I think OP did include that: “Get stopped by the police or others, who might think they’re too young to be out on their own.”
I found that reading Lenore Skenazy is good for having a properly-calibrated kidnapping risk assessment but potentially extremely bad for having a properly-calibrated “being hassled by police / CPS / busybodies / etc.” risk assessment. Ironically, it’s the same dynamic: she reports every time it happens anywhere, so you just get this idea that everybody everywhere is hassling kids playing outside without adult supervision, independently of how frequently that actually happens. (I don’t know with what frequency it actually happens.) (I stopped reading her blog many years ago.)
I think OP did include that: “Get stopped by the police or others, who might think they’re too young to be out on their own.”
I found that reading Lenore Skenazy is good for having a properly-calibrated kidnapping risk assessment but potentially extremely bad for having a properly-calibrated “being hassled by police / CPS / busybodies / etc.” risk assessment. Ironically, it’s the same dynamic: she reports every time it happens anywhere, so you just get this idea that everybody everywhere is hassling kids playing outside without adult supervision, independently of how frequently that actually happens. (I don’t know with what frequency it actually happens.) (I stopped reading her blog many years ago.)