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Comment by jonathankoren | Hacker News Reader

You can reliably get a young kid to come home by themselves. You can't reliably get a young kid to go to school by themselves.

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I'm sure that's true for some kids. But it's also true that many young kids are perfectly capable, although perhaps not all environments are conducive to this. I walked approximately half a mile to kindergarten with a friend every day, starting at age 5. I never had an issue with tardiness until high school, when I started driving.

Some of my fondest childhood memories involve conversations with peers from these walks. I think it's an incredible shame that I can't let my children do the same, even at 8, and even though my 8yo is miles more mature than I was at his age.

I started going to school all by myself, on bike, starting age 6 and did so reliably.

As did I by middle school, which is the earliest age the article actually focused on.

I'd rather ask: who didn't? The only reason to not come to school on your own by that age is if the school is far away and hard to get to by public transport, which usually isn't the case.

> which usually isn't the case

Where do you live? There are many, many places in the US where it is indeed usually the case. (Possibly depending on your definition of "far away")

I live in Poland. Wherever the distance to your nearest school is more than 4 kilometers (or 3 kilometers in the early grades), the municipality has to provide transport - which is usually the case only in rural areas. In cities you'll most likely have multiple schools within 1km, which is perfectly walkable even for younger children. The high school I went to was 3.5km away from my home and I was getting there by tram, but if I went to the nearest one it would be 250m away, just like the primary school I went to. Same with kindergarten in fact, but IIRC I wasn't going there on my own back then. I live in suburbs now and the nearest primary school is 700m away - no reason to drive (nor walk) a ~10yo kid to their school here either.

(for the record: primary school encompasses what US calls elementary and middle schools here)

My very liberal definition of "far away" would probably be something like "more than 1.5km" (the distance I was going by foot to a swimming pool as a kid), more if we consider public transport and bikes too - though those of course won't necessarily be viable options everywhere and at every age.

Did so, from my second day of school, on foot.

I also walked myself to school starting at 6. It was only a couple blocks, but I was responsible for getting myself there on time.

I started riding my bike to school in the 4th grade. Would have done so earlier, but the bike racks at school were off-limits until that grade.

your school at least had bike racks.

Kids used to run entire farms unsupervised for weeks at a time. They are as capable as you allow them to be.

being late for school had consequences that most kids would try to avoid, so no, if a kid is capable to come home on their own, they are also capable to go to school on their own.

at one point my oldest was in a school that did not allow kids to go to school or go home on their own. so in the afternoon i had to go to the school and pick him up. they would not let him leave until i showed up. however they could not force me to accompany him in the morning. because, well, what were they going to do when the kid was at the school gate and i wasn't there?

I started walking to school in the 5th grade here in the US. My Mom never liked driving and gave it up.

My dad was walking to school around 1948.

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