Picket Fence Post

We’ve dished in this space about how kids don’t seem to walk to school anymore like they used to back in the day. I’ve often  quoted rabble-rouser author Lenore Skenazy (of the Free Range Kids) on this subject where she’s mused about how overprotective today’s parents can be.

And this past Sunday, the New York Times ran a large article on the front page of the Styles section entitled, “Why Can’t She Walk to School? An Issue That Distills the Anxieties at the Heart of Modern Parenting.” It chronicled how hyper-parental anxiety, plus the heightened fear of abductions fueled by massive media coverage of disappearances, has driven parents to feel compelled to monitor their kids at all times when going to and from school, never mind letting them walk to school on their own. An excerpt:

“. . . [A] generation of parents and administrations have created dense rituals of supervision around what used to be a mere afterthought of childhood: taking yourself to and from school.

Certain realities also shape these procedures, such as the schedules of working parents, unsafe neighborhoods and school transportation cuts.

But when these constraints are mixed with anxiety over transferring children from the private world of family to the public world of school, the new normal can look increasingly baroque. Now, in some suburbs, parents and children sit in their cars at the end of driveways, waiting for the bus . . . Children are driven to school two blocks away. At some schools, parents drive up with their children’s names displayed on their dashboards, a school official radios to the building and each child is escorted out.

When to detach from the parental leash?”

Truth telling time: I still accompany my 8-year-old to the bus stop on my street. But it’s not because I think anything bad is going to happen to him. Believe me, I’d rather drink my coffee and read the papers while listening to Morning Joe in the background, but I just can’t resist the little man when he begs me to go out there with him so he’s not bored while waiting there alone until the other two families arrive. Plus, he’s the only boy at the bus stop.

But this will be the last year of my going to the bus stop with him. Next year, he’ll join his brother and sister, now 11 years old, who walk to their bus stop together and seem to be doing just fine. If the schools my children attend were within walking distance of the house, you bet I’d be in favor of them using some good, old fashioned shoe leather.

How do your kids get to school via bus, walking/biking or by car? Do you accompany your kids to the bus stops?

Image credit: Jamie Kripke/New York Times.

My town doesn’t have neighborhood schools. It doesn’t have crossing guards. There’s virtually nothing that encourages students to walk to school.

When my three kids were attending the grade school less than a mile away from my house, I spoke with the principal about having them walk to school and was told that there were no crossing guards therefore I’d have to walk with them each way because there was a street to cross. When I inquired about having them ride bikes, the principal paused — this, apparently was an odd inquiry, even though there is a small bike rack in front of the school – and repeated that a parent had to accompany the kids.

So for the one year that my children attended the same school, we tried to walk and/or ride bikes or scooters as often as possible, enabled by the fact that I was working from home. By the time my older children reached an age where I’d consider allowing them to walk to school solo, they’d already moved on to another school across town.

I was reminded of my kids’ walking to school experiences when I read a page one story in the Boston Globe today about parents who are trying to spark a ”walk-to-school movement.” “One major obstacle remains,” the article said, “parents who are fearful of letting their children leave home on their own.” The article mentioned that in several Boston suburbs parents are trying to organize “walking groups” of children supervised by adults, and that school districts are hiring “walking coordinators” and enlisting the help of crossing guards.

One stat in the article stood out: 42 percent of school children walked to school 40 years ago, compared to only 15 percent today. Why is this the case? The article indicated that the trend away from neighborhood schools, as well as busier schedules could be blamed. Plus, if today’s kids require a parental supervisor that wouldn’t work if parents have jobs where they can’t show up late in the mornings or if they can’t leave work in order to walk the kids home. And, if you’ve got students attending multiple schools, there’s another strike against walking. Meanwhile, all we hear about is childhood obesity.

The answer? I wish we could go back to the days of neighborhood schools and retiree crossing guards like when I was a kid. I don’t think that’s going to be happening any time soon, at least in my town.

If, however, you live close enough to a school where you could consider having your children walk, check out the Fearless Walkers web site, by a Stoneham, Mass. parent who told the Globe, “I feel when [the students] walk the half-mile to school and get the fresh air, they sit more comfortably in their seats in class and are ready to learn.” There’s also the Massachusetts Safe Routes to School web site which promotes “alternative” ways to get to school, and a federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention program called Kids Walk to School.

Image credit: Michigan Safe Routes.