People who leave park and soft play gates open

[BusyCM]

Why do they do it? The gates are literally there to contain small children from wandering off. Yes we all watch our children, but it would be made easier and safer if people closed gates behind them.

I'm a childminder and have just spent the morning at a trampoline park, big ones were off jumping and I was playing with the little ones in the under 5s bit. I must have closed the gate 20 plus times! It wasn't even my children trying to get out but I was mindful that the main door, the cafe with hot drinks and the big steps to the trampolines were all close by and not suitable for unaccompanied wandering little ones.

Yes, and people who jump out of the way, smoothing the path for speedy absconding toddlers who are clearly being chased down by their parent.

To be fair to those people, that might just be an instinctive reaction to move out of the way.

It's people who have no conscious awareness of other people. They're the same ones who will stop dead in the middle of the pavement/a doorway/the tube barriers to tie a shoelace/look at a map. Also, the same people who get to the front of a queue at the shop/ATM/airport security completely unprepared for what's about to happen.

I agree people should close the gate but it’s on you if you’re relying on the gate being shut in lieu of having your eyes on the children in your charge at ALL times. In which case, the gate being open or closed should make no difference as you would be aware of where the child is regardless. If you have a child that would otherwise escape but for a gate being open then they are clearly not old enough to be unsupervised; and if they’re old enough to be unsupervised then they are not going to be running away just because of a gate being open as they can open it themselves and should be sensible enough to know to not leave. So your preoccupation with this suggests to me the potential for the wrong focus and that possibly you are leaving children unsupervised for periods of time thinking they’re ‘safe’ in a contained space when really it’s not the responsibility of the other parents to make that space what you expect it to be, you still shouldn’t be leaving kids that young unsupervised.

Ah sadly not. As I explained in my OP, I was with my children the whole time and they weren't trying to escape. I guess I'm just a stickler for rules I suppose, what's the point in having the gates if they aren't meant to be closed. None of the under 5s could have reached the latch, it was too high. Accidents can happen to anyone and the venue has probably conducted a risk assessments that says they use the gates for safety back up.