Jayne Dowle: A boy steps into the unknown... and strides into the future

So I thought, well, it's a 10-minute walk down the road, with a small roundabout and a crossroads to negotiate, and he has had "stranger danger" drilled into him. He is familiar with the journey, there are plenty of other people about, and I would be following in the back-up vehicle with his four-year-old sister at a respectable distance, just in case. He didn't even want us to walk a few hundred yards behind him.

So off he went, rucksack on his back. And he made it, with a big

beaming smile on his face. Then I heard about the family in

Lincolnshire threatened with social services for allowing their seven-year-old daughter to walk 20 metres, cross a country lane and wait at a bus-stop. I felt really sorry for the parents, who have five children between them. Anyone with children to get up and get ready in the morning is delighted when they show enough confidence to do something for themselves.

Apparently, the school bus driver had alerted the local council, and a stern letter was sent to the family warning them of possible legal action. If he was worried about road safety, why didn't he just have a word with her parents? It does make you wonder whether these council officials haven't got anything more pressing to do, such as

investigating cases of child abuse and neglect, instead of making ordinary families feel like criminals.

And surely, it is up to parents to decide when their own child is ready to be independent. The Government agonises over why so many families are reliant on the state.

Well, this is why. Over the years, parents have had so many decisions taken away from them by legislation and "official guidance" that they have lost their own instincts about what is right for their child. Experts also ponder why so many young people are directionless and incapable of sorting out their lives. Perhaps it is because they have never been allowed to stand on their own two feet and do anything for themselves.

I am ready for the critical comments from other mothers at the school gate, but woe betide anyone who reports me to the authorities. A couple of other children in Jack's class are also allowed to walk to school alone. But I can guess that many of the others simply aren't ready yet. And I can guess, too, that even when they are, their over-protective parents will still ferry them in the car.

My heart sinks when I see the mums and dads parking up outside our local comprehensive, the same school I went to all those years ago. At 11 upwards, aren't these children old enough to make their own way home? I hadn't got a choice. My dad didn't own a car until I was 19, so it was walk or catch the bus. And I can't recall a single classmate who did any different.

I'd been doing it since I was primary school, anyway. I still remember the freedom I felt at eight myself, wandering home in my own world, collecting leaves and twigs, pretending I was a Blue Peter presenter. A world away from walking up the cobbled back street in my duffel coat, trailing my school-bag in the mud, but in my head it was real. That sense of space, away from parents and teachers, observing and exploring your own environment, is vital for a child.

And honestly – and statistically – I don't believe it is any more dangerous now for Jack than it was for me. There wasn't as much traffic on the roads, sure. But I was no more or less likely to get abducted by a stranger than children are today. As for bullying and other kids threatening him, well, there was plenty of that where I went to school, and I know for a fact that Jack is a lot more streetwise than I was at eight.

The point is, our kids need to be even more streetwise than we than we were. Their interests and hobbies take them ever further afield, their friends don't live down the street but at a scattered distance and, generally, their world is a lot bigger than ours was. Surely the last thing a parent wants is a child too afraid to explore it. We have to let them go, and find their own way. That one small step for Jack on Tuesday morning was a giant leap into his future.