Your street

“Go to a neighbour” is only a plan if there is a name attached. Most kids, asked, can’t give one.

The gap

Every home-alone plan has the line if you’re locked out, go to a neighbour. Ask your kid which neighbour. Then ask whether that person is home at half past three on a Tuesday, whether your kid has ever spoken to them, and whether the neighbour knows the arrangement. Usually the answer to at least one of those is no, and the plan is a sentence.

The course teaches the kid never to wait on the step and to go to the agreed backup. The backup has to exist. This lesson is how to make it exist.

It is also the plan for the smaller things. A kid who feels Twitchy about somebody on the street, or who arrives home to a door that is already open, needs somewhere to go that isn’t the house, and it is the same door.

Finding out who is there

Walk the street with your kid on a weekday afternoon, at the time they will be coming home. Notice who is in: the retired couple, the parent with a baby, the person who works from home, the shop with a person behind the counter. Notice the places that are open — the library, the café, the community centre — and what time they close.

You are looking for two or three people who are reliably there in the afternoon and a place with a door that is open. A friend’s house two streets away that is empty until six is not a backup; it is a longer walk to a locked door.

Asking

It is a small ask, and almost everybody says yes. My kid is starting to come home on their own. If they were ever locked out or something was wrong, could they knock on your door? Say what you are asking for: a place to wait and a phone call to you. Not childcare. Bring the kid, so the neighbour has a face to go with the name and the kid has a door they have already stood at.

Give the neighbour your number. Ask for theirs. Ask when they are usually in. Write it down on the spot; you will not remember later.

Which places count

A person who is there. A place that is open. Somewhere the kid can walk to without crossing anything they wouldn’t cross on their own. A shop counts if the kid knows to go to the person at the till and say I’m locked out, can I call my mum. A library counts. A house with a car in the drive that might or might not be home does not.

Have the kid practise the sentence for the shop. It is the same shape as the phone sentence: who you are, what you need, first line says the thing. Say it in the shop once, with the person at the till, so it has been said to a real face.

Walk it together

The course has the kid build a route with the safe places marked on it, then walk it with a parent and point out every one. Do that walk. Have them do the pointing. On the day the key is lost, they will not be consulting a map; they will be walking to the door they remember standing at with you.

Time the route while you are at it, so you both know how long it takes and a late arrival means something.

Keeping it current

People move. The café changes its hours. The retired couple go away for the winter. Look at the list at the start of each term, and walk the street again once a year. A neighbour list that is two years old is a list of people who used to live there.

When a neighbour moves away, tell the kid, and cross the name off in front of them. The list on the fridge should always be the one they are actually walking to.