It's pretty much the same in Denmark, at least if you live in a small town.<p>Our youngest has walked to the bus every morning since starting school at age 7. Granted, it's only a 800 meter walk, but still it's a good 10-15 minutes when your legs are short :)<p>After school, we might get a text message saying "i'm over at xxx's house", or we might not, but alarms usually don't start going off until 1-2 hours after expected arrival, at which point we may call the "usual suspects" to inquire if our child is there, and since pretty much everybody else around here does the same, there's no "shaming", as they might be the ones calling tomorrow :)<p>Being able to actually track the kids down was a major factor in them getting a phone. Our oldest didn't get a phone until he was 12, and obviously we didn't get texts from him, so it was the "if he's not home in 2 hours, we'll start calling around". These days, with the youngest, we can mostly just look at the "Find" app and see where he is. As for the oldest, he has turned off location tracking, but happily shares his location on Snapchat, so same same but different :D<p>It is a bit more strict than when i was a kid, but not far from it. When i grew up, i had a key for the house, and i could let my self in after school, or go out again, with the expectation that i would leave a note on the kitchen table with my approximate whereabouts. My parents both worked, and wouldn't be home until around dinner. It was the same for everybody else, so we just organized our own "play dates", and probably also got into more trouble that we would have if adults had been around, but hey, everybody made it out alive, and i believe we're stronger for it.