I'm with you on this one as I posted to Nicholas...

When my daughter turned 13 I was, *finally* according to my daughter, allowing her and a friend to walk around the mall together while I waited for them at the mall. They had to walk by me every 30 minutes or else. They were not dropped off by me to roam at the mall by themselves until they were 14. If I had a son, I may look at it differently, but I'm not sure. I'm too aware of the kidnapping of teens here in the U.S. for the underground sex slave market (over 100,000) to have risked it.

>Yes, I know, but weighing the two evils of that vs what might happen to her in a place like Toronto, I'd opt for the first. I know that 12 is the new 15, but I guess I'm too much of a worrier.
>
>>BTW if you didn't allow your 12 year old (if you had one) out shopping on her own sometimes you would go quietly mad waiting in shops full of glittery bits of material and cheap jewellery. "leisure shopping"
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>>>I am, of course, not familiar with it, and you're likely right, but I'd sure as shootin' make the attempt.
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>>>>Boots is a national chain. In some towns if you needed to buy medical supplies you might have no choice.
>>>>
>>>>>>Try it before you buy it, but she didn't have the money to buy it. It was a heavy-handed response, but she was still wrong. Plus, 12 years old and out on her own? Is that normal?
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>>>>>>http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/news/article-1035897/Nailed-Security-guard-police-officers-interrogated-grammar-girl-painted-fingernail-Boots.html
>>>>>
>>>>>If I had a 12 year old daughter, no, she would not be out shopping by herself. Maybe things are different over there. She was in the wrong, but my lord, three cops and a security guard? Talk about "over the top". Dangerous criminals don't get that sort of coverage. If I lived there, I too would stop shopping at 'Boots'.
>>>>>
>>>>>I don't understand sometimes what goes through people's heads. We had a couple of incidents up here. A waitress was fired from her job at a restaurant because she had her head shaved in a cancer fund raiser. The publicity did the restaurant no good at all. She also had a part time job at a garden centre where she was subsequently offered more work by her boss there to help her cover her loss of salary. Now that is a boss that gets it.
>>>>>
>>>>>At a Tim Hortons here, a counter clerk (single mother no less) was fired for giving a timbit (the fried dough from the donut hole) to a 1 year old tot. The mother of the baby was a regular in the donut shop, and was apparently having a bad day. The baby was fussy, and the timbit quieted her. The manager called it theft and fired her. Guess how that went over. That was the second stupid incident for a Tim Hortons franchise. And man, did the franchisers do some scrambling after word got out! She was re-hired at a different location the next day. Rather than fire her, the manager should have given her a pat on the back for increasing customer satisfaction at the store. What a bozo.