Last week Lily (7y) decided she wanted to start walking to school by herself. It's not very far, she knows the way, and if anything happens she has pretty good common sense. The main problem is cars: while we've been practicing crossing the street, she's not good enough at it do it completely on her own. We realized, though, that if she went a slightly longer way she would only need to cross two streets: one right by our house and another that has a crossing guard.

We went out and practiced: she walked the route with me staying well behind. When she got to the second crossing I pretended to be the crossing guard. She seemed ready to do it on her own.

The next morning, after getting herself ready, I walked her across the first street and then she set off on her own. I stayed, watching, in case she ran into issues. When she got to where the crossing guard should be, she turned around and came running back crying: "the crossing guard isn't there!" It turns out that the crossing guard was just around the corner, leaning on their car. Once Lily saw this, I turned around, and Lily took it from there.

The remaining mornings that week I continued hanging out and watching until I could see the crossing guard helping her across the street. She didn't have any more problems, and this week I'm no longer waiting.

She is quite proud of herself, and I'm glad she's able to be a bit more independent.

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