CFO Intelligence Magazine – Fall 2024
Matt Konwiser
ATL Leader andRegional CTO, IBM
The most significant upsides to a “yes” are that the child gets adult-like responsibilities and the parents have more flexibility and freedom in their schedule. The most significant risk to a “yes” is that the child could get lost or abducted.
No parent would ever think those risks would outweigh the upsides yet countless kids walk to school by themselves every day. Why?
Parents have decided that the likelihood of the worst risks occurring is so minimal, and the needs/upsides are strong enough, to justify allowing it. I doubt though, any parents took this lightly, and many probably held out as long as they could before permitting it.
There’s emotional distress of the parent, upgrades needed to the house, technology which needs to be purchased for the child, forms to be completed with the school, reinforcement training of the child to make sure they know about “stranger danger”, memorized the route, the parents’ phone numbers, the emergency backup phone numbers, the address of their house and school, and understand the repercussions of forgetting their technology, backpack, or anything else essential for the walk and their school day.