A debate has broken out in London over what age children should be allowed to cycle unsupervised.
Oliver and Gillian Schonrock allow their two children to cycle to school together – aged only five and eight. But maybe not for much longer, as the Schonrocks were criticized last week by the school headteacher for allowing them to ride unsupervised the mile-long distance between Alleyn’s Junior School and their Dulwich home. The Schonrocks say they merely want “to recreate the simple freedom” of their own childhoods; Alleyn’s headmaster Mark O’Donnell thinks it might be a matter for the social services.
But who is right?
It turns out it’s a grey area as there no official guidelines.
Oliver James, a child psychologist says “I’m pretty gung-ho when it comes to my five-year-old,” he says, “but I wouldn’t let him ride alone. I think it’s a pretty odd thing to do. It should be banned really, though I couldn’t say at what age.” James is also concerned that the Schonrocks’ children are at risk from attack. “Not from adults – there’s a huge exaggeration in people’s minds about paedophilia – but from other children. It depends on where you live, but other children pose a genuine threat in terms of knives and muggings.”
But Professor Frank Furedi, a sociologist known for his opposition to paranoid parenting, disagrees and says the Schonrocks should be praised. “Riding along the pavement is obviously well within the capability of many eight-year-olds,” he says. “And some five-year-olds will definitely be mature enough to start to go to school on their own. Of course there are some children you wouldn’t even let near a bicycle, but it sounds like these particular children will have benefitted tremendously from the responsibility.”
