My Eleven Year Old Daughter Left Home Today

It is hard to loosen the reins. been there done that. We walked all over town when we were that age but things have changed an aful lot since then.

Yes, even in the 30 years since I was a child, the world has changed rapidly!

Yes, she is growing up fast and it has been hard loosening the boundaries that we set on her from a young age. Bit by bit we let her go out on her own around town and she has travelled home alone from a previous family trip before when she stayed on an extra week or so. She has definitely enjoyed having more freedom, to go and visit the local library on her bike, walk the dog alone and to visit friends houses. These are things that I took for granted when I was a child as I lived in a small town where everyone knew each other, so I had huge amounts of freedom as a child, but it has been difficult trusting this environment that we live in today to be safe for our kids too.

How did you know that she was getting parts to build her first SSG Bedini generator? You are too psychic! Yeah, she has lots of clothes packed. She loves the colder weather as she can dress up more like a teenager and look all stylish! Girls hey! She is looking forward to hanging out with her trendy aunts and uncle who live close to the city. She got some Christmas money and decided while we were away at Jindabyne that she would spend the money flying down to see all the family seeing as we did not visit them at Christmas time. She keeps saying that she will move to Melbourne when she leaves home. She loves it down there. Strange girl! She went with Virgin Blue. I am not sure what age is the minimum, but once they are 12, then they can fly unaccompanied with no special attention from the staff. At this age, they get all sorts of special treatment and have to be signed onto the plane and then off at the other end basically. It is pretty strict. She flew home from Victoria over two years ago after we drove home earlier, leaving her there for a further week or so. They had six kids flying on this flight without parents. The youngest would have been around six or seven maybe.

Seems to be the way of the future, Bill! Hope you have better luck at keeping your son in QLD. Just don't let 'em loose in Las Vegas. Safe trip, young lady.

I was wondering... at what age do airlines let unaccompanied children fly alone? Which airline is she flying with? Qantas? Jetstar? Virgin? And how long is the flight - direct too, I hope? That's over 1700km, Bill! Not bad for eleven

HaHa! Well, there are worse places to be stuck I reckon! She actually did not have to save too hard for the flight money as my kids get a lot of cash for presents seeing as we live interstate from all of our family. She could have easily blown that money on crappy toys and souvenirs from our trip though, but she didn't. Their birthdays are late in the year so they have been adding the money from them to the money that they get at Christmas time so that they can buy something big. Last year my son did this and had enough to buy himself a Nintendo Wii! Mind you, he told everyone for months that he wanted to do this and how far he had to go to reach his goal, so family members actually helped him out financially a little more that they normally would have with that one!

Oh, she will have loads of photos by the time she gets back, I assure you! Wow! You were five and flying by yourself? Where did you go?

Yep I flew from North Carolina to Maryland it's about an hour flight.

That must have been exciting! Do you remember much of it?

It is a pretty common thing. The airline that we flew her down with have a maximum of six unaccompanied children on each flight and I think they fill this quota pretty quickly, particularly around school holiday time like it is now here. Most people in our city originate from other parts of the country too, so I think this service is very popular with our city as parents send kids down to visit grandparents for the school break.

Wow! I can't allow my kid to travel alone, well not at age 11. She is 10 now and I can't imagine allowing her to travel alone visiting family from across the country. I have security issues with her traveling alone. I admire you for allowing her and you kid to be able to manage traveling alone transferring from one family to another. It would be one great experience.

Welcome to MyLot lowland123. Thanks for your kind words. She is a pretty independent girl and always has been. She has stayed behind once before when we were on a family driving holiday there. We drove back and left her with the family two years ago. She flew back on her own with the same airline, but this is the first time that the whole trip has been just her and that it has been her money and her idea! The airline have a pretty good program for unaccompanied minors on their flights. Safety procedures have to be met at either end to ensure that family are picking them up and dropping them off. You have to hand them straight to the airline staff, who then escort them directly onto the plane. No chance of kids missing flights this way.

She returns home on April 24th. I will not be here though unfortunately as I am away from the 23rd until the 30th, so I will have to wait until then to see her!

No chance of kids missing,this is a piece of good news that I hear now.When will she come back?Is it a long time to you?when she comes back ,I hope I can hear from another good news.

Hi Paula. My daughter was nine when she first did a flight by herself. That was a huge thing for us to do at the time, so this is not as daunting this time. Last time though, we were on a driving holiday to Melbourne and surprised my daughter while there by telling her on Christmas day that she would not be driving home with us, but would be staying on with her grandmother and flying back alone. It was a special Christmas present to her at the time and she loved doing it. She had the time of her life! Virgin Blue have a really good unaccompanied minor program and it is really safe for kids to travel this way. They normally have six kids at a time and they all sit together having a great old time on the plane without their parents!

Hi Shibham, sorry to hear about your parents losing two children before your birth. that must have been very tough on them and I can imagine that they would have treasured your presence so much more than a normal first birth after that. I have always been protective of my daughter as she is the oldest and it has been hard over the last couple of years to let her go off riding alone through the town, but there comes a time when you know they are ready to be more independent and it gives both us parents and her strength when we can let go a little.

It is good for them to learn independence and she will no doubt return home as an even more confident young girl. It is good that your daughter let you know where she was. My daughter did not contact us for a few day. I tried ringing the mobile phone that we sent with her and it rang out each time. She then sends me a message saying "What do you want?" I sent one back saying that I wanted to know if you are still alive and where you are?

I think that in general, we here in Australia are a little less family orientated and more independent from our families than most Asian countries. This is both a good thing and a bad thing as families are important. I was 21 when I had my first interstate trip on a plane without my parents, but I had done a few road trips more locally with friends before then. My family had also gone away and left me at home while I was in my late teens as well.

It will be a great experience for her. I love to travel and I think that she has inherited this interest from me. That must have been a very exciting and nervous time for you when you had to travel for your education. It can be daunting at first when we are thrown out of our comfort zones, but it is the best way to grow ourselves mentally.

She is a primary school student. She is in Grade six here. The airline has a very good program where unaccompanied minors get looked after by the staff while on the plane and they get escorted o and from the plane also. Parents or guardians have to show identification and hand them personally to the staff who check the paperwork. The same goes at the other end when she gets picked up. She will be hopping off the plane right about now I think and being taken directly to her uncle who will is picking her up. The airline staff will take her straight to him. So, it is not really that brave! Buy she is pretty independent for her age.

I had a few weekend trips with friends camping and so forth when I was 14/15, but I did not take my first flight until I was 21 years old. I never flew anywhere with my parents.

Wow! 9 or 10! My daughter flew alone two years ago when she was nine, but that was only one way and we had been on the trip with her, but we came home earlier, leaving here with family. This is here first complete trip without us! So, how did you go changing planes? Did the airline staff take you from one plane to the next?

They have six unaccompanied children flying together on most flights so they seat them all together and they are looked after really well. From next year, she will be old enough to fly alone with out their program, so it will be cheaper for us and she might have the confidence from flying a few times alone to be able to take that step. We will have to see about that one when we come to it. She is having a great time so far!

. . . and I'm sure you made the most of it Bill!

Yep! I spent a week at home sick after it too! I managed to come home with chicken pox somehow! When I rang up my friend that I stayed with and told him, he said he had them as well, but not as bad as me. Getting chicken pox for the first time as an adult is not nice!

Hi Abbey. Yep, kids these days are a lot more grown up than I was at the same age. They know about the birds and the bees earlier, travel more and are much more open to different things than we were as children. I did a few weekend road trips with friends at 16 and was always away from home for the whole weekend staying with older friends that I worked with. But I never went anywhere long distance until I was 21 and flew from Melbourne to Brisbane for three weeks to visit friends. That was a big long three week party!

I know of your many travels Maximax. Maybe this independence that she is showing will give her the travel bug that I have and to a greater extent, that you have.

LOL...I love learning about the places each other live..Fot the larger areas here, Elementary school is K-5th, Middle School is 6th-8th, and then Highschool is 9th-12th. In elementary school, children in the 5th grade are chosen based on academics and behavior to participate in a saftey group for the school. They are monitor the halls to make sure there is no running or stuff like that. They also help the smaller children get to class. At the end of the year, they take a trip to Washington DC, along with other members of this group across the country. There are a huge amount of schools that participate in this. They go to the White house and the Lincoln memorial...they see the tomb of the unknown soldier..visit the huge zoo they have there...the capital...that washington monument..amd my personal favorite...the Smithsonian! It was pretty expensive but I wanted her to get to experience it because it meant so much for me and I had a great time. I think that would be an amazing experience for your daughter..Japan. I went there for a week and it was great. Kyoto was amazing!!!

Hi Jen. My daughter has been on school camps locally before, but this adventure is a first for her, even though she did fly back home from a family trip two years ago after we let her stay an extra week or so with the family by herself. What is a safety patrol team? I am afraid you have lost me there! Next year she is in year seven which in my state is the last year of primary school. They get to go interstate on a school trip to the nations capital, Canberra. They also can choose to go on an exchange program for two weeks of schooling in Japan. Our school has a program with a school in Japan where they swap students for a couple of weeks and the students and parents too if they want go and stay with the families of students in the other country. She wants to do that, but it will be really expensive!

I just did a huge post and then realised that I was not logged in and lost it! Anyway, it went something like this. That sounds like an awesome trip to Washington. At our kids school they have a buddy program where grade seven kids look after the young ones. Each new student is assigned a buddy to look after them. Here in Australia, the schooling is split into two levels. Primary from prep to grade 6 and then secondary from year 7 to 12. In our state of Queensland (where we differ from the rest of the country in a lot of areas) the switch from primary to secondary is done a year later. This will change in a couple of years time to bring us into line with the rest of the country. We also did not have the prep class until a few years ago, so before then, Queenslanders started school a year later and had one less year of schooling that everyone else. We are hoping to bee able to send her to Japan, she also wants me to go as well, but that will depend on our finances. We have also been invited to a friends 40th birthday next year in New Zealand, which will also be an amazing experience.

She certainly is all that! You have not travelled on your own yet? I hope that you will get to do that soon as it is a wonderful experience.

So, is this girl that comes to stay with you the daughter of your boyfriend? And he only gets to see her twice a year? That must be hard if that is what I am understanding. And expensive too I imagine! My daughter is having a great time and is loving her independence. She has done well to organise the relatives so that she had people to pick her up and drop her off at each family members house.

Thanks for the kind words. It must be so tough on him to only see her for a short time each year. Does he take lots of time out of everything else so he can dedicate himself to her for the whole time. Time management must also be hard to deal with for these visits I imagine. It would be an amazing experience for her though, getting to see lots of different things throughout the world instead of just one culture.

Oh yes it is the most difficult time for him and I. Especially last year, she only came the one time. It has always been twice a year for 30 days and we got shorted last year. Because her mom and family made other plans. We understood but my boyfriend was so hurt. I am glad to hear she is loving her trip. That is so fun to hear. Our little one absolutely loves to come because she gets to see a different part of her world and so many loving families. You are a proud Daddy.