I’ve heard many of my elders say that when they were a child back in the day, people could leave their doors open and suffice with a screen door into all hours of the night. Why? Cause they knew the people in their neighborhood and thought nobody’s crazy behind would come in and do them harm. It was chill like that. Kids could walk the streets with their friends or alone and not have to be looking over their shoulders every five seconds. But boy, how things have changed.
After hearing about the murder of 8-year-old Leiby Kletzky, a young boy from Borough Park in Brooklyn, I was probably just as stunned and disgusted as everyone else who heard the news. That a little boy could be walking down the street to meet his mother, get lost and think he could trust an adult to help him only to be VERY wrong hurts. This innocent child was abducted, murdered and dismembered by a man from his neighborhood who would later say his actions “may” be wrong–a blatant display of how sick some people in this world have become. And to think, this all got started because Leiby wanted to walk home alone.
He had begged his parents for a while to allow him to walk from his day camp in the afternoon by himself. So after a practice walk and firm instructions on where to meet his mother, they finally let him do it. And though he had been walked through his route by his parents and was only seven blocks from meeting his mother, somehow, Leiby got lost, and ran into a parent’s worst nightmare. Just like that, this young boy’s first walk alone was his last.
So when is a good time to let your child go it alone? Let’s talk about “alone” in the sense of just walking by yourself to start. If you ask a number of parents, it sounds like it depends on the kid. Some say right around the teenage years (12-13) would be an ideal age, and that wherever they are walking to should be a short distance. In an article by NBC New York, Wendy Levey, the owner of 74th Street Magic Day Camp in New York City, she said whenever kids are allowed to walk alone, they should know that if they get lost, seeking a mother for help is the best way to go:
“It’s something you have to talk about over and over. We tell our kids, if they get lost in the park or on the street, look for a Mommy with kids.”
She also encourages doing test walks with your child and also if possible, talking on the phone with them during their first big go at it alone.
I was one of the lucky kids who had a sibling just a few years above me, and we did most of the same programs, so I rarely had to walk all by myself anywhere until late junior high (when my sister entered high school). And you would think your junior high years are the perfect time to set out on foot by yourself. But no matter the age, a very young eight to a more matured 16, there are predators out there looking to take advantage of anyone they think they can. If you look vulnerable, and you’re alone, then you’re what they’re looking for. Even if you are older and are used to doing a number of things alone. Case in point, Phylicia Barnes.
Phylicia Barnes' uncle Harry Watson fighting for answers. Photo courtesy of Mark Reutter.
Poignant questions were brought up yesterday by many women on our Facebook page after an update I did on the site referencing this straight A student’s murder. They questioned whether 16-year-old Phylicia Barnes, the North Carolina teen whose body was found in a river after visiting family in Baltimore, should have even been allowed to go on this visit by herself. Many thought that maybe if she went with another family member, then she might not have wound up venturing out of her sister’s home alone, nor been allowed to. The minute she was allowed to step foot out of that home in Baltimore by her lonesome, that was it. She went missing for four months, only to have her body found in April in the Susquehanna River. This very intelligent young lady was no little, naive kid.
I’m sure the older the better when determining when your child should be able to walk the streets, fly planes alone, or do whatever they want to do that could use some supervision. But how can you really prevent terrible things from happening? You can be over 20 years old and still get abducted walking back from class on a college campus, so it’s hard to say if there’s ever a perfect age to let your child do anything. The talking to strangers conversations from back in the day obviously don’t go that far anymore, and you have no control over who or what is out in the world encountering your child. One of the easiest and best options is to instill in your child the need to make good choices. They don’t understand your fear, they just see you being too “overprotective,” so setting into their minds the need to go with their first instincts and not believe you can trust any and everyone because you can’t, is a good start. However you go about it though, precautions need to be taken so that what happened to not only Leiby Kletzyky and Phylicia Barnes, but the large number of kids that go missing and are hunted down every day doesn’t happen to your child.
When do you think is a good age or time to let your child be more independent?
