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?

They don't want to sit! They want to play and go on slides and on the swings like everyone else! Jesus!

Provided it's not equipment for under 8's they should be allowed to use it. I don't like older teens who either smoke or vape hanging about play parks but 12 and not smoking or vaping there should be no problem. I wonder what thean was doing in the children's play park anyway?

If I was with my toddler I wouldn't walk on past. I would, and I have, kindly ask them to move along. It's not hard and children have always been polite when I have asked them

Equally I think there is a clear need for more playgrounds designed for older children. At 12 they are still children

I think there is a real need for play equipment for older children/tweens e.g. 9-15 years. There is very little available for this age group, other than organised, supervised activities.

It's a tricky age and an age where they are seen as "too old" for the kiddy things but they still enjoy them in small doses. Equally they are "too young" for the older teen entertainment options. There is a real lack of 3rd spaces for children between 10-16. The youth clubs are all shut, activities become very expensive (trampoline park/ cinema ect) they are considered a nuisance in McDonald's ect, they are followed around shopping centres. There really isn't a "hang out space" for them where they are not a nuisance. The problem is, whilst almost all parents will say their teens are angels/ sweet/ nice, out of earshot and parental supervision and egged on by their mates they can become bolshy, rude, engage in inappropriate or silly behaviour and a nuisance to others. I've seen many of the students I teach out and about who in school are lovely and sweet, but out with their mates without that supervision are giving cheek to security, swearing, vaping, using play equipment inappropriately - usually getting a bit silly with play equipment like swinging the swings over the bars/ too many of them on a piece of equipment ultimately damaging it, doing silly things in shops (daring each other to do things and giggling about it) and becoming a nuisance to other shoppers and shop staff. Ultimately they have all usually got with their mates, got a bit bored and started egging one another on and it gets a bit out of hand.

I agree that the man was probably an over enthusiastic volunteer/ parish council member who has seen the play equipment damaged many times.

I know as a teen one of my friends had a summer house in the garden his parents made into a teen space (the consoles were in there, loads of chairs, TV ect)- we all basically lived in that summer house. My own parents had a "front room" that we were all allowed to use as a hang out space. If we weren't at the summer house, we were at mine. We all preferred the summer house as it was at the bottom of the garden away from the adults. Perhaps as parents we need to create safe teen and tween spaces? We have our garage loft fully boarded out and intend to make it a hang out space for our DD when she is older.

A 12 year old is a child. Of course they belong in the playground. And why is shouting in this manner ‘awful’ - if they’re being harassed it’s the quickest and safest way of getting rid of him.

I was at a park around 6pm last week with my 4yo and 1yo and a group of 3 girls came in, 12/13 years old. It was so nice seeing them climbing around on the equipment. Almost like the last throes of childhood as the summer hols drew to a close. Made me smile. Hope this experience doesn’t put your daughter off. What a rotten man!

It's very off putting when you arrive at a playpark with little ones, and there is a group of unsupervised secondary school aged kids there, sitting on the equipment (which, lets face it, they would be, that's part of the attraction). Many wouldn't feel comfortable asking them to move, for a little one, and many wouldn't even go in.

Why would they belong in a playground for under 10s?

Where does OP say that the playground was for under 10’s ?

What kind of world do you live in where it's odd that a 13 year old girl helps with toddlers on playground equipment? The 13 year old has obviously been taught the "be kind" lesson well, why on earth would you question it?

God this is so sad. 12 year olds are kids! And we wonder why their mental health is awful, why they are under-exercised and vitamin D deficient and screen obsessed.

We have an under-12 and an over-12 park near us. The mothers of four year olds think nothing of using the over-12 equipment if they fancy it, even though the over-12s can’t go in their bit.

I’d like to see a Mumsnet campaign for proper public playing spaces for teens and Tweens - skate parks, three and five metre diving boards, larger play equipment.

Some 12 year olds look a lot older, so that could have been the case. Also, I have seen plenty of older kids 12+ during my time in the playground through out the years, where they are taking up the equipment when little kids want to go on, but they do not have the ability to notice this....they just continue to sit there. Or even worse, recently, my little one and her friend, who are 4 were waiting for the swings nearby and when they became available I called over to them to say they are finally available (they had been waiting for 20 minutes) and these two older girls (looked about 12 or 13) heard and ran over to take the swings! I had to tell the girls that is not cool and the little girls had been waiting so they need to let the little ones go first. But if I had not been there, they would have grabbed the swings first because they can run faster than the little girls and of course the 4 year olds are not going to tell the 12 year olds that is not fair.

I have a 12 year old, who has enough common sense to let little kids go first or help them out in the playground etc if they need it, but not all older kids are like this. Also, sometimes older kids can be rough, I have seen them to wrestling and pushing on the big slide when little kids are around. I just take my kids and remove them from the area so they do not get hurt, but really the older ones should have enough common sense not to do this.

The older man was wrong to tell the girls they should not be in the park (esp if he had no grandkids or kids there to watch). But, older children also need to be aware of not taking up equipment or making areas dangerous for younger ones with rough play.

Who says it was for under 10s? People have just randomly decided it was - it’s bizarre

Probably six of one and half a dozen of the other. Unsupervised 12 year olds can be a real pain in playgrounds. I wouldn’t imagine they’d tell you if they were swearing and I don’t think they’re aware of others enough to know if kids are wanting to go on rides but too intimidated to approach.

What do they have in the over 12s park?

Are you sure he wasn’t the care taker of the playground? They are all inspected at least weekly, I’ve asked plenty of teenagers to stop messing around on play equipment in the toddler section whilst carrying out the safety inspections. I’m sure their parents thought it was innocent but 99% of the time they were messing around and it was intimidating for younger children.

At my local playground the space was cut down (because other buildings including a local school were extended) and all the equipment was scaled for younger kids - small swings and a multipurpose climing frame with a mini slide.

The fullsize slide, the big swings and the roundabout were removed. The equiment is certainly strong enough for any age to climb on but it was a real shame for the older kids, they were left with nothing to really enjoy.

I expect the old man meant well but the girls didn't need to do what he said. They were as entitled to be there as he was. And as entitled to be on the equipment as any other child.

What they should have done is exactly what they did - called their Mums who came to support them.

(Calling names and yelling unfounded accusations is horrible behaviour and I'm gald they didn't do that.)

There's a lot of context missing here, I take my three year old to the park and outside of school hours will always see older kids 'hanging out' there, they aren't using the play equipment to play on, they just sit and lie all over it, which stops younger children using it, some shout and swear and fight, others sit quietly chatting/laughing etc, but all of them seem oblivious to younger children unless they literally stand there waiting for them to move or actually ask them to move, which not many younger children will want to do, or a parent says something.

It's okay saying your daughter would move if there was someone waiting, but some people wouldn't even come into a playground if they see a lot of older kids hanging all over the equipment, so how would they know? If they aren't using the play equipment for it's intended purpose (to play on) then they shouldn't be on it IMO and should find somewhere else to 'hang out' as a group, there are always benches anywhere in and around playgrounds but you rarely see older kids using them, they seem to prefer to monopolise the play equipment.

Where are the parents of these little/younger kids? They can approach the tweens if the kids are too intimidated.

Hmm! A lone older man, with no children himself, is ordering the older children out of the playground.

I wonder why he was so very keen that only younger children should use the playground.

I think I'd be letting the council know what happened.

Attitudes such as this are why my 12yo wears a sunflower lanyard in public spaces. (He has a disability) 12yos are children, and they deserve to be able to play on play equipment. They don't need all this 'children older than 9 are a nuisance' attitude you see crop up on threads like these. Believe it or not your under 5's will also grow up, and then you'll appreciate that different children prefer different things.

When we were kids there was an elderly man who was a "park keeper" who used to tell older children off for playing on equipment.
He sounds exactly like the man from back then.

However, I thought they were a thing of the past.

He shouldn't have phrased it the way he did, saying their weight was too heavy for the equipment. I know as a 12 year old I would have taken that to heart and thought he was calling me fat.

Same stuff but bigger - zip wire, climbing frame, swings, twirly climby rope thing. No real reason the younger kids wouldn’t hack that stuff either - I guess it just protects the kids from the sort of thing the OP’s kids experienced.

To flip this around, perhaps the parents aren’t helping their toddler themselves because they don’t want them on that equipment as they’ve decided that they are too young to do it safely. Then a random teen comes along, who may well be kind, lovely and full of good intentions, but they’re also a child themselves and really shouldn’t be making judgements about what equipment a stranger’s child can go on. It’s behaviour I’ve actually told my 7YO to stop in the past, because she has tried to help friends of her younger brother and I’ve told her that ‘we don’t want anyone getting hurt and its up to their mummy to decide what equipment they can go on’. I’d definitely expect a teen to know that the ‘help’ is unlikely to be appreciated unless they know the family very well and know for sure that they’re ok with it.