I’m a big fan of Lenore Skenazy and her Free Range Kids / Let Grow efforts to give our children more freedom. It’s a struggle as a parent to weigh danger vs. freedom and widespread fear-mongering about child abductions and such make the decisions more emotionally charged, and less reality-based.

We’re fortunate to live quite close to our local public schools and walk the kids each day. Letting them walk by themselves is a classic and obvious step toward independence and self-reliance. However, our school doesn’t have a stated policy about coming and going for the students alone and during Covid moved toward a default parent check-out for each child that had been much looser in the past.

I noticed another family nearby that had their children walking to and from school alone each day and asked how they arranged with the school and teacher. They had simply written a note and provided it to the teachers, with a duplicate copy in each book bag in case needed.

A lovely, and simple, way to clearly indicate parental OK. Awesome. I followed their lead and below is the note that I now use. I wanted to share here in case it’s helpful to other parents locally, or elsewhere, that would like to give their kids the ability and authorization to ambulate solo.

Date: XXXX

I, John Anderson, and my wife, XXXX Anderson, give our son, XXXX Anderson, permission to walk to and from school, be admitted and dismissed from school, and in general move about the neighborhood of his own volition.  Thank you for your support of developing independence, responsibility, and confidence in our youth.

If additional permission or information is needed please advise.

Thank you,

John Anderson

Email : | Phone :

Another bonus at our school is the open playground and field after school – easier to stay and play when kid’s are on their own schedule.

Montreal – half Canada (hella nice) and half France (hella chic). Amazing old town buildings, a fantastically clean Metro, and lots of great little restaurants. (I didn’t get to try to many of said restaurants with 4 kids on the visit but it’s all good.)

Highlights:

• Jean Talon Market – our Airbnb was really close to this market (and the Metro stop of same name). Very cool daily market with tons of produce, stands with processed foods like salami, pickles, etc.
• Airbnb – we stayed in a second floor apartment in a three story building. It had an enormous patio, about 625 square feet, and 3 bedrooms. I love Airbnb when we travel as hotels are pretty darn difficult for a big family – although we miss having swimming pools, breakfast, etc.
• Metro – so clean, so fast, and great pricing. A 3 day pass was about $21 and up to 4 children were free with an adult. I really like family / kid friendly policies like this. Most of the Metro stops did not have elevators and often had many steps which was a challenge for strollers and toddlers and I’m sure would make a challenge for handicapped people. The Metro does not go to the airport, but they have a frequent bus connection that worked well for us, about half the distance on the freeway was in a bus / taxi only lane which is a great idea for other places like San Diego to utilize.
• Lachine Canal / bicycles – Bicycles are awesome and we got to rent for a day and ride about 20 miles on the Lachine Canal. Beautiful weather and water views of the canal on the way out, and the St Lawrence River on the way back. Massive amounts of park space along the way with playgrounds, trees and grass, sculptures, and more. Highly recommended. (We missed the Verdun public beach which would have been great and had tons of people enjoying the water.)
• Summertime – we don’t get a lot of weather changes in San Diego but being in an area with lots of water, lots of trees, and long summer days was great. Long days were also amazing in Minnesota, for a farm visit after Montreal.