Hellobee Boards

@LuLu Mom: Yes! A pinch to grow an inch!

So many things. We played outside alone all day in the summer. In elementary school I walked to my bus stop a couple blocks away and waited alone... it was definitely out of sight. I "drove" to the gas station a few miles away... my dad put me on his lap and let me pretend to steer.

@Mrs. Lemon-Lime: yup, there's an adult chaperone (either parent or teacher) in most rooms. We can't leave students in a room overnight unattended (they could just leave their room which would be terrible), so some chaperones have to be on "night duty" where they spend all night on chairs in the hall, making sure no one is loud or leaves the room.

The 7th graders also go on a camping trip each year, and it's one teacher to every cabin with kiddos.

I really hope to find a way for my child to have days of running around with other children and a sense of freedom. I think it's really important for children to have time with out adults looking over their shoulders. I spent HUGE amounts of my childhood with out close adult supervision playing outside, in the neighborhood or a friends back woods.

But I am all for carseats and not sleeping on the floor of the minivan on the overnight drive to my grandparents... although i am sure that made the trip SO much easier for my parents.

@ShootingStar: I know in some states I think kids have to be 12 or 13 to be home alone now.

Oh man, I babysat all the time a 12-14! I had a regular babysitting job with a family down the street that had 4 boys and an ungated pool and my only instructions were to keep them out of the pool! They had ways of scattering and all running in different directions!

I think I was paid like $30 a day, and yes sometimes I had them ALL DAY from 8-4 because their mom was a teacher and I would babysit on teacher inservice days.

I also distinctly remember babysitting 2 infants (still in diapers, not walking) when I was only 12 while all our parents went to dinner.

Also, I grew up in the country and traipsed all over with my brother on our bikes--we climbed an oil pump jack once when the ladder was lef down--and we built a tumbleweed fort (true story) with real, gigantic tumbleweeds and leftover bricks and boards that we used to make tunnels through the tumbleweeds.

And we totally accepted rides from strangers, if we walked a long way from home and someone saw two kids walking in the hot sun--we would jump right in their car!

@mrscobee: That's great!

All these things everyone has mentioned - I was allowed to be home alone after age 8, I could ride my bike alone around the neighborhood around that age as well, on long car trips (like 8+ hours) my parents would lay the seats down and we would lie in sleeping bags and when we passed a cop my mom would yell "hit the deck!" so we'd lie down flat so the cop couldn't see we were back there without seatbelts.

There was a law that you had to wear a bike helmet up until age 13, and it was understood in our house that after that point you didn't have to wear it anymore. That one baffles me looking back on it. Why didn't we just keep wearing it if we were already used to it?

My mom told me that when we were born there really was no such thing as a carseat so they would just stick us in the infant carrier down on the backseat floorboards to drive us anywhere.

These days I cannot recall the last time I saw a child under 16 more than ten feet away from an adult. Really sad. I hope we can find a way to give our kids independence without someone calling CPS. (I am a fan of helmets and seatbelts though!)

My husband's family lived in a shady part of town. But he was allowed to stay out all night. he said he was around 10 when he went to the local McDonalds at 3am with his buddies.

They also walked around the woods in pitch black to play games. No parents.

My mom would leave me home alone around 3-4 years old while she took my sisters to school! I have no idea why it would be extra work to put me in the car? It's not like she had to buckle me in s car seat haha

This really is a great thread!

I agree with babysitting. At like age 13 I babysat for 2 kids down the street from us (my parents were home) but they were out until past midnight. I remember my mom was kinda upset about that.

There was only a few years I had with sleeping on the floor in our van on road trips. After that we had to at least be in a seat but I'm sure our belts weren't on properly.

Definitely running around the entire neighborhood with friends. We moved when I was 7 into a huge neighborhood with a ton of kids my age within 2 blocks and we'd totally roam the neighborhood. Part of it was a huge ditch system with underground culverts we liked to play in, part of it backed up to a farm where we'd go watch the horses (without anyone's permission) and we also liked to go to where it met the main road and climb all over the decorative stone entrance fence with the neighborhood name on it. We'd eat at other peoples houses too- mostly the neighbor who had 4 kids because she always had the most food.

I had a regular babysitting gig for an 8 month old when I was in 6th grade!

I'm pretty sure I walked to school when the weather was nice with neighborhood kids sans parents by first grade.

I have distinct memories of walking alone or riding my bike alone to my friend's house...maybe by 2nd grade?!

Summer's were especially nostalgic. In late elementary years in a beach community, the kids would runaround all day riding bikes, going to the beach (lifeguards were present) , eating ice cream and candy from the ice cream man. We had so much freedom (and no bike helmets).