Kids Alone in the Park--What Age?

[TheFlyingDaddy]

Last year, my then eleven year old daughter toured DHS with a close friend of the same age. Like others have mentioned here, I remained in the park the entire time and both girls had cell phones and we would "check-in" with each other regularly. My daughter is an Annual Passholder and knows the parks quite well. She's 12 now, and when we return to WDW next week , I would have no hesitancy to once again permit her to do the same.

From an overall safety perspective, Disney is really the perfect place for a preteen to gain some experience being on their own. It is much safer than other activities kids begin to do around that age such hanging out at a mall, or even walking home from middle school: Most Disney Parks have only one way in and one way out, helpful cast-members everywhere, abundance of security cameras, there are no "dark-alleys", and the constant crowds actually creates a sort of public-safety-net around all those there.

Like most of the posters here, I fully agree that well-behaved, emotionally mature preteens should be allowed to separate from their parents/guardians and have an experience on their own for a few hours, so long as the guardian remains in or very near the park and has a reliable means of communication (ie cell phone) with the child.

 

[karenklo]

I guess we are parents that want our kids to have some independence and to learn how to be on their own. Last year at age 14 and 11 we let our sons go off ride some rides alone. Then they texted that they wanted to head back to the Poly from the MK. We said fine with us, go! They just had to text when they were in the room. No problems at all. They even grabbed drinks from the CL for everyone! Was nice to have some alone time in the parks!

 

[paracelsus]

I want to make sure that I answer the question posed by the OP before I go off on a tangent. We would have let our kids go off on their own when they were 14 or so. There, I have answered the original question. Now I just have to add something about our family. For some reason, our kids never wanted to go off on their own. On our first trip as a family in 1993 the kids ranged in age from 3 to 9 years. Naturally, the family stayed together wherever we went. The kids were so young then. We've been back to WDW 8 times since then, and at no time during any of those trips did we split up in the parks. The last trip was in summer of 2011. At that time the "KIDS" ranged in age from 22 to 27 years. Two of them were married by then. Including spouses, there was a total of 9 of us, and we did absolutely everything together. We have the pictures to prove it! I guess that we had so much fun together that no one could think of anything better to do. In fact, the first time in 20 years of Disney trips that our family broke off into smaller groups to do their own things was in summer 2012 at DLR. It was about time!

 

[Laketravis]

My parents left me in the MK when I was 13.

They came back and got me a couple of weeks later.