Think again, the toddler and his friend are lucky to escape without injury. We were confronted with hoards of parents sitting at benches chatting to eat other whilst their teenagers and 'older infants' literally terrorised the toddlers. At one point, I looked at my boy smiling innocently enough, then I looked up above him. To my absolute horror there was a child sliding across the roof of the baby slide which is probably at least 8 ft up. I looked around; all I could see was a woman looking at this in a really non-chalant manner. What does one do? As much as toddler boy would like to see the air ambulance, I don't think he would like to experience a ride in it in agony after he is flattened. I could feel my bad mood building. I wasn’t the only one, one mum I spoke to was also getting most annoyed.
We tried the swings, I decided that the toddler slide and climbing frames were far too dangerous with the big kids abusing them. This was traumatic as well, the toddler was happy enough, however, one family thought that it was an acceptable game to let their young teenager ride his scooter behind toddler boy in the few seconds when he was closer to me, than them. I pondered who might come off worse and hoped it was the teenager. Then, a family with yet another young teenager appeared next to us. Apparently, it was acceptable to let the teenager stand on a swing and lean about on it whilst their little one had a go on another swing. Not good, and bad manners when there is a queue of toddlers patiently waiting.
Being British, I restrained myself from saying anything. I just silently fumed. We left early. Funnily enough, as we strolled around the park I saw lots of slightly disappointed toddlers and a lot of parents with strained looks. Summer in the city can be difficult.
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We went to the library story time this morning and even had it there (on a smaller scale) sll the Mum's bringing their 0-4 to listen to a story but the siblings come too!!!!
I've been todl when I take me two to preschool classes like Jo Jingles you go to the class for the older child, shame the message hasn't got round to the parks and librarys
You did better than me - I have a rather un-British tendency to take people to task over things like this, especially when Toddlergirl is involved
Shame that the bigger children were ruining it for the small people - hopefully they'll all be imprisoned in school soon and your boy can reclaim his playground
Boy, being American I would have handled the situation differently, which my husband (who is British) is always so embarrassed to wittiness.
I have to agree with Bullajabbar...as an American I would have kicked those teenage asses. I've become very "Mama Bear" since having Little Miss. I hate it at our park when older kids are in the toddler area "LURKING". I think they use the climbing frames for their gang-bangs! It's shocking. Someone defaced one of the other swing-things at our park by emblazoning it with a giant penis in blue paint. How droll! Sometimes the park can be a real pain in my ass. Great post! ;)
Karin
We have this problem at our local parks too, however I like Muddling Along Mummy let it be known that it isn't acceptable. Maybe we should come with you next time ;o)
Arrgh i hate it when the big kids decided to take over the playground, especially when their parents are oblivious to it - only one more week to go though and they'll all be back to school :)
Try and chill out a bit you sound like you let things wind you up and make you in a bad mood quite easily. I used to be like this when I had toddlers due to lack of sleep, toddler bahavior etc. If i could go back and change anything it would be to try to take the attitude 'this too will pass' or 'it's only a problem if you make it a problem' I would have been much happier had I been able to not let things bother me. When your kids are older you don't watch them all the time but you hope that you have taught them enough that they are considerate of other people, but often they are not - I know mine but would not purposely do anthing to hurt another child, they just dont think like adults as they are not adults. They also need to learn by their mistakes and being 8 ft up is not that high as play areas have safety surface.
They tend to hog everything round here. There are only 4 non toddler swings and the other day my 5yo wanted to swing and couldn't as the teens were there drinking!! I tend to make myself heard very loudly and glare a lot.
But to make you laugh at their stupidness we were at the park one day and a lad decided to go down the slide on his bike!! He must've been about eighteen so you'd thought he'd have more to do! He came down the slide and caught his family parts on the bike as he came down the slide. We laughed so much there were tears!!
I am with you on that one. I hate toddler playground during holidays. I hate these parents who don't try to restrain their kids from injuring or squashing little people and I hate the stress that comes with it.
Just recently we were in one of these play centers that has a bouncy castle. Out of holidays it is brilliant because it is perfect for E's age. The last time we went there was 2 older girls in there bouncing like loonies. the girls were having fun and I am not blaming them at all. They were just 2 young girls having fun, BUT there were children half their size and age all around them including my boy. I couldn't help but telling them to either come down or get out because they were sharing the space. All these other mums looked at me mouthing thank yous and the actual mum of the girls gave me the evil before returning to her closer magazine!!! arghh!!
I'm British and I have no problem with speaking to older kids. I tend to start with things like:
"Hey, this is actually for little kids and I know you're big enough to do that, but I don't want any little ones to try and copy you."
Then I move on to:
"Seriously, this is for little kids. You need to not do that."
After that I start nicking footballs and physically taking bikes away and putting them outside the playground.
I expect one day I'll get stabbed, but I just can't help myself.
I used to think like this when I only had one little one. Now I have a 9, 6 and 3 year old it is hard to find things to do where all of them are happy at the same time. The park is one of the main activities for us in the holidays.
I try to keep my eye on all the kids, but as Jennysnail says, "you hope that you have taught them enough that they are considerate of other people, but often they are not - I know mine but would not purposely do anthing to hurt another child, they just dont think like adults as they are not adults." If I see them behave inappropriately I will of course pull them up on it.
Most of our holiday has passed without incident and I sometimes see Toddlers behave appaulingly and parents completely ignore their behaviour just beacause they are little. I even had a woman manhandle my then 8 year old off a slide at a playcentre last year when he told her 3 year old (politely I might add) that it was rude to push in and the toddler started to cry. My son never touched him, she just assumed it was his fault because he was bigger. Playground politics can be nasty, I find it is usually best to let the kids work it out for themselves as long as no one is getting hurt.
I hate popular parks, I always itch to slap other people, mostly the parents!
I have to admit I scared myself at a waterpark in the summer. Some bigger boys were messing around and my youngest got kicked straight in the throat by one of them. She couldn't breathe, was terrified, her sisters were terrified, her Dad was livid, they just pretended it didn't happen, so I, in my meek mild and ladylike way shouted at him and insisted he apologised to her, told him (a a relatively high volume) that he was an idiot and then Darling Husband told them to get out of his sight before he took the lot of them to the door and threw them out.
Gosh...how fast these young men can move!
I hate it when the park's like that and the boy (who's 5) doesn't have a problem with playing around with older kids. Still, there's a difference between 8 year olds playing recklessly and teenagers being in the park full stop.
Great post. How do you control your anger? I just seem not to be able to do that. The other day I was shouting 'stop it' at a teenage boy who was hitting a boy half his size. The chain-smoking parents looked up and stared at me in disbelieve, especially as the offender offered to hit me in return, if he let go of the little fellow, and I proclaimed I wasn't a tad bit afraid of him (clutching the handles of the push chair, sweaty hands and heart pumping at 600bpm).
Considering the neighbourhood we live in, I wouldn't be surprised if I found a knife in my back any time soon.
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