When do we cut the theme park umbilical cord? How do should the children be before we give them a little taste of independence? Today our parenting panel addresses these questions. I asked them: What age is it safe to let kids roam the parks alone?
Mary Kraemer is a travel consultant with CruisingCo/MouseEarVacations. She loves to travel with her husband and four children and is an avid Disney fan who visits Disneyland several times a year—and Walt Disney World and the Disney Cruise Line as often as possible. Mary writes:
What age is it safe to let kids roam the parks alone? I can answer that question in two words: It depends.
I think there are a lot of factors involved in a decision such as this, and all of them are important.
Probably one of the most important considerations about letting kids have some freedom on their own in a theme park is having a realistic understanding of how your child will behave when you’re not there to observe them. Will they be respectful of other guests or will they be wild, running around, cutting through lines, and causing disturbances? If they are likely to run amok, rethink giving them the freedom to roam.
I am very clear with our children’s friends, when we bring them to the park, that proper behavior is expected, and security (as well as people who know us in the park), have a funny way of letting me know about any mischief and nobody wants to have that discussion with me. The result is an immediate plane ride home at their parents’ expense.
One of my best suggestions (and this is advice for when you have many people visiting the park together, not just kids off on their own): Have a designated meeting place and time. When kids are just starting to go off on their own, make their solo time rather short and make it clear they need to check in when they’re supposed to. If that goes well, lengthen the time they can have on their own.
Another significant consideration is: How well does your child know the park? My kids started “reading” the Disneyland park map while they were still in their strollers. At the age of 2, if you’d ask them where a certain place was in the park, they could point to it on the map and also point to the direction we’d need to go to get to that place. (No, we did not let them toddle around the park solo at that point.)
I’m fortunate that I have three kids who are pretty much the same age, so I always have a “pack” that sticks together when they’re on their own. I feel a lot more comfortable with them being on their own when they’re together than if they were solo in the park.
We started out letting our kids run loose (literally) in the confined setting of Pirate’s Lair on Tom Sawyer Island. It’s nearly impossible to keep up with kids there anyway, so we would pick a shady bench and request that the kids touch base with us periodically. Nobody was allowed to leave the island without the rest of the family. The kids were probably in second and third grade and loved being able to explore the island on their own.
In the rest of the park, we began letting them go incrementally. For example, if we had FastPasses for Indiana Jones, the kids could go on the Jungle Cruise while we went on Indy, and we had a designated spot to meet after our rides. We still don’t spend a lot of time away from each other, but we’re comfortable letting them go somewhere on their own.
However, when we visit a park that we don’t know well, we stick together. For example, my kids and I went to Hershey Park this summer, and about the only time we split up was the “you go on this ride while we go on that nearby ride” system.
My best advice is to enjoy the park together as much as you can; it’s a wonderful thing to be able to share the day, having fun as a family.
Laura King is mom to five boys who are now ages 9, 7, 7, 4, and 1. She recently traded in her job as a dance teacher to enter the world of PTO, Cub Scout den leader, team mom and school volunteer. She and her family have had Disneyland passes for the past 15 years and try to make it to Walt Disney World every three to four years. Laura writes:
What age is it safe for kids to roam the parks by themselves? That question doesn’t have a solid answer for me quite yet. My oldest is only 9, although he’s quite convinced he’s about 16. I know that 9 is too young for me to feel comfortable with him going off on his own. I’m just now OK with him going into the men’s restroom at the park without an adult ,and even then I make his little brothers go with him with strict instructions to stick together and yell if anything happens inside. Now I just need to teach them that their brother standing a bit too close to them is not a good reason to yell and scare me to death.
But back to being on their own. My thoughts right now are that I would need him to be at least 14 with at least two other friends and with a cell phone and check-in times. Episodes of Law and Order: SVU have me nervous about letting him go even at that age. But he’s my oldest. He’s the trial child. I’ve already noticed that each consecutive child gets privileges earlier and earlier. I have a feeling my fifth son will be running Disneyland by the time he’s 10. Much depends upon the personality of the child, as well. I have a set of 7-year-old twins who are as different as night and day. One is responsible enough that, in a few years, I could probably let him go off and he’d be diligent about checking in and making sure I knew he was safe. The other would lose track of time, forget to call and get himself into more trouble than he’d know what to do with. Thankfully, his tattletale twin would let me know every detail of what he had just done.
I’m guessing that by the time they are all 21 I’ll be OK with letting them all go to Disneyland by themselves. I might even let them get away with not calling home and checking in. Maybe.
MousePlanet columnist Lisa Perkis says her proudest accomplishment in life is being a mom to Emma, 15, and Charlotte, 12. She has also taught preschool for 19 years in her hometown of San Diego. She and her family visit Disneyland as often as possible and have had annual passes for 12 years. Lisa writes:
I suspect I’m a more cautious parent than many, but we took it fairly slowly in letting the kids roam the park by themselves. The girls have visited the parks since they were in strollers and know every attraction, every store, every restroom and practically every tree and bush in the place, but we still were always more comfortable with them in our sights. Luckily, we have two kids and I always felt better with them striking off in a pair. At around 10 years old, we would let the girls go together to use the restroom while we were waiting around for a parade or fireworks. We would also send them on little errands, like getting popcorn or a churro while we waited across the street.
The next step was letting them ride an attraction by themselves. I think each girl was 11 or 12 when we sent them off (sometimes with a FastPass) to try a ride by themselves. We were always nearby so they could return to us when they were done. These little excursions were very exciting to them, and gave them a taste of freedom without totally turning them loose.
Now that the girls are 15 and 12, I do let them spend some time at the park without mom or dad. I have also let the 15 year old go to the park with older friends in a group. I’m always somewhere in the vicinity and the 15-year-old does have a cell phone. They usually end up calling me to find out what I’m doing to make sure it’s nothing more interesting than what they are up to. For me, the comfort level has to do with their familiarity with the park and the fact that they are staying together. I know Disneyland is a pretty safe place, and I know my girls are not going to behave inappropriately on attractions or be obnoxious to other guests, so that eliminates most of the concerns I have.
Author and columnist Jeff Kober recently wrote The Wonderful World of Customer Service at Disney, available through PerformanceJourneys.com. He has also created the Disney at Work series featuring the Magic Kingdom and Epcot, which is available for the iPhone and iPod Touch. He and his wife, along with their six children, live in Orlando. Jeff writes:
When I was 11-12 we took a couple of trips to the Disneyland. We stayed in Howard Johnson’s (brand new at the time) and at the Disneyland Hotel. My parents pretty much left my little brother (9-10) and I go off to the park and play, then they would join us later in the day for lunch. We were then on our own until dinner and fireworks. I don’t think either of us thought much of being on our own. But that was the 1970s. Perhaps things were different then.
When I was 13, we were on vacation in our camper to Oceanside, Calif. I wanted to go to Disneyland, and no one really wanted the hassle of taking me there. My dad took me to a Greyhound bus station at 6 a.m. to buy me a ticket to Anaheim. In retrospect, I can’t believe he did this. They saw me as being very responsible for my age. Still, it was several blocks or so of walking from the bus station to the gates of Disneyland. I had no real way of calling them if I were in trouble as they were in a camper, not home, and this was long before cell phones.
I remember the sailors all lined up at the bus stop. Though I was quite naive to such things, I sensed the women there were trying to sell their own tickets to the sailors, as it were. It was a pretty seedy environment. Still, my dad sent me on my way, and I came back that night with no problems. The next summer or two I would take a bus from Newport Beach by myself up to the parks, then came back in the evenings.
Today’s youth have cell phones and can contact you immediately. Therefore, with my tweens, I am comfortable with them roaming the park while we are elsewhere. We live in the shadows of Walt Disney World, so I don’t have a problem with my teenagers taking the car and spending the evening with their friends at the park. My 16 year old goes to Halloween Horror Nights, as well, at Universal. I trust that. I understand that many teenagers head out to Tokyo Disneyland on the trains after school with annual passes in tow. I find that as long as you can have fairly immediate contact with your kids, you can make it work with them being in the park by themselves.
MousePlanet reader Bill (who posts as Disneyland Dad on our MousePad discussion boards) and his wife live in Reno with their son, 12, and two daughters, 6 and 1. Bill writes:
We just now have had to figure this out for our own family. We have our son who is 12 and would certainly like to have a bit more freedom than we have allowed in the past. He is a very polite and courteous kid, but he has the attention span of a gnat. On our next trip, at the end of this month, we think we are going to allow him to have some time to roam on his own. It certainly helps that a friend of our family is coming with us and is a super-responsible 15 year old; it never hurts to have a good example to follow.
We have gone back and forth the last couple of years trying to decide the right time to cut the Disney cord . The best advice I can give is: Don’t let your child go until you are ready and sure they are ready to be given that freedom. This comes down to knowing your own children, which most parents are pretty good at, often much better than we give ourselves credit for. Of course, if you ask a teenager, they will usually say they are misunderstood and their parents don’t know them at all. It amazes me that any of us managed to make it out of our teens, especially considering how much we thought we knew and how little we really did.
Disneyland/Disney’s California Adventure and the parks at Walt Disney World are pretty safe in comparison to your local fair or even most malls. For us, Disneyland/DCA is a place that we frequent enough that our kids know the parks and the different ways to traverse them, so familiarity was never the issue—it was trust. We could usually count on our son to come back on time or call when he was supposed to call. At Disneyland, usually is just not good enough. I have seen parents of kids that were supposed to meet at the hub or another location, frantically waiting and a few times the parents were to the point of hysteria. Almost always, the kids showed up within 15 minutes or so, but in a place that is so crowded and often chaotic like Disneyland, each of those 15 minutes must have seemed like an eternity to those parents. Again I say, don’t let your kids roam until you are sure that you won’t be the parent standing in the hub in hysterics.
I remember growing up in SoCal and being dropped off at Disneyland when I was about 10 or 12 with a group of my friends on numerous occasions. We survived unscathed and were able to think for ourselves better than a lot of kids our age. I think that we have become a little too overprotective, if that’s possible. I also think that a Disney theme park is an ideal place to let your children gain a little bit of independence in a safe and controlled environment.
It’s your turn—keep the discussion flowing!
Visit the Parenting on the Parks section of our MousePad discussion board, and share your best tips for what you bring when you’re at the Disney theme parks (link), or send your suggestions via e-mail (link). Reader-submitted tips might be used in a future article, and you might be selected to participate in an upcoming panel discussion!
Next time: How big is too big for the stroller?
