playground -- what would you have done

[Chrisada]

I hate hate hate when the big kids take over the play structures. This happened to use a few days ago and they were cursing and threatening to beat each other up. The parents were actually around somewhere, but were probably at the baseball games going on. I've had to tell kids to stop the cursing at the playground. I don't give a shit if your mom lets you curse at home... and you're 10. Ugh.

[alison]

I hate hate hate when the big kids take over the play structures. This happened to use a few days ago and they were cursing and threatening to beat each other up. The parents were actually around somewhere, but were probably at the baseball games going on. I've had to tell kids to stop the cursing at the playground. I don't give a shit if your mom lets you curse at home... and you're 10. Ugh.

But you know what? I think that you can use those moments to show your kids what not to do.
I think my goal is to just not draw attention to swearing. My husband has a potty mouth, and he's told me to get after him EVERY TIME he swears. Dd's at an age where she repeats everything! She picked up "Shut Up!" at the playground and uses it to express how happy she is when she's pushed in the swings. Uh-oh.

[Chrisada]

But you know what? I think that you can use those moments to show your kids what not to do.
I think my goal is to just not draw attention to swearing. My husband has a potty mouth, and he's told me to get after him EVERY TIME he swears. Dd's at an age where she repeats everything! She picked up "Shut Up!" at the playground and uses it to express how happy she is when she's pushed in the swings. Uh-oh.

Yelling the F word at each other loudly across the play structures and loudly threatening to fight each other is beyond a teachable moment for me when happening in front of my very young children. That's not acceptable behavior to me at a playground made for small kids. I have no problem telling them to cut it out and I'm not gonna be run off the playgound by some middle schoolers either. The total lack of common courtesy and respect among kids blows my mind.

[alison]

I agree, but if I've learned anything from this thread, it's that a confrontation really achieves nothing, whether it be with the child OR the parent. If the dad and I had gotten into a fight, then how are we better than the kids?

You can't foresee what another parent's parenting is like and what their expectations are for their kid.

I think sometimes you have to cut your losses, and as the adult, take the high road and just leave. Older kids are only there in the late afternoons, summers, or weekends. 9:30-10am is our sweet spot. Smaller kids!!!

[Chrisada]

I guess I respectfully disagree. I will not get in a fight with an adult or child. But if a child is acting inappropriate in front of my kids on a playground and their parents are not around I have no problem letting them know. BTW I should add I'm nice about it. As in "Hey I know you all are teenagers but come on, I have small kids here and that's just not ok language while they are here." Maybe it's the teacher in me. But the last time it happen it was actually another mother who went up to them and let them know the cursing was not appropriate for the playground. We live in a very very small community and I will not be run out of my neighborhood playground, and don't particularly think that would be taking the high road.

[DCJenn]

I think that's an appropriate response to older kids- who likely were just doing it to get a rise out of the adults anyway. We used to yell cursewords from the top of the monkey bars. Whooo boy was my mom HOT when she found out.

J.

[Vishenka69]

Just wanted to post a positive experience I had last week. There was a family with 5 kids, the youngest being a bit older than DD and the oldest a teenager. The middle three kids thought DD was cute and played with her for over an hour. I really wanted to tell the parents how great their kids are but they weren't in the immediate vicinity of the playground and I didn't want to go searching for them (thought it might be weird). Sometimes older kids aren't trouble and can play nicely with little ones.

[ides]

Sometimes older kids aren't trouble and can play nicely with little ones.

This is true. I just see it very rarely.

[GrayMatterWife]

What would you have done? Did I overreact with the boy? How do you handle situations like this?

-I probably would have said, "Excuse me!" in a really annoyed way, directly to the child, making eye contact, then immediately removing my child from the other child's presence. The other kid would have clearly gotten the message. No one likes to be detested to the point where other people do not want to be around you. And receiving that judgment from an adult would have been pretty stinging.

-Yes, you overreacted. The little kid knock your kid's visor off and was poorly mannered. You're still the adult and that kid was just looking for a reaction from someone. Telling him that he wasn't a friend in the first place (verbally belittling him) wasn't called for.

-If I had done what you did, and the father came over and demanded to talk with me, I would have stood my ground and said, "Excuse me. Your son just physically assaulted my daughter while you were yammering on the phone. You are lucky that all he got was a talking-to" and then left. In fact, the act his kid committed constituted civil assault and he's lucky that your daughter didn't react by pushing him, scratching him, or worse. Then I would have left--IMMEDIATELY. I mean, right away, even if he was yelling and seeking to engage me. I would still have been in the wrong for belittling his son, and there would be no point in further escalating things.

-But, all this said, GIVE YOURSELF A BREAK!! This is important!! So, you overreacted? At least you weren't ignoring DD while yapping on the phone! It is so hard to see your child be hurt or mistreated or discouraged. Your maternal instinct is completely understandable. We have ALL done things that we later regretted or wish we'd played a different way in the name of protecting our chickies...

[Chrisada]

Oh goodness, we had a rogue three-year-old, maybe even two- yr. old at the playground today. For a solid 40 minutes I never saw his mother and this kid is throwing wood chips at everyone, cursing, and hitting all the kids. I mean throwing punches. Finally another mother and I asked him to take us to his mother and he refused. I walked over to the baseball game and asked who had a three-yr-old. I found her, told her her kid was terrorizing the playground and handed her the kid. Unbelievable.

[diggitydot]

Seriously, WTF is wrong with people that you let your fucking toddler play alone sans anything resembling supervision for almost an hour? Asshole raising an asshole.

[PrincessFiona]

Not a fan of unsupervised little ones.

My personal unsupervised kid rant is that two of our neighbors let their 5 year olds run everywhere in the neighborhood. Zoe is restricted to inside of our house unless I can go out with her. As a consequence, the two girls now sort of terrorize her by coming by, ringing the bell, walking across the road where they know she can't go and then waving at her. Have I mentioned lately that I want to live in a bubble? The result is that I've started taking Zoe to KidStop where she can play with other girls her age and be supervised. Today I got the house cleaned, she played at KidStop and all was well. This evening? The doorbell rang and one of the girls came over. When Zoe wasn't allowed to run out to the pond, she ran off to the other girls' house while my daughter cried big buckets of tears.

Last week, Zoe snuck out for 5 min with this particular girl who tried to get her to SWIM in our pond. Zoe said "My mom told me there are sharks in the pond!" ( guilty ) The girls were laughing and saying there were NO sharks when I showed up. I told them all that there WERE sharks and that they would all be eaten if they put their toes in the water.

Why can't people supervise their children appropriately? I'm sorry. Five year old should be supervised. I'm not talking about reading a magazine while the kids play at the park or whatever ... I'm talking about 5 year olds running around for the entire day without the parents having an f*ing clue what they are doing...and whose house they are messing up...cough.

Kris

[diggitydot]

When we lived in AZ there were toddlers playing outside alone all day long in 100F+ heat. We had kids knocking on our door asking for food because "mommy was sleeping" and couldn't hear them banging on the locked door of their own home.

I'm totally cool with kids playing in the neighborhood. Our three stooges (ages 15, 11, and 9) are currently outside with the dozen other kids in our cul-de-sac impatiently waiting for lightning bugs to make their appearance. I'm OK with them playing with their friends. We know where they are and they're all required to ask permission before going into someone's house. Toddlers sans supervision for hours on end? No dice.

[DCJenn]

WTF? Little kids need supervision, period. My colleague today told me that she had an older brother who died when he was three because he snuck out of the apartment and jumped into the community swimming pool and drowned. Stuff like that happens All. The. Time.

There aren't any kids on our street and the closest kids are one street over. I'm totally fine w/ him walking over there or riding his bike (because I can see their back yards from my back yard) but dude doesn't feel comfortable going by himself (which is totally OK by me). Any further than that involves crossing major thoroughfares and no dice there.

Jenn

[Chrisada]

I get nervous with my very mature four-year-old in our small gated backyard. I'm constantly checking oh him. I don't effing get it.