Adult telling 12 year olds to leave playground

[Wrenbird27]

This happened to my friends daughter. She was with her friends and an older man (~65ish) approached them and told them they were too old to be in the playground. He demanded that they leave before they broke equipment 'with their weight'. He was very persistent and a few of the girls were upset.

The playground was very quiet at the time - just a few other kids.

None of the parents of the 12 year olds were close by - a few of the girls phoned their Mums who arrived quickly but he was gone by then. He didn't have a child himself which the girls noted and thought was odd.

My friend says her daughter won't go there anymore. I think this is a pity as it was a safe area (I thought!) for them to hang out. If there had been more children in the playground they would have moved to the side but the girls said nobody was waiting to go on equipment. The equipment is very sturdy - I've seen adults sitting on swings in there before!

What should they have done?

It is so sad when our children have no parks/open spaces to just be children in. Our local park has equipment for toddlers and older children, all set amongst trees and with benches to sit on. I have spent many hours sitting there with my grandchildren and I love to see children of all ages playing, rather than sitting indoors all the time.

maybe he likes them younger and doesn't want older ones putting them off going

Our playparks are looked after by councillors and volunteers, most of whom are men over 65. We have spent thousands repairing vandalism, the culprits are generally 15/16.

i would guess this man was an over enthusiastic volunteer who is frustrated by seeing equipment broken.

i would suggest writing to the council responsible for the park and explaining what happened. They probably know the man and can have a quiet word.

@Gothamcity

Not all kids are like yours. Unfortunately.

i live in a nice area, but the preteen/young teens have nothing much to do, so they hang out at the park. Even the ones who aren't being nasty (or being smart stress, & smoking/vaping) to the younger kids are intimidating for the younger ones. 10-20 bigger kids sitting on the equipment chatting stops the younger ones wanting to play on it.

@Wrenbird27

Your own kids are always sweet, only 12, innocent things. Except out of hearing many of them are not.

just because he's a man doesn't make him a nonce just for telling bigger kids to move on.

Well the other day one of the local dads had to tell a group of 11-13 yo kids to leave the park. They were absolute menaces, using the toddler play area to do tricks on their scooters, despite there being a skate park in the same park. They were swearing and insulting people. Interestingly, when told to leave by the dad, they called him a pedo and said they were going to get him arrested (so obviously this is a well known response). They then returned with reinforcement in the form of more young thugs but luckily a bunch of other parents stood up for the dad and the little idiots eventually left. I reckon this girl gang were far from innocently using the park and good on the man to tell them to go elsewhere. It’s really intimidating for young kids to have a gang of almost teens hanging around. And I never played on kids playgrounds at aged 12 - certainly not when I was with a group of mates.

Also telling people to make false accusations about someone being a child abuser is beyond disgusting.

I just really disagree with age limited parks. For a whole host of reasons. They are based on massivly underestimating what small children are capable of, which in turn sets low expectations from parents of what kids can manage, which has contribute to kids nowadays having poorer physical skills ( and risk assessment skills) than past generations. They hinder play across ages ( mixed age play is very important for children), and they are a complete pain in the arse if you have siblings of different ages.

I came from a place where playgrounds were for all ages and young kids quickly learn good climbing and balance skills. I was appalled to move to a place with age segregated play grounds and see the crap boring equipment for the younger kids that didn’t even challenge my toddler!

Kids can only learn to play around and with kids of other ages if they are given the opportunity to. We should give them that opportunity.

We sometimes go to a park with a brilliant set up... an obstacle course at about parent waist-shoulder height, designed for the U8s, and then a bigger version, with wider spacing etc but same obstacles above head height for older children. The ladder to access it is designed so you need to be a certain height to reach.

Still gets parents trying to lift smaller kids on, who soon get stuck and need rescuing.. but generally the bigger children can play unhindered.

Our playground is marked for under 11's only! Older tweens and teens almost always spoil our experience of being at the playground. Sitting in a group on equipment but not using it, pointing and laughing at the people around, not using the equipment right, swearing and talking about inappropriate topics around little children. One group decided to have a who can say sex the loudest competition whilst I was there with my 3 year old. I wouldn't personally want my 12 year old to hang around at a kids playground and I wouldn't take it at face value that they were "playing nicely on the equipment". They are not long off being teenagers! I'm sure I'll get stick for this but I spend a lot of time at playgrounds and this is my experience.

Older children are shouldn't be playing on equipment for younger children because it is not designed for them and they can damage it.

Play equipment is usually paid for by the local council... So comes out of our taxes. Repairing playground equipment is VERY expensive.

The 12 year olds could be taught to engage with the council to get play/hang out equipment designed for them. A council local to me recently installed a hang out shelter for the teens and teen sized play equipment.

We're they misbehaving and being a nuisance.

The issue is lack of places aimed at older kids, especially girls. See 'make space for girls'.

People moan if young people are on screens and moan if theyre out and about. Groups of boys get hassle for hanging around as people assume theyre up to no good, which often isn't the case!

@flyinghen

Same in our playground

Problem is, most communities have no facilities for this age range

Exactly. Those who claim their 12 year olds are sweet and innocent don’t have a clue. My parents would have said the same about me at that age but my friends and I would be joking about blowjobs and anal when parents were out of earshot. And by most people’s standards, I was far from a tear away teen and rarely got into trouble. But gangs of 12 year olds just don’t sit around talking about Barbie and gently pushing each other on the swings - anyone who thinks they do is kidding themselves.

I agree. Bit of a storm in a teacup, imo.

My local counil built a shelter like this. It was burnt down in the first week.

If they were to old at 12 then he definitely was at 65!

What is the male version of Karen?

As a society, we seem to think that 10-11 is when childhood ends. It is hugely harmful for our children, who might not be ready to leave childhood things behind then.

We've really got to sort out our play offering for 10-16 year olds, don't we? They are children and they need suitable play spaces too.

And don't get me started on sending tiny 11yos to huge, intimidating secondary schools with draconian behavioural policies.

I feel really sorry for children turning 10 in this country. We have our failings, but everyone seems quite invested in making sure that children aged 1-10 are cherished and have a good time. Lots of play programmes, holiday programmes, local events, family fun days etc.

But after that when they're no longer cute, we don't seem even to want them in public spaces at all!

they weren't speaking, he told them to clear off from a playground.

what business do you have commenting on matters to do with children if you can't understand the difference between these two things?

12 is that really difficult age - the teen shelters are usually dominated by the older kids, parents of precious little kids are trying to hound them out of play parks... and for the girls especially there's not much else out there.

My eldest is that age - and goes to the park fairly regularly to go on the big climbing frame - and no, I'm not stopping her - there's no specified age limit on there, there's a mix of sized equipment on the park so it goes from toddler size to bigger kid, and it's good for her to get out and about and actually do something active - so they walk along from school most days and we pick them up there.

The other child is the real mother hen type who will wait politely while every small child has had multiple goes at the slide without getting her own turn bless her! Such characters do exist!

I'd have gone across if either of mine had rung me about a threatening older man trying to intimidate them off the equipment to be fair - I'd have gone across to see what was actually going on, and to stand my kids' ground if they had been behaving themselves - because at 12 they're still kids themselves and not mini psychopaths like they tend to get painted on MN.

Sometimes you do just get someone who does still think kids should be seen and not heard, and not seen once they move out of the little and cute phase wanting to throw their weight around - and a group of young teen girls is probably a prime target for this because they're not likely to argue back. We have a lot of these self-appointed pillar of the community types around here (the posher bit of the local area) and they're usually really anti-women "little man" bully types.

people moan about kids carrying knives, then moan when their darlings get ticked off for anything

A 12 year old is not a teen.

Many studies have shown that men are more likely to be nonces. That’s why people are rightly more suspicious of them.

What do your "many studies" show on the odds of a random nonce preying on a group of 12 year olds in a playground

Or haven't you read those studies?

I think it depends on many factors

Does the park have an age limit posted anywhere -: our local has 2 "play" areas one says 8 and under, one says under 12 only.

What were the girls doing? Were any of them doing anything that could damage the equipment?

Is the park prone to vandalism by teens?

What was actually said and how? Was the man a park keeper/volunteer or just a random?

Actually it's about 50/50 but more men are reported than women and when women are reported 9 times out of 10 it's brushed off as a kindly old lady/helpful woman. And when it's reported that an offence has been committed especially against boys over 11/12 it's seen that the boy must have instigated it because they're so interested in sex once they hit puberty!
In the teaching profession when you separate the genders there's actually a higher % of women that offend against children than men.