Two children – aged eight and five – are allowed to cycle to school unsupervised and it’s provoked a debate across national media as well as here in the office.  The story made the news after the children’s school, Alleyn’s Junior School in Dulwich, south London, was considering reporting their parents to social services for letting them cycle to school on their own.

The children’s parents commented that ‘we wanted to recreate the simple freedom of our childhood. These days children live such regimented lives. They can do nothing unless it’s planned.  We are trying to let them enjoy their lives and teach them a little bit about the risks of life’.  Various organisations, including RoSPA and Sustrans, have come out in favour of the issue, advocating the valuable life skills children can learn from activities such as this.

However, much of the debate in the office and also amongst friends and family, has been around the age of the children – should an eight year old really be in charge of a five year old?  Whilst the route to their school is on the pavement, through the backstreets of leafy Dulwich, my issue is not about letting children have a chance to learn self-confidence and responsibility but more about what might happen to them along the way.  What would the eight year old do if there was an accident on the way to school?  What about the issue of ‘stranger danger’?

As the mother of a three year old, the thought of letting him cycle a mile down the road in two years time, even with an older sibling, isn’t something I’d feel comfortable with.  I appreciate the need for children to learn risk and understand danger but in my mind, this seems to be a slightly unusual way for children to learn this.  In this day and age, it’s harder than ever to know at what age children should start to be given some freedom outside the home but five seems a bit too young for me.  What are your thoughts?