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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

to feel intimidated at two seperate childrens parks in one day!

32 replies

LowFatMilkshake · 16/04/2007 21:04

I took DD(3) and DS(4mnth) out for a walk today and decided to do a tour of the local parks. After stoppng in town to get DD a drink and some long promised jelly beans we went to a small park near the river.

As we approached we were watched by two late-teenage girls in jeans and flimsy nest tops and two younget teenages in just t'shirts who had obviously been paddling in the river, all of them were playing on the equipment (bearing in mind the slide has all of 4 steps). I immeidatley felt uncomfortable and would have left it had not been for the fact DD was in the little play area.

Luckily there was a respectable looking lady sitting on the bench watching her two girls play and she made room for me and we struck up a conversation with me. The older girls left for a while and the lady told me she thought they were travlellers. Behind the park there is a picnic area with a couple of benches and she gestured towards this as it was full of people drinking for beer cans and swearing.

Our 3 daughters were playing nicely on the 4 pcs of play equipment - it's silly little park with modern designed play stuff half of which seems quite pointless. Then the older girls came back and were staring at us again and spitting, so the lady asked if I would be alright if she left and I said we would go as well. We parted as soon as we were out of the girls site.

I was really cross as the park is meant for young children yet these girls were intimidating to both me and the other mum and were generally making it hard for our little ones to play by going on the equipment, which they were much to big for.

Then I went to another park on the way home which was full of boys hitting each other with sticks and calling each other foul names. DD played on the roundabout and swings for a while, but then wanted to go on the slide.

I was fuming when one of the boys - about 10, grabbed her shoulder and hold her back so he could go first, then another climbed up the side of the steps to get ahead of her, clipping her head with his shoe as he did so. He then sat at the bottom legs facing upwards so she would shunt in to them when she went down. I asked him to move which he did, and DD seemed unpahsed and carried on playing while one of the boys older sisters - only about 12, rode round the slide on her mountain bike telling them to leave DD alnoe and not push in.

Another lady at she swings said to me how brave DD was to try the slide with 4 or 5 older boys generally crawling all over it. At one point one even stood at the bottom and hit the rest with a stick as they come down. Not that he did it to DD, but I would not have been surpirsed if he had.

Unlike the first park I dont mind these boys playing there, they're nearly always at this park, and they're not teenagers they're just letting off steam I gues after first day back to school. But normaly there is an adult with them so they behave, but today I felt like DD was under real threat and if we had stayed any longer I am sure she would have been pushed down the slide or something.

Am I just a wimp when it comes to potentially confrontational situations.

OP posts:

yellowrose · 19/04/2007 14:24

ellen that is awful, i started a thread a while back about several palyground i have been to recently in cambridge and in north london, one in a very nice part of london now regularly has broken glass all over it, the little house on top of the swing had been burnt out (newspaper set alight and thrown in over night obvioulsy, there was bits of burnt newspaper every where) the bottles where alcopop sort of thing, i gave up going there because had to spend first 10 mins. clearing the ground of broken glass and then still worrying that ds would cut himself on a piece i had missed. disgusting behaviour.

ellenjames · 19/04/2007 14:01

What i love about going to my local park is the broken glass, fag ends, food and food wrappers and shredded beer cans. It's even better when ur kids are trying to play and there is a bunch of people drinking swearing etc and giving ur kids the evils as if they are annoying them! must admit i dont say anything just leave as its not worth the risk to myself or kids. I rem going to a park when i was younger and my mum having to take me and bro out because of used syringes!

Original poster

LowFatMilkshake · 18/04/2007 20:27

Westerngirl I was terrified for you reading that - I would never go out again if that was me. Like you I always fear the worst for my chldrens safety. I was at my worst like this when PG as I think your senses and your emotions are heightened.

Dh works early shifts and after he had gone I would lie in bed listeneing for any odd noise and planing how to get DD out of bed and into a room I could defend her in.

As it goes teenagers swearing althogh not nice doesnt bother me half as much as provoking behaviour, which is what I really think the girl were out to do. I dont know if they were travellers or not, that was the other ladies assumption. But we live in a small town and they were definatley not people I have seen before. I do wonder if thier behaviour would have been half as bad if they had not had the back up of the drunken adults behind them??

OP posts:

beckybrastraps · 18/04/2007 17:57

It isn't nice to hear, but many teenagers just do it without thinking (as indeed do their parents). I used to teach a boy who could not complete a sentence (or what passed for one) without swearing. He would be absolutely lost for words when making a conscious effort not to swear. Which he would do when reminded. Now that is sad, but it doesn't make him bad. He was actually rather lovely.

SachaF · 18/04/2007 17:52

LFM, you are definately not a wimp for not confronting them. Being an ex teacher I would probably have said something but then dh thinks I am too confrontational and I should just leave! You do what YOU feel comfortable with and I will probably feel different in the future when I take ds to parks and I will probably play it safe now it is not just me to think about.

yellowrose · 18/04/2007 17:50

good point pointy about asking - i am not a wimp but with so many recent stabbings/shootings coming from very young people, i get scared because ds is very small and i just fear for him more than anything

pointydog · 18/04/2007 17:45

this has happened to me two or three times and I asked the teenagers to stop in fron of the little kids (not in a telling-off voice) and they understood and stopped swearing.

I know it wouldn't always work and can be dependent on how they are asked but generally I don;t think we should be so fearful of teenagers. ALways worth a calm polite request. Unless they are drunk

southeastastra · 18/04/2007 17:43

we have parks like this. the council have put up cctv and have community police patroling it (sometimes!)

it may be worth contacting your council to see what changes it can do to the park. we're getting park rangers soon. but yet to see what powers they'll have.

yellowrose · 18/04/2007 17:40

would you like it if a whole load of teenagers said f* c* every other words in front of your 3 year old ? sorry, i just don't find it acceptable. of course swearing isn't as bad as being physically agressive, but it is still not nice to hear.

pointydog · 18/04/2007 17:38

I can understand lowfat feeling intimidated but when you break it down it sounds like the teenagers were swaering, spitting, mucking about being loud.

Maybe I've missed bits of this thread but those things aren't really that bad

yellowrose · 18/04/2007 17:35

i know pointy, i was a teenager from hell, argued and disputed my parents all the time, sulked around the house, that is normal, i am talking about ANTI-SOCIAL behaviour, trashing public places and annoying members of the public who are out to have a bit of fun is not on, i would NOT tolerate such behaviour from my own kids

i have friends who have very very nice teenagers, you can see the difference bewteen them and some of the ones you meet on the street

pointydog · 18/04/2007 17:22

teenagers need a bit of slack.

Most of us'll have teenagers sooner or later so it's worth trying to understand them a little better

yellowrose · 18/04/2007 17:08

yes if the adults are a PITA then no wonder they are producing a generation of PITA's

yellowrose · 18/04/2007 17:07

pointy - except i am not a PITA nor is my 3 year old - we are both extremely well-behaved, don't trash playgrounds, flick fag ends around and say f* every other word, etc

we have been intimidated to the extent that we have had to leave local restaurants and parks and i live in cambridgeshire, not exactly the roughest part of the UK !

i totally understand what LowFat is saying

pointydog · 18/04/2007 17:01

I think some adults fear teenagers too much.

Most adults are a PITA too

yellowrose · 18/04/2007 16:57

most teenagers that i meet out and about these days are a PITA - any where and every where - blame the parents, not the kids.

westerngirl · 18/04/2007 16:37

Hi lfm.

You are most certainly not a wimp, but conscious of the potential dangers around you. You are even more vulnerable when minding young children as you cannot run and your first instinct is to make sure your little ones are ok.

I was assaulted outside Battersea Park around Easter. I has spent a lovely day with my 4 year old son and was leaving to catch a train. The area was a bit 'urban decay' but there were a few joggers going past. I passed a group of teenagers (boys AND girls). They were shouting, but I did not think it was at me. When I had passed them, one of the boys came running after me and smashed something down on my head with force. I was shocked, but when I turned he ran away to join the other of the 'gang' who when sauntered off. There wasn't anyone around to help and I was terrified for my boy. Thoughts like 'If anything had happened to me and my bag was snatched there would be no id for him. Also he would be vulnerable to being snatched. He could even have been attached by these guys.

Am inclined to not 'stand my ground' but rapidly leave situations where I am a sitting duck in future.

I know your situation was uncomfortable and even a bit rough physically but glad nothing worse happened.

Original poster

LowFatMilkshake · 18/04/2007 08:59

Aefondkiss - I agree not all tweenagers are horrencous, there have been occassions we have been at the park and older children - normaly girls have asked to push DD on the swings and played catch with her.

I think when this happened it was 'just one of those days'.

We went back to the park yesterday and all was well!

OP posts:

Aefondkiss · 17/04/2007 21:35

mmm it doesn't sound very nice, think I would have left at the earliest opportunity, LFM, you did stand your ground even if it wasn't pleasant

I do want to show another side to tweenagers, my dd has been at the park here a few times through the hols and the shows were just beside the play area, my dd was up in the climbing frame/slide and there were older girls sitting in there, she started chatting to them and next time they saw her at the park they played with her again.

I think they were children(I am not good at ages but the oldest would have been 14) from the shows, they even invited dd over to go on the waltzers, they said they had money, they would pay, which I thought was sweet of them - dd is 5, and I am a wimp, I said no she was too young but thanks for asking her...

PosySimmonds · 17/04/2007 21:25

'thought they were travellers'

hana · 17/04/2007 21:23

maybe I'm foolish but I have no problem saying to teenagers, or tweenagers ' do you mind? the children are tyring to use the slide/swings/ etc etc it's never been a problem and they slink away to hang out somewhere else

powder28 · 17/04/2007 21:21

You should have asked them if they needed any contraception. That normally hacks them off even more, and slightly embarasses them.

saralou100 · 17/04/2007 21:13

no, not unreasonable at all

i took ds to our local park, normally lovely, but it was easter....... loved up teenagers, boy were we interupting! and didn't they let us know!!

actually irritated me so much i stayed an extra 10 mins whilst they all shot evils at me!!

luckylady74 · 17/04/2007 21:06

beered up family or friends is another matter entirely - i would head for the hills dragging my dh away from them!

Original poster

LowFatMilkshake · 16/04/2007 21:42

luckylady, I also like to sit on a swing now and then, but the teens at this park were not doing it for the enjoyment I can tell you. As soon as our little girls walked towards the seesaw them more or less leapt on it themselves laughing and spitting on the floor.

And what possible enjoyment could a 17/18/19 year old get off a 4ft slide??

I think these girls were all about intimidation, not bravado. They new we would not do or say a thing when they had back-up in the form of beered up friends or family sitting behind us!

The boys at the second park yes, very much bravado and a little bit Lord of the Flies - but the girls - too scary for me!

OP posts:

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