How do you get your kids to school?

I don't get it. When I was a kid a ride was a HUGE treat to get you to or from school. If it was raining use the rain coat and umbrella, snow, get those snow boots out. Hot, oh well, still gotta go to the classrooms with NO ac! I lived about a 1/2 mile from school and walked every day. I did not expect a ride. My kids live about the same distance and also walk, every day. We are a 1 car house. There is no other option unless I need to have the truck for something. There are kids that live closer to school and get driven in, EVERY morning, rain, shine, snow, any weather. I don't understand what happened to walking to school. Are the parents lazy? Are the kids just complaining too much and the parents don't want to listen to it? Is everyone running late? (how ever if you are running late EVERY morning there is another problem) I suppose my question is more like a rant with a question at the end.. (I am not going into how the parents drive and almost hit the kids that are walking, or park illegally) I would like to know how many of you actually still make your kids walk to school?

we are about 1/2 mile from the school and mine walk or ride their bikes to and from. UNLESS they are running late.
Parents are terrified that something will happen to their kids if they walk to school. Instead of realizing that most kidnappings are done by people kids know already, and realizing that violent crime has actually gone down from where it was 30 yrs ago ,they live in fear.

We live further from our home school to walk,they ride the bus regardless of weather never missed it.If they need to arrive late due to an appt. I will drive them to school or pick them up.Theres bikes chained up that i’ve seen outside the school,but still we live to far away and they are young so the bus is our choice for transportation.Your post sounds like someone has ruffled your feathers this morning.

Mine are 4 and 6. I live less than a mile from my 6-year old’s school and I don’t anticipate that he will ever walk to school. Bus transportation is not available since we live within a mile of the school. I also have to be at work at 7 a.m. which is well before the kids are allowed to be on campus. We DO have several sex offenders that live within my housing development. I just flat don’t feel comfortable allowing a 6-year old to walk to school alone. So, my son goes to an afterschool program that offers before care and transportation to and from school. I am never late and I am certainly not lazy. This is just what works best for our family.

I am very happy with my choice. If you are happy with having your children walk to school, then why are you worrying about what everyone else is doing? Just do whatever you feel is best for your children and be done with it without judging other parents.

Plus it’s the age and ability of the child. My DS who is 8.5 was not allowed to go to school by himself till this summer. He would have gotten distracted by everything and then be late, would prob. wander into the middle of the road. Not look both ways before crossing. You have 2 girls which generally mature about that stuff earlier than boys. Every family is different.

My kids walk to school. I used to walk with them, but they have walked alone for the past year or so. The biggest danger they do encounter walking to school are all the parents who drive their kids!

If its nice we walk if its rainy or snowy then we will drive. I’m a SAHM and I don’t mind taking her. I think parents are more permissive about their kids being late to school they don’t light a fire under them to get them going. I’ve seen more parents want to be friends than the authority figure so kids get to do what they want instead of being taught whats right.

I think you come across being very judgmental in this post. Good for you and good for your kids that your kids walk to school. I suppose if one wanted to be just as judgmental, the flip side could be how careless of you to have your kids walk to school when there are so many horrific abduction stories out there.

I think most people drive their children because yes, they do think times have changed and they just don’t want to chance something happening to their child. I also think its WAY more common for people to own 2 cars so therefor is just as easy for parents to drive their kids to school. I know for me I would drop mine off then continue onto work. This was not an inconvenience to me nor was I being “lazy”. This was before I changed their school. Now they are more like 5 miles from school - I would not make my kids walk that one and/or a bus does not pick them up that far away either.

We dropped the kids when they were little because of 1. before school care (had to sign them in when they were little) or 2. because it was on our way. It was convenient. In MS, they walked home. In HS, each had to catch the bus early in the AM and we only drove them if there was an extra reason - missed the bus, bus didn’t come, school project to take in. They walked to the bus stop, which could be a fair distance. When SS switched to a closer school, he often got a ride from a friend’s dad down the street or biked and biked or walked home (again, the dad was leaving for work and dropped the boys near the school on his way). When we had an au pair, SD was walked to school by the au pair. So for us, it wasn’t a matter of being lazy. It was a matter of need or that we were going right by the school on our way out so we’d drop the kid, too. If the kid was not ready, then the kid walked. I never had a huge problem at either school. They have crossing guards and a very defined traffic pattern at each and people tend to abide by it. At the HS, there’s a student drop off lane set apart from the bus lane.

I expect that I will drop off DD through MS because I expect to be working FT again by then, but her dad may take early retirement and be home so she may walk more than the big kids did. If she goes to the closest HS (we have school choice) then she will walk most of the time.

In our neighborhood many kids get dropped off at school. I wanted to send them by bus in the morning to make sure they make it there in time. Because we are so close (about 1 mile) the bus service isn’t free. But I still thought it would make more sense to send them by bus in the morning instead of driving myself every day. In the afternoon I would have them walk home so that they get some exercise. Unfortunately there is no bus service this year because non of the kids live in the free bus zone, which is 1.5 miles out. I’m pretty bummed about it.
We will probably walk or take our bikes as long as the weather is good. When it gets really cold or rainy I’ll probably drive them. I always try to combine the drive with other errands.

My kids don’t and won’t ever walk to school. It is 25 miles from our house. The morning bus arrives at 6:15 a.m. and the afternoon bus gets them home sometimes (if we are lucky) around 4:40 pm. The first day of school this year, it was 5:30 pm.

For 2 years I drove them to school and picked them up every day. They had ZERO time otherwise.
This year, we can’t afford the gas and they are going to bed at 9:00-9:30 pm and getting up at 5:30 every morning. They are not elementary kids…middle and high school. They need their sleep. There isn’t much we can do about it.

We walk. Fortunately for us, school is a block away. We live in NYC. Here school starts September 6 and ends on June 26.

We specifically chose the neighborhood school so my son could make friends in the neighborhood AND we could walk to school. It’s a ten minute walk on a good day, longer in the rain I’m sure. But so what-- we have boots, rain pants, rain coats, umbrellas…I think it’s great for Kiddo to learn that we can walk. We get up early enough to make it happen and with plenty of time to get there.

And, yeah, I walked to school by myself most of the time growing up, unless we were so far out and then I took the bus. My mom didn’t chauffeur us around.

I homeschool so no one gets a ride. I don’t do piggy back rides either. They all walk… to the kitchen table. If they went to a school outside the home and we lived less than a half mile, they would be walking as long as it was safe.

When my daughter was in elementary I drove her for 2 reasons:

  1. I had to drive by on my way to work and I wanted her at the school and not at home when I left the house.

  2. the school is on the corner of one of the busiest intersections in our city and kids have been hit by cars in the past.

In middle school she rode the bus, and now that she’s in high school, I’m driving her again, but only because I am the bus driver :slight_smile:

Well, I intend on walking my kindergartener to school when she starts next week. However, I am sure there will be times that I drive her. If I have errands to run or an appointment or would otherwise end up in the car on a specific morning I will probably just drive her and then be on my way rather than walk her and then walk back to my house/car. Also, I will have her little sister with me so if she is uncooperative or ill then I’m sure we will be driving even though we could walk.

In my experience, the people who drive their kids to school are also driving themselves to work so they just don’t have the time to walk their kids to school (and a lot of people don’t feel comfortable allowing their young children to walk by themselves).

The closest school to us is 2 miles away through 3 busy streets so my just turned 7 year old and 4 year old will not be walking anytime soon. But then we also moved them back to their old school where we moved from and that is a 15 minute drive so of course I will drive them. When we did live there it was maybe a mile and I still didn’t let her walk. In my neighborhood no one else did and there were no sidewalks and narrow streets in the neighborhood between ours and the school. So none of these options are safe. When I went to school we took a bus for elementary and Jr. high and I walked or hitched a ride with teens in my neighborhood. but if i couldnt get a ride i had to walk. I did get picked up a lot because I was always in sports and hardly ever left school before 6p or 7p. When I didnt have a sport I would usually walk.

My daughter will be starting K next week and it’s a private school, so bus service is not available. Plus it is over 5 miles from our home, with very busy traffic, high speeds, a 4 lane highway, etc. so walking is completely out of the question. And there are going to be many mornings (more often than not) that I will need to drop her off on my way to work. So many people have their sound reasons for driving their kids, and it has nothing to do with being “lazy.” Not everyone lives less than 1/2 mile from the school with quiet streets and no cars and nothing to worry about along the way and nowhere to go afterwards. Even when I was a kid, the only kids who walked to school were the ones who lived in the subdivision that butted up against the playground to the school.

We live 1/2 mile from the elementary school. 4/10 mile from the junior high school bus stop. 7/10 mile from the high school bus stop.

We always dropped my oldest daughter off on the way to work - it was convenient. She never walked home in elementary school because she always went to daycare or a babysitters. She did walk home from the bus stops in jr high & high school, unless she bummed a ride or stayed after for sports, at least until she started driving herself.

We dropped my son off on the way to work all the way through junior high. His freshman year, he got a ride from his sister. And then after that we made him ride the bus. But I do take him to the bus stop. I know. That’s lazy. But the bus picks up at 6:40 in the morning, which is SO dang early, and he’d have to leave the house even earlier if he had to walk to the bus stop! Plus his backpack is REALLY heavy with all those books, and he also has to carry a sports bag. There is another family that lives about 1/2 way to the bus, on the same street as the bus stop, and she too drives her kid. I think that’s kind of dumb. I don’t know why, it’s probably dumb that I drive my kid. When he got to 4th grade, he started walking home with my 7th grader. And then walked alone in 6th grade. And once he got to jr high, he had to walk home from the bus stop. Now that he’s in high school, he rarely rides the bus home because of sports. And if he does, I usually pick him up because I’m on my way home from the elementary school anyways. But sometimes he has to walk if it’s not convenient for me.

My youngest is only 9. My husband drops her off on his way to work. When she was in 1st grade she walked home, but escorted by my 8th grader. But once he got to the high school, that wasn’t possible anymore. So, now I pick my 9 year old up after school. For some reason, I just can’t get comfortable with her walking home ALONE. She has to cross a road that the speed limit is 45 - yikes! She can cross to the north side of the street at the 4-way stop. But then part of the walk has no sidewalk and she has to walk in the street. If she doesn’t cross there, and stays on the south side of the street, there is a sidewalk. But then she has to cross in the middle of the street to get to our house. Both ideas make me nervous. I know, I need to get over it. Sometimes I walk down and get her and walk back. But I always seem to have an excuse to drive the car - like it’s over 100 right now - yuck!

Kids still walk to school, but of course it depends on the distance, traffic, neighborhood safety, etc. We live close to our elementary school, about half a mile, but it’s along a high speed commuter road with no sidewalk so it wasn’t safe to walk, much to my dismay :frowning:
Lots of kids walk and ride bikes to all the other schools in our community, all three of the other elementary schools and both the middle and high school are located in flat safe suburban neighborhoods with sidewalks and trails so it’s easy.
Of course many parents drive their kids to school because it’s on their way to work. And I’ve had some working moms tell me those moments in the car before and after school are precious to them, a chance to connect and talk about the day before going on to the office or dropping kids off at after school activities. I certainly can appreciate that!