Dad Reprimanded for Letting Daughter Walk to Bus Stop

by Amy Hatch (Subscribe to Amy Hatch's posts)
Sep 14th 2010 1:00PM

Filed under: In The News, Weird But True

The driver on the bus says ... that's dangerous! Credit: Zemlinki!, Flickr

Why did the 7-year-old cross the road?

Why, to get to the other side, of course -- but the punchline isn't so funny to some officials in one quiet English village.

London's Daily Mail reports that Mark McCullough's decision to allow his daughter, Isabelle, 7, to cross the road in front of their home in Glentham, England, and walk 45 yards to catch the school bus so alarmed the Lincolnshire County Council that he and his partner, Natasha Fegan, were threatened with action from child protective services.

McCullough tells the Daily Mail that he and his family live on what he describes as a "quiet country road," and that he isn't interested in "wrapping his child up in cotton wool."

The schoolgirl's parents allow her to walk the distance from her front door to the school bus stop on her own, both coming and going to school. She also crosses a two-lane road. The bus driver who ferries her to and from Normanby by Spital Primary School felt compelled to walk the child across the road when he dropped her off, thus leaving his other charges alone in the still-running vehicle.

He also alerted school officials, who in turn notified the Lincolnshire County Council. That group sent McCullough and Fegan a letter calling the matter a "child protection issue," and stating that the two could face action from child services if they continued to let the girl walk alone.

That's not all -- the letter also noted that Isabelle was sent to school without a sweater, and that the weather had been nippy that day.

McCullough, a 32-year-old father of five, finds the whole thing ridiculous.

"Lincolnshire County Council says it is a busy road, but that is ridiculous, it is just a country lane," he tells the Daily Mail. "We need to teach our kids to survive on their own because it's a big world out there and they need to be able to look out for themselves."

He tells the newspaper he had considerable freedom as a boy, when he was the same age as his daughter.

Debbie Barnes, Lincolnshire's assistant director of children's services, tells the Daily Mail that guidelines issued by Isabelle's school state that kids under the age of 8 should be accompanied by an adult, but conceded that individual circumstances do vary and that it was up to parents to decide what's best for their child.

Related: Big Mother is Watching You - Even on the School Bus

ReaderComments (Page 5 of 6)

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9-15-2010 @ 10:48AM

Melanie said...

Love your comment, Bill!

9-15-2010 @ 10:45AM

45 yards is about a mile and a half. I personally would not let even my nine-year-old child walk that far alone on any road. Our neighbors let their 2-year-old son go out the door alone and ride his tricycle in the middle of the road, and I consider that child neglect. Ignorant parents really annoy me.

9-15-2010 @ 10:56AM

patty said...

well if ignorant people annoy you. then you must really hate yourself. 45 yards is only 136 feet where a mile is 5280 ... just a tiny bit of a difference there.. but don't be too hard on yourself.. you're just ignorant

9-19-2010 @ 10:16PM

Oops, Patty was right! I was thinking 50 feet in a yard instead of 3 for some reason. Still, there are errors and there is ignorance.

9-15-2010 @ 7:49PM

Dennis said...

When I was 7, in 1962, my sister and I lived with our Mom in the Echo Park district of Los Angeles. A tough neighborhood by anyone's standards. We walked to and from school every day, together or seperately, every day. So did everyone I knew. It was a mile and a half each way. Busy streets, winos, gang members, dogs, the occasional bully chasing me home, it was all a part of everyday life and we survived just fine. Then we moved in with my Grandparents on a quiet country road, and to my young eyes it wasn't any different. Except the running home from the bullies.

9-15-2010 @ 11:00AM

tskye8505 said...

Really? I had to fight to get my child on a bus last year after the jackass at the board of education suggested that I teach my 5 year old the way to school,should he need to walk himself. We live almost a mile from the school and he would have to cross a 4-lane highway. 1 mile=1,760 (that the board of ed said a 5 year old could do) and everyone wants to take this child away for walking 45 yds? What's wrong with this picture?

9-15-2010 @ 11:36AM

Katie said...

I love all the sarcasm. I don't understand how we got so far away from the common sense we use to be able to employ while making decisionsof how to raise our own children. It seems that in this day and age everyone else knows better how we must treat our own children. My neighbor wouldn't let his daughter ride her bycicle on our deadend street so she had to watch my son riding up and down the street from behind a wrought iron fence,it looked like she was in jail. I finally had the father over to chat about the weather while my son was out riding and he saw what I did and changed his mind. HOWEVER I'd never presume to tell anyone how to raise there own child and would not like to be told how to raise mine. By the way,all that freedom riding around didn't cause him any ill effects.

9-15-2010 @ 11:14AM

Dr. Bill Conklin said...

Do the Brits have that Stop Sign that swings out from the bus that STOPS TRAFFIC BOTH WAYS. On a 2 lane road this should never be a problem. It's against the freakin law here to pass a school bus when it signals a stop to ofload kids.

9-20-2010 @ 3:26PM

shooshmyloved said...

This is news? WTF.

9-15-2010 @ 11:30AM

PatrickPain said...

People just want to control everones life's. Come and try to take my kids from me for nothing and I promise you will never take anyone's child again.

9-15-2010 @ 11:33AM

Yaya said...

What an irresponsible family. To allow this child to walk across a two lane road is UNEXCUSABLE to say the least. Parents such as these are the prime reason why we hear of horrendous road tragedies and why we lately are reading MORE AND MORE about child abductions. I hope these parents to this child have learned a very valuable lesson. Our children are our most precious possessions, EVER! God bless the child and the bus driver WHO DEMONSTRATED MOST CONCERN FOR THE CHILD- I applaud your efforts, my hat is off to you.

9-15-2010 @ 2:27PM

sprinks said...

This is so lame; kids today are so protected they aren’t allowed to be kids. In third grade my parents wanted me to go to a “Christian” school. The only one available was in downtown Phoenix we lived in North Phoenix on 7th Ave. (actually at that time it was in the county). For the entire school year of 1957-58 I walked 3/4 of a mile to Central Ave & Hatcher, caught a city bus, road it 7 miles to Central & McDowell, crossed Central Ave (one of the busiest streets in Phoenix at the time) caught another bus to 15th st., then walked another 4 blocks to school. In the evening I reversed the trip. All it did for me was make me extremely independent, I figured if I could do that I could do anything. Of course by today’s standards my mom & dad were extremely negligent. We lived on the edge of the desert. During the summer I used to take off after breakfast, with nothing more than a canteen and a sandwich and show up again at sundown. I explored for miles around our house and climbed every mountain within 5 miles.

9-15-2010 @ 11:50AM

Kristi said...

This story is exactly why I started my website www.parentrantroom.com because the lack of parents taking responsibility for their children on so many levels leaves me saddened and disappointed. I am all for teaching kids responsibility, but not at the potential risk to their safety. It may be that kids had more freedom twenty years ago but as we all are aware today is a different world!

9-15-2010 @ 6:14PM

Nancy said...

Kristi - Start a class for parenting. It's they who need it, not the children

cager97 said...

My God.....what a lot of hoopla over nothing!!

Yes, the little girl is 7 years old. When I was 5, and in the 1st grade, I came home to an empty house (no siblings and both of my parents worked.)
Did I survive? Of course I did!
If indeed, they live on a "quiet country road", as the father says, then what is the fuss about?
My question is: If they have 5 kids, where are the other 4 children??
Do they not take the same bus to school??
This little has to be smart in th ways of the world, and allowing her ths short "life's lesson" will help her in the future!!

9-15-2010 @ 12:10PM

Cager, YOU CANNOT COMPARE the years you speak of and today's ill society. You cannot! Back in the 70's when I was a teenager, we too, roamed freely until the street lights turned on and we instantly knew it was time to head home. In today's society, you cannot feel free enough to let your child spend time alone in the front yard! Different times we are speaking of. Unfortunately, times haven't changed, minds and souls and values have.

Cheers.

9-15-2010 @ 12:00PM

sarahb said...

Why would you have to fight with a kid to get him/her to put on the sweater? Since when did the kid get to make the decisions as to what is good for him/her. That's bad parenting.
45 yards? My stars, that is 135 feet!!!!! The child probably has to walk that far to get to the bathroom in her home. When a child is standing on the corner. waiting for a bus, the bus driver stops, lowers the bar on his bus his big red lights flashing, the traffic stops (he waits until lthe traffic stops on both sides to let the child on or off), and the kid walks safely across the road. That's the way it should be done. I see that every day ,If it isn't done that way
Mr. Mccollough should come right back at the school officials and the County Council with a lawsuit. This is the way it's done in the in the USA. I don't know if that is the way it is done in England. If not. it should be.
Busybody bus driver should be fired for leaving his bus running with his students on board. Is he crazy? What if that kid who refused to put his sweater on or else have a fight with his mom, decided to pick a fight with another kid and one of them hit the gear and the bus lunged foreward or backward? Would they have repremanded the mom who didn't discipline her kid and make him put his sweater on? What kind of weasels run this school that they have to notify the County Council that a little girl walked 45 feet alone to catch the bus without a sweater. . Hey, this is getting good, maybe I'll write a book. The worse bus driver in the world is trying to appear to be a Good Samaritan, when in reality he is a menace to society.

9-15-2010 @ 11:52AM

Amanda said...

I think this is ridiculous. Child protective services because it was a little nippy and she didn't have a sweater and her parents let her walk 45 yards to the bus stop...ARE YOU KIDDING ME? My problem is what about the bus driver? What kind of bus driver gets off the bus to walk a 7 year old girl across the street, while leaving the bus running and full of other children who are probably elementary age? Something like that, the bus driver should be fired. You do not do that.

9-15-2010 @ 5:34PM

ok.. let's put this into some perspective here
45 yards=1.5 basketball courts
45 yards=less than half a football field
45 yards=3.5 school busses
45 yards=about a third of a walmart parking lot
45 yards=about half a city block
if you drove 45 yards, you would have to hit the brakes before reaching 10 mph.
if you walked 45 yards, the average person would only take about 68 steps
if you ran 45 yards, you would reach the end before becoming winded...
the girl wasn't walking to london.. she was walking the average length of a driveway or length of a playground at school..

Who is doing all this watching of this child? (children) Was it the bus driver?
Like many here I was five when my best friend and I walked a mile and a half to school. Half of the walk was on the side of a busy main road. However, before the school year started our mother's had simply taken us and walked the route to school with us, telling us where to "stop-look-and listen." And only when there was no traffic could we proceed. Mom said it and it was so. We survived until now we are in our sixties. Was it just luck?? No, we followed rules and listened to our parents. Period. Rules were to be followed. So ... Even as tiny girls we could walk to school without any problems. There were no school buses back in my day. Now that was awful.

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