Would you leave your 12 year old in the gift shop...

[nchulka]

Originally Posted by mjkacmom

So, your point is that 23 year olds shouldn't go to the mall alone? Really, do you think that if a man started bothering a 12 year old girl in a WDW gift shop, that there would be no options for her? At what point can a female be alone in public? 30? Maybe the 23 year old would've been able to handle it better if she had been given more independence when she was younger, to build up her confidence.

[LaurenT]

Originally Posted by LovesTimone

No..

It's not about whether your child would stay put and act responsibile, It's about what if, You never know who could be watching or just looking for the right moment to hurt a child. No-one wants to think about this, but today it is a real threat, my DD is 23 and we met at the mall she was having lunch we her soon to be DH and I met her afterwards, we shopped when we got ready to leave she rode with me around to her car, I am glad she did when we pulled up there was some guy hassling this poor girl about my daughter's age, she looked so relieved when I pulled up, he took off, I asked her if she was alright she started to cry she said he followed her out of the mall asking for her number. She thanked me about a dozen times, I waited for my DD and her to drive off.

Your daughter (and in my opinion, all women) should take self defense. At 23 she shouldn't need to depend on mommy to drive her to her car - and she shouldn't have to worry about some guy harassing her in a parking lot.
There's no such thing as completely safe - life is a matter of degrees. If some guy comes up to me in a parking lot, he better have a gun....

[disneylooper]

Originally Posted by ShannonMB

My daughter (12) and I will be travelling to Disney in March with another adult, a 21 year old gal who love, love, loves everything Disney and has never been. DD and I are beyond thrilled to take her for the first time and can't wait to see her face when she finally sees what she's always dreamed of!

DD is a bit of a ride chicken and still won't even consider ToT or RnRC (although she actually is willing to give Everest a try for the first time this trip!). I want our friend to get to see these, and I can't decide if I should send her on her own and stay back with DD, or if, for crying out loud the kid is 12 years old, I was babysitting at her age, and of course she will be just fine hanging out until we get off and go along! I hate to miss them myself on any trip! It's just the 3 of us travelling.

Which part of me is crazy? I should add that she occasionally is home for an hour or so alone, is a very bright and responsible girl, and knows all about stranger danger. If she were with a friend it would be a no brainer. But alone? Opinions?

She can wait in the ride line with you and not board the ride, the CM will show her where to wait, we have done this.

[rebeccaariel]

I think it's one thing to teach your kids to not trust strangers and to never go off with a stranger, but if you teach them to fear strangers, they won't have the self-confidence to assert themselves when they need to, and I think that's dangerous.

[lucifie]

Originally Posted by rebeccaariel

I think it's one thing to teach your kids to not trust strangers and to never go off with a stranger, but if you teach them to fear strangers, they won't have the self-confidence to assert themselves when they need to, and I think that's dangerous.

THIS!!!!

It is impossible to eliminate all risk and a PP has shown how bad things can happen when the parent is right there. The world isn't any more dangerous than when we were children - there' just a lot more media access - and most of us were allowed a lot of freedom at that age. I was babysitting other people's kids at 12 or 13 and I pretty much could go wherever I wanted in our small town by about 6. We need to teach our kids to not go off with strangers and not give out personal information and what to do if someone does something inappropriate, not to be afraid to be alone in a gift shop for a few minutes. The vast majority of child abductions and molestation are done by someone the victim knows and trusts, often a relative or friend of the family.

[mdsoccermom]

Originally Posted by mjkacmom

So, your point is that 23 year olds shouldn't go to the mall alone? Really, do you think that if a man started bothering a 12 year old girl in a WDW gift shop, that there would be no options for her? At what point can a female be alone in public? 30? Maybe the 23 year old would've been able to handle it better if she had been given more independence when she was younger, to build up her confidence.

Amen.

And yes, I would allow a 12 year old to stay in the gift shop alone. When my daughter was 12, just last year, she was going to the mall and movies. She goes on rides alone at Disney when we don't want to. Give them the tools to cope and they'll do fine.

[married2mm]

Originally Posted by disneylooper

She can wait in the ride line with you and not board the ride, the CM will show her where to wait, we have done this.

this appears to be the answer.

[ccgirl]

Originally Posted by ShannonMB

My daughter (12) and I will be travelling to Disney in March with another adult, a 21 year old gal who love, love, loves everything Disney and has never been. DD and I are beyond thrilled to take her for the first time and can't wait to see her face when she finally sees what she's always dreamed of!

DD is a bit of a ride chicken and still won't even consider ToT or RnRC (although she actually is willing to give Everest a try for the first time this trip!). I want our friend to get to see these, and I can't decide if I should send her on her own and stay back with DD, or if, for crying out loud the kid is 12 years old, I was babysitting at her age, and of course she will be just fine hanging out until we get off and go along! I hate to miss them myself on any trip! It's just the 3 of us travelling.

Which part of me is crazy? I should add that she occasionally is home for an hour or so alone, is a very bright and responsible girl, and knows all about stranger danger. If she were with a friend it would be a no brainer. But alone? Opinions?

As other's have said, you know our child best. I have left my DD10 home alone for up to 3 hours at a time. Having said that, I would leave my DD12 to wait as long as she felt comfortable with it. Nowadays, my DD would probably just sit on a bench with her ipod touch. I'm not one to worry about "what ifs" though. What if I worried about "what if" I got in a car accident? I would never go to work. Instead, I prefer to arm my children with the tools should something happen.

[ccgirl]

Originally Posted by ShannonMB

OP here! Thanks again to everyone for the thoughtful responses. I'm so glad I started this thread!

So I talked to DD last night about what I posted and what some of the opinions were. I told her, "Best of all, I found out that you can actually wait in line with us and take the chicken exit right before we get on!" Her reaction surprised me...

"NO WAY!" huh? "I don't trust that I will be able to bail out at the end, I will be scared the whole time that I will end up having to go on the rides! In fact, this whole thing might just be a trick for you to get me on the rides!" "Just leave me in the gift shop for crying out loud!"

I asked if she was more afraid of ToT than the chance that someone might try to snatch her or some other awful thing, and she said, "Definitely! Cast members are all over the place, I will be totally fine. Just fast pass them!"

Bravo to you! Sounds like you raised a confident young lady rather than one that always lives in fear.

MY DNiece is not allowed to ride her bike around her neighborhood alone. This is a VERY safe neighborhood. Her daughter doesn't say boo to anyone, friends, teachers, classmates. Her mom has her so scared of everything.

My DD10 would probably love 30 minutes of alone time with her ipod.

Have a great trip!

[Peter Fan]

Originally Posted by mom2rtk

Very well said!

I don't want to raise a child who cowers safely in a corner. I want to raise a smart confident woman with good instincts.

Just because some people shield their kids more than others doesn't mean they are raising a coward.

[ktsmama]

On our last trip our kids were 11, 9, & 7. We wanted to ride Space Mountain together and the wait was only 20 mins. We gave the kids one of our cell phones, and strict instructions to ride the People Mover repeatedly until we returned. The wait was longer than posted. When we got off the ride we found them waiting for us in the SM gift shop because it had started raining, and they said they felt safer there. They did great, and we were so proud. As others have said, only you know your child. Mine were in a group, yours would be alone. I do agree that I would only leave her alone if the riders had FP's and she had a cell phone on her. Good luck!

[minnie mum]

Originally Posted by Peter Fan

Just because some people shield their kids more than others doesn't mean they are raising a coward.

Possibly. But it does mean that they are raising a kid without the necessary social skills to cope with the real world when they finally manage to get out on their own.

[mom2rtk]

Originally Posted by Peter Fan

Just because some people shield their kids more than others doesn't mean they are raising a coward.

Maybe not. But I think it depends on the parent and how it is conveyed to the child. I do think the more you shield them, the greater the odds they will look toward life in a fearful manner instead of a confident manner. They can't develop the skills to deal with what life will inevitably throw at them without developing those skills along the way.

[jojomoore]

I am with the opinion of no I would not leave my child alone - this is my parenting style. We can not protect our children 24-7 and we have to let them live. But i am not willing to leave my children alone in such a crowded place full of people that i do not know in a place that she is not used to being every day so far away from home. We all believe our kids will be safe in school each day but sometimes things happen. A young girl around the age of 12 left alone can be a target for someone who means harm. All it takes is an opportunity. You may know that you can trust your child but you dont know if you can trust a million strangers.. this is just my humble opinion.

I hope that no one assumes because i look after my childs safety that i dont encourage her to meet the world in other ways. She is a dancer who performs 20 times a year in front of people in streets, arenas, gyms, etc, she acts in front of a crowded theater, gives presentations to classmates without blinking an eye, utililizes social websites, etc, and competes in dance in front of strangers and professional dancers, choreopgraphers and judges. She will not hesitate to strike a pose or walk down a runway given the chance..oh and only she just turned 13.She also helps wait on customers in a family business. But i would still not leave her alone in WDW. Again just my humble opinion,

I know the original auther of this post, didnt mean to cause a debate. but somehow people always take it to that place.

[mom2rtk]

Originally Posted by jojomoore

I am with the opinion of no I would not leave my child alone - this is my parenting style. We can not protect our children 24-7 and we have to let them live. But i am not willing to leave my children alone in such a crowded place full of people that i do not know in a place that she is not used to being every day so far away from home. We all believe our kids will be safe in school each day but sometimes things happen. A young girl around the age of 12 left alone can be a target for someone who means harm. All it takes is an opportunity. You may know that you can trust your child but you dont know if you can trust a million strangers.. this is just my humble opinion.

I would do this at Disney over another place, not because I think Disney is immune to crime, but because Disney has only 1 exit. I think that makes it a very calculated risk. I would not let her go off on her own at the local mall. But honestly, if I'm going to trust her to babysit other people's kids in the next year, I think it's time to let her start spreading her wings a bit.

My dad is a retired police officer. He lived his life trying to shield us from everything he saw at work on a daily basis. When I went away to college, I did a few things I look back on now as stupid. But mostly it's because he was so overprotective. I was lucky nothing happened to me. I plan to handle things differently with my daughter. I'm trying to develop her confidence and problem solving skills.