How young is too young for kids to travel alone?

Those of you from Queensland will probably know about the current drama going on there in the news with a missing teenager's case. He's been missing since 2004. Last seen waiting on his own for a bus to take him Christmas shopping. I believe at least one bus drove past him without picking him up. The case is in the media's vision now because they've finally charged someone with his murder.

Add to that the story, this week, of a six year old who was catching a public bus to his mother's work after school, alone. The newspaper tells us he didn't hit that "please stop" button in time to get his stop. When he told the bus drive, he was yelled at him, put him off the bus 400m past his stop and kept going. At least that is how the media reported it (acknowledging that they often don't tell us all the facts). The controversy is of course at a bad time for the driver in the context of the above case. Thankfully for the family involved, his mum picked up on the situation quickly and was able to go and meet her son before any harm came to him.

Many questions arise, but one that caught my attention was, "How young is too young for kids to travel alone?"

I think that was the shocking thing about the teenager's disappearance. He was 13. Too old to be coddled by his mum accompanying him on the bus, one would think.

But how old is too young? And when do you stop accompanying them? Here in Japan we see lots of little kids travelling alone on trains and buses. And walking to and from school on their own. Something we'd never see in Australia.

Some kids at CAJ travel a long way to school on trains each day. I think that some Grade ones may travel 45 minutes or more on trains on their own. I remember speaking to one mum after the March 11 disasters about this. She was so glad the earthquake happened before school finished for the day or her kids might have been stuck on the trains on their own for a long time. The trains didn't start running again until the next day. I don't know what responsibility anyone took for any school kids who were on the trains. The "security" that parents purchase here is mobile phones. We assume we can contact them at any time to check where they are. However people got a big shock after the March 11 earthquake. Mobile phone networks went down and landline phones also weren't working for a while either. Scary!

We live very close to our kids' school, so it isn't a huge issue for us. A 300m walk is all they need to do. However there are few footpaths (US=side walks, UK=pavements – I think). And one intersection to cross that can be a bit tricky if you aren't paying attention. Nevertheless, we are going to allow our six y.o. walk to school on his own this year. His older brothers did last year. I'll probably still have to go and root them out of the playground after 4pm (kids stay and play as long as they can there), but it is going to be very strange to not go anywhere at 8.20 in the morning. Just say goodbye to them all at the front door. Strange indeed.

As for the dilemmas facing other parents about their kids walking, riding, or catching public transport alone to and from school. I'm glad I'm not in their shoes having to make these decisions. It is really challenging knowing where the line is. How do we start to let them go, know when to let them have more freedom? How can you decide when you don't know what dangers they may face? And you don't know what kind of adults they will meet. And you aren't sure how they'll react in various situations.

The amount of wisdom you need as a parent is immense and the amount of self-forgiveness you need if things go wrong has to be immense too.