Walking to School

June 14th, 2021
kids
Last week Lily (7y) decided she wanted to start walking to school by herself. It's not very far, she knows the way, and if anything happens she has pretty good common sense. The main problem is cars: while we've been practicing crossing the street, she's not good enough at it do it completely on her own. We realized, though, that if she went a slightly longer way she would only need to cross two streets: one right by our house and another that has a crossing guard.

We went out and practiced: she walked the route with me staying well behind. When she got to the second crossing I pretended to be the crossing guard. She seemed ready to do it on her own.

The next morning, after getting herself ready, I walked her across the first street and then she set off on her own. I stayed, watching, in case she ran into issues. When she got to where the crossing guard should be, she turned around and came running back crying: "the crossing guard isn't there!" It turns out that the crossing guard was just around the corner, leaning on their car. Once Lily saw this, I turned around, and Lily took it from there.

The remaining mornings that week I continued hanging out and watching until I could see the crossing guard helping her across the street. She didn't have any more problems, and this week I'm no longer waiting.

She is quite proud of herself, and I'm glad she's able to be a bit more independent.

Referenced in:

Comment via: facebook, lesswrong, substack

Recent posts on blogs I like:

Linkpost for March

Effective Altruism

via Thing of Things March 2, 2026

The Newest Technology in Frozen

There are lots of different things in Frozen that are new-ish, but my dad and I were wondering: what is the actual newest thing in Frozen? This led me to watch Frozen a lot while taking notes. Some of the things I found included: Elastic hair-ties A safety …

via Lily Wise's Blog Posts March 1, 2026

2025-26 New Year review

This is an annual post reviewing the last year and setting intentions for next year. I look over different life areas (work, health, parenting, effectiveness, etc) and analyze my life tracking data. Highlights include a minimal group house, the usefulness…

via Victoria Krakovna January 19, 2026

more     (via openring)