSIE we don't have enough time to do the assignment in class, so this will be on you parents to have your kid type up this document, share it with the teacher, etc.

Make it make sense. I actually asked the principal if it would be possible for the math teacher to stop emailing parents basically complaining she didn't have enough time to teach to state standards. I was like "it's not a good look." It was basically weekly.

This is insane…. I am a teacher and have never and would never even think to do this. Are they expecting parents to teach the standards they didn’t get to? My daughter’s district has also never done this.

[ssmjlm]

May 2, 2024 10:46:29 GMT -5 lo said:

May 2, 2024 7:38:43 GMT -5 ssmjlm said:

State testing is coming up, which means the emails where my kid's teachers tells me they don't have enough time to review XYZ for the state testing, or today's email about how there's an assignment she's making due the same time as the state testing, but WHOOPSIE we don't have enough time to do the assignment in class, so this will be on you parents to have your kid type up this document, share it with the teacher, etc.

Make it make sense. I actually asked the principal if it would be possible for the math teacher to stop emailing parents basically complaining she didn't have enough time to teach to state standards. I was like "it's not a good look." It was basically weekly.

This is insane…. I am a teacher and have never and would never even think to do this. Are they expecting parents to teach the standards they didn’t get to? My daughter’s district has also never done this.

I don't know. It's mostly how everything is "SO FAST" so make sure you're reviewing with your kid, tests are important (they're not), blah blah blah.

Honestly, I only read them now to make sure they're not like the one she sent earlier in the year that was fairly derogatory of 4th grade and extremely unprofessional. That one got forwarded to the principal because I couldn't believe she basically said 4th grade didn't teach multiplication well enough and your kids are dumb. (I have a great relationship with the principal through PTA and gave her a heads up of "This doesn't sound right to me, so I'm sending to you.")

[186momx]

We are also in testing hell. Between DD's 4 main classes she has district or state testing stretched out for the next 5 weeks straight plus regular unit tests/quizzes. I'm so tired of messages from teachers reminding us to have the kids go to bed early, bring water bottles, eat a good breakfast and the school breakfasts are free. Luckly we can opt out of state testing which I did but DD then just has to sit for a whole week doing busy work while the rest of the kids take the tests.

ssmjlm, we are getting the messages saying "have the kids do an extra 30 minutes of i-ready at home to catch up on math".