At what age did you let your kids play outside by themselves?

Well, my son is 2 now and I wouldn't let him play outside by himself because he could get into danger and has no sense. Today he was practicing climbing fences, and if I tried to help him then he'd yell at me until I left him alone to keep trying. I can just imagine finding him 20 feet up a tree screaming and me unable to reach him if I left him alone. No, he can stay in the house.

My 4 year old I do trust to play outside to a certain extent. Usually with me in the house nearby. That started this year. I could trust her not to do too many dumb things and this summer it just seemed natural to let her play out on the deck and in the backyard to an extent.

Add: Just to point this out... to be on the child sex predator list you had to commit a sexual act with someone under the age of 18 usually. In some areas, a 17 year old boy having sex with a 17 year old girl could make the list. In some areas, an 18 year old man having sex with a 16 year old (and getting married) could also make the list. (In fact, they have.) It's a big problem actually. Actual child predators are much rarer.

The children who are usually sexually harmed or kidnapped typically have that happen by a member of their family or someone who the family trusts. 1/4 of abductions are from strangers, the rest are from people they know. The majority of abductions are young children-teens and happen at their school-ground. I mean... on the third link, it states that of the stereotypical stranger kidnapping for kids 0-5 years old about 20 of those happen in a year. 20 children, out of a population of 23,100,000 (in 1999.) That is 0.0000009% of kids ages 0-5 who were abducted in 1999. 16% of the 115 kids kidnapped by strangers were taken from their own yards, that's about 18 kids (and note the number of 0-5 is going to be MUCH lower but I don't have that number.) Still even if we take for granted all 18 were 0-5, that gives 0.0000007% of a chance for your child to be taken from their own yard in a stereotypical kidnapping where they don't know the stranger.

So yeah. Those numbers are actually pretty accurate. Sexual predators are more likely to make friends with you, babysit, and get access that way than to kidnap from a yard.

Add: Sid. Well, it depends on where you live. If we lived where there was a fishing pond close by then I'd probably let my daughter walk down there with her cousins who are older, and probably by herself after a certain age. It's when my instincts say more than her age... but the fact is I live in a neighborhood where I've seen drug-users hanging out at the playground and at 6 I probably wouldn't let her go further than riding her bike to the end of the street. And then I have to think of my nephew who, at 6, destroyed a lot of stuff because he was often left to play on his own. It's not always safe, not because of them getting hurt but the trouble they can cause.

Are you afraid that somebody is going to come into the bathroom and "snatch" her, or do you think they're already there, waiting behind the shower curtain?

Kids need time to learn how to play, and they need to learn how to be independant.

The number of kids who are actually 'snatched" by strangers from their own yards is astronomically low. You may as well be worrying about her getting snatched by unicorn riding leprechauns.

edit: I'm really finding a lot of these answers surprising. Don't let the kids play in their own backyard alone until they're 6? At six, my eldest son would walk a half mile down to the pond to go fishing.. Now, I know there's no real set age for when kids should be doing this or that, and they all develop at thier own rate, but really? OK, so the kids get a few scrapes and cuts from time to time: that's called childhood. They heal. Have we become that paranoid?

Stranger abduction is actually very rare. Only one percent of all abductions are committed by unknown abductors. The overwhelming majority of abductions are done by family members.

With that said, I do agree that 21 months is too young to play outside by oneself. I think if there is a fenced back yard, then 5 is an appropriate age. I think 7 and up is an appropriate age for a child to play outside in the front yard.

You shouldn’t compare what some other moron parent does with their kid.

If their child were kidnapped, would you want your child kidnapped? And

age doesn’t have anything to do with it. What kind of neighborhood do you

live in? Doesn’t matter if your child 22 months. Would you let them play

outside on the streets of South Harlem? Or west side L.A.? And just because

you THINK you live in a peaceful neighborhood, doesn’t mean that you do.

Don’t have to be paranoid, just use common sense.

In the United States? Never. Do a pedophile search, I bet there is one within a mile of where you live. And those are just the compliant ones.

around 6 but with my supervision, they have to stay in the yard where i can see them.

answer mine?

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=201206...