Our eldest is now 9 (nearly 10 as she keeps reminding us !) and is wanting to start venturing out on her own to the local shops we are luck where we are because the shop is about 5 minutes away with one road complete with green man crossing, but that doesnt stop me for panicking every time she goes out of the door, but my head says that I need to start giving her a bit of freedom.
So before she goes out we always make sure she gives us the rules to make sure she knows what to do, we also make sure that she has her mobile phone CHARGED !! and kept seperately from her bag, but most importantly we have entered ICE into her contact list along with my mobile number - I must admit that I only found out about this service a year or so ago ICE stands for In Case of Emergency and is the first port of call any emergency service will use for an emergency contact.
Now all I need to do is to appreciate that she is growing up into a wonderful independant young lady, but my heart always wins and shouts out "but shes my baby" :(