I’m going to leave this here as my last reply, and I do hope that you take the time to read it: Children’s Independent Mobility: an international comparison and recommendations for action (PDF)

And I quote the following findings and recommendations from the authors:

" At age 7, a majority of Finnish children can already travel to places within walking distance or cycle to places alone; by age 8 a majority can cross main roads, travel home from school and go out after dark alone, by age 9 a majority can cycle on main roads alone, and by age 10 a majority can travel on local buses alone"

“Withholding independent mobility at a young age may expose children to greater risk later in their childhood.”

Note the following responses below, starting at kids age 7. It’s not a coincidence that the countries who give their kids more mobile independence, are also the ones who Unicef ranks as having the greatest well-being and achieve higher education levels:

Then I hope you can take some time to read this post, which was written specifically about this child’s death, and how authorities dealt with it.

And I quote:

But in fact what the parents did was something normal, rational, and common. “Ten-year-olds and 7-year-olds have been walking to and from school, unaccompanied by adults, for over 100 years,” says Pimentel.

The implications of this prosecution “are very troubling for parents everywhere who can never provide a guarantee against their kids getting hit by a car, even if they were right there with them,” notes Diane Redleaf, author of They Took the Kids Last Night and Let Grow’s legal consultant.

I will close by saying that while it may sound “insane” to let kids have responsibility and independence, the reality is, this is normal in most of the world.