I'm actually dealing with this issue currently. My kids are 7 & 9 and they are at the point now where they just want to go out and play, unsupervised.

Now when I was their age, in fact much younger than their age, I was outside all the time. Had to be in by dinner time but the rest of the day I ran free all over the entire neighborhood. So did ALL the other kids in my neighborhood.

These days ALL the kids aren't running around outside. On top of that you have all these newer housing developments that have up and decided sidewalks are unnecessary so running free literally means "playing in the street." I had sidewalks as a kid and was encouraged to stay on them but I played in the street too.

But there's far more cars on the road these days. And during the day there's far more teen drivers. Back when I was a kid most of the neighborhood teens didn't have cars and if they were allowed to drive it was their parents car at night after their parents had returned from work. Now teens are driving their own cars recklessly all damn day, at least in my neighborhood. They fly around corners like maniacs. Less parents are leaving their kids out to roam and so that adds to the likelihood that less drivers are expecting to find kids in the street when they zip around a corner.

I don't worry much about my kids being abducted, I worry far more about them getting hit by a car. But you have to let them go out and play. I know several moms who thinks it's downright NEGLECTFUL to let your kids out, free. But I won't keep my kids prisoner in the house. It's just not healthy. But it is hard to let them go out especially considering others aren't ALL letting their kids out as well.

The other thing is when I was growing up there were lots of stay at home moms in the neighborhood. If we were being bad blocks away from our house someone else's mom would come out and holler at us. There was like a neighborhood tree of sorts with moms all over the neighborhood keeping watch out their windows and occasionally yelling at whoever needed yelling at. There's very little of that these days. Kids are positively shocked when I yell at them! They're very disrespectful and you have no idea where they live or who they are. In my day, you mouth off to a neighbor and that neighbor is marching you home and you're in for it. As a teen we were very unsupervised but as kids running around the neighborhood there was a whole gaggle of women all over the place keeping tabs on you and what you were doing. And anyone of them was capable of marching you home or getting your mom on the phone.

It's just soooo different today. But I let my kids go out. I also keep the fridge full of goodies and keep the garage full of sporting equipment and do whatever all I can do to encourage what little neighborhood gang we have to all hang around here on this street. I'd rather have all manner of kids running in and out here then having mine run in and out elsewhere. The other day there was a kid in my house I'd never seen before getting drinks out of the fridge. It's an odd way to meet. My kids were nowhere to be found but apparently they sent this one in to get some juice boxes. But I do my best to meet all these kids and encourage them to run together, preferably within earshot or yelling distance. I figure if they stick together they'll be good. My dog runs with them too. Not sure what all good that will do but it makes me feel better.