If your 10 yr old was playing in a friend's garden...

[Knitwit99]

..and he injured himself roller skating down a slide, would you be annoyed with your child or the friend's parent?

Ds had a friend in the garden today, friend has been round loads of times before. They're 9 and 10 so not toddlers by any means. They found a pair of roller skates, the kiddy ones that go over your shoes, I don't know how he squeezed his feet into them. I just happened to look out the window and see his friend standing at the top of the slide about to roller skate down it. It is quite a high slide, it's an old one, been in our garden for years, but it's on grass which is pretty soggy.

So purely hypothetical, no-one fell off, but if I hadn't spotted him and he had skated down the slide, fallen off and broken his arm would you have been annoyed with me for not supervising closely or annoyed with your son for being silly?

Oh and they also had a rope tied round the top of the climbing frame thing attached to the slide so they could skate back up too. For added danger.

I think I would be annoyed with my son, at 10 he should have known better. Curious to know what others would think? I've put the skates away, they're too small really now anyway, so this particular dangerous activity can't happen again.

When we had our garden done and a climbing frame put up we were told to ensure we had legal cover on our home insurance for incidents.
I wouldn't supervise children in my garden unless toddlers. I am in the kitchen and check now and then, my neighbours are the same.

I would not expect a ten year old to be supervised.
This is exactly the sort of boundary testing they need to consider. I’d tell them that they had made a really really stupid decision and to be more sensible in future.
Children don’t learn to make better choices if you take all their opportunities to be stupid away.

I don't think I'd blame any one persom.

If there's something that's potentially a hazard like that slide, I'd keep an eye on them and probably stay in the garden as it's always a greater responsibility with someone else's kids. But my dd is 9 and has ASD so it's hard to judge. She could definitely come up with a crazy idea and carry it out if others went along!

@Shitfuckcommaetc

The rope for added danger made me chuckle!

At their ages I wouldn't expect a parent to be watching them!

Same

Surprised at responses.

If I had a ten year old at my house I would certainly be keeping an eye.

10 year olds go to the park alone, walk to school alone, go to the shops alone.

I wouldn't supervise at that age.

It’s just kids playing. I am always impressed with the more agile who can do this stuff. Mine know their limitations but there has still been crazy stuff with trampolines.

I don’t supervise ten year olds, I don’t supervise a good few years younger. I expect them but to be too daft and you don’t get repeat invites if you are a fool.

The child, unless they had special needs and I had left them in the care of an adult who knew they required supervision.

It's so long since we've had kids in the garden I think I've forgotten what to do!
It doesn't feel like it comes very naturally to me any more to be around other people. We've only seen a handful of people in the past year or so, we used to have this wee lad round all the time so I know him quite well but it's been a few months since he's been round playing.

I have to say that it sounds like the kind of brilliant afternoon I still remember from being a child.

Playing with other kids away from adults, making up our own games, including:

Jumping off the granary steps at the farm onto the concrete stack yard floor (as a child, an aunt badly broke her leg doing exactly the same and always walked with a limp, having been sworn to secrecy by her siblings and cousins).

Jumping out of a landing window, over the mounting block outside onto a friend's drive (broken ankle - not mine).

Climbing trees and hoisting smaller siblings up into trees to throw sticks at other gangs (various scrapes, cuts and bruises).

Olympic tumbling on an old mattress we found (black eye and nose bleed - two separate people attempting a synchronised routine).

Crashing into a tree trunk when I was too scared to let go of a rope swing in case I drowned in the river (bruising all down one side from elbow to knee).

I could go on. Fabulous fun, and we viewed the near death experiences as hazards of the game...

I would not expect ten year olds to be closely supervised and none of the items they were using were in themselves hazardous for that age range - just creatively combined for maximum peril...

I certainly wouldn't blame the parent and would probably tell the child it serves him right for being an idiot

I expect both my children (nearly 8 and 9yo, Yr3&5 in England) to play unsupervised, or loosely supervised. They go to the playpark alone for example.
I also accept they might do something idiotic and/or injure themselves.
I wouldn't blame another parent if they have an accident, unless the parent/carer was actively involved in encouraging something stupid.

I broke my arm at 10yo doing something stupid. My dad was loosely supervising my brother and I. It was definitely mine and my brother's fault.
My elder DD broke her arm at four doing something stupid. (Jumping off a garden chair). Too young to know better, I had turned my back for a minute, dealing with DD2, the normally unpredictable one. You could argue that was my fault. But 10yos... No.

No, I wouldn’t expect more than an adult on hand to provide food, first aid and help with any arguments the kids couldn’t resolve by themselves at 10yo.

With one exception - I would closely supervise a trampoline. One at a time and no tumbling. It’s just too much of a force multiplier, a broken bone from a trampoline is likely to be much more serious because there’s so much more force behind it.