My DGD 13, is going with me to Paris this summer for a month. We have been discussing how much freedom to give her. She and I have been traveling together every since she was 2 1/2. One or two Disney trips every year plus trips to San Francisco, Hawaii. She is a pro in airports and has flown by herself with an airline escort. At 11 she went back to our Beach Club resort from EP to retrieve something. She did well. She stays with me in parks because we are there to be together! And she helps me with navigation... After going to SF twice with me and staying in an AirB&B a block from her beloved Aunt and Uncle's, she begged to go alone. She told her parents she knew the way to their apartment and "the grocery store is right across the street from the B&B. She was eight - and of course she was denied!
This fall she will be flying in to MCO alone because of school schedules and coming to MK to join me and her uncle's family. She wanted to use Uber but in the end we decided to have her met at baggage claim by the limo we use sometimes and brought to the Contemporary where she will drop her bags and take the monorail , which she loves, to the park for the
MNSSHP. She is 5'6 and self assured. I will meet her at the entrance and go in with her. I told her I would meet her at the Contemporary but she insisted that would be "silly".
I think it is all in the familiarity a child has with her surroundings. I am always so stunned by the restraints put on kids nowadays. My husband and I often talk about taking off on our bikes as kids for the whole day with a bagged lunch and no cell phone. Japanese kids ride the train to school alone at age 7! She and I always use safe words when we travel so she wouldn't go with someone who didn't know the word - and she knows to ask pregnant or mothers with children or staff if she needs help and gets separated from me.