1 child families + holidays + I don’t want to watch your kids

We have an only child and we just hover when she finds a new friend. I don’t expect someone else to watch my child for me. I would have no problem with a child wandering over to us and playing away from their parents, I’m keeping an eye out for my own anyway and I want DD to have fun. But it is reasonable for parents to keep an eye on their own kids too. I would expect the other parents to have eyes on their own children given they don’t know us from Adam and have no idea what our child is actually like.

Echoing pp point, I find quite a few kids want our attention rather than DD’s, I’ve been followed around softplay by kids before. People should look after their own kids but I would be fine with another kid joining mine, I don’t mind keeping an eye out because I’m there anyway but I would be put out if I felt someone had passed over responsibility to me for their kid (I’m talking small kids, an 8yr old is perfectly capable of getting back to their own parents when we leave).

I am always the parent watching all children but I don't mind since I don't trust a parent I don't know to watch mine.. would you feel confortable rolling over sunbarhing when your kids are playing near the water? I don't think so. So no big deal really? You are not responsible for the other child btw, but if he's playing with your's what's the difference ?

but you can watch your own kids without watching all the rest of the kids at the pool too right ?
But yes i understand that in a pool with young kids this is difficult. Mine are mostly playing football and hide&seek together so that’s different. We just don’t take a tag along swimming.

I’ve come across this on the other side; we took DD on holiday as an only child and we’d be playing with her a lot because she didn’t have anyone else then another child joins in and somehow we’re looking after that friend too while the parents focus on their other child. Lovely and all but when you’re doing things like carrying your child around the pool and that other child wants you to do it for them to it’s quite awkward. Sometimes it felt like that child wanted to play with us as adults more than DD just because we were actively playing.

I have an only child, very much not by choice. My ds will sometimes find a friend to play with but I'd never just leave them to it, I always watch them.

Could you introduce yourself to the parent? This should might make it harder for them to leave you to it.

Because she wants to watch her own children in case they get into difficulties in the pool? But the other parent has thought “oh great, she’s watching the kids, so I can roll over/have a nap/not watch my own kid because she’s watching him”

I only have one child and it's hard when they are on there own but if they do find 'friends' I'd never turn over and read a book if anything I'd give the other parent a break and watch them all and join in the fun in the pool!

No matter if you have one or four your child your responsibility. Some people just take the piss !

Why do you watch them? I am with 4 kids at a campsite right now and there is an 8 year old boy tagging along with ours, just as you described .. but i’m not watching him at all. I expect his parents to do that.
And we don’t take him to the beach, we just send him home when we go. I really like it that the kids make new friends on campsites… if you don’t want that then visit a small b&b.

I was an only child myself and i was very lonely. I wish my parents made efforts to get me in contact with other kids on campsites. Tossing a ball accidentally the wrong way sounds lovely to me. And ofcourse when an 8 year old is playing you go back to your sunbed. What do you expect the parent to do?

Yanbu, you can see it happening in the pool; the parent throws the ball over to their child ‘accidentally’ to where DH is playing with our DC. It was ten times worse when we went on a large family holiday last year. One actually said, it’s nice for me to get a break as I’m a single parent, FFS