to be frightened, firm and fucking furious?

[SomeoneElseHere]

NC as identifiable.

We live abroad in a residence where all the families go to the bar on a Friday night for drinks. The kids all run around together unsupervised. I expect people think I'm a bit paranoid and helicoptery for supervising DD but there is a swimming pool, a lake and other dangers. Parents seem to think that the bigger kids will look out for the little ones. I don't like to go there very often to be honest, because it annoys me that everyone else is chatting and drinking and I'm running round after a bunch of kids. DH thinks I'm OTT, and so is very half-hearted in his supervision.

DD is 3. She has a friend who is also 3, and another who is 4. The other kids are all older.

DH took DD alone tonight as I was feeling ill. They came back. She was wet. She had sat on the edge of the pool and dunked her legs in. Her 4 year old friend was with her. No-one else.

I am now saying that we will not go unless she is with one of us (or another adult) AT ALL TIMES. DH thinks she 'deserves another chance'. IMO it's not a case of 'another chance. It's not like she spilt juice when she wasn't sitting at the table. She got in the fricking swimming pool in the dar with no-one around (pool is hidden by wall and trees).

AIBU? This is mostly a rant, as I know I'm not BU and even if you say I am I'm not backing down.

Furious, I tell you.

You are so not being unreasonable.

I would feel exactly the same. I think the other parents must be loons.

YANBU. We go out with a group where I am the only one that seems bothered where they are and that's just at the local pub and they are playing outside and mine are much older.

I would be furious too.

Yanbu. I would be furious and also very concerned that my oh couldn't see the danger in that situation.

Yanbu

Is your husband seriously thick?

Yanbu.

At its nothing about chances.

Its not her fault really and its not a punishment. Its safety.

YANBU - your husband is saying give her another chance to drown?! WTAF supervision by water is a minimum, thank god she is ok.

YANBU. Is there any possibility for compromise, though - for example, if you took some particularly attractive toy, could you mandate that DD stays within sight of you, and hope that her friends come and play with her there?

YANBU. SHE deserves another chance? What about the adults?

Does your husband know that if someone is drowning, they don't necessarily (or even usually) splash about and make noise? So if (god forbid) anything had happened, it would most probably have happened silently and not been noticed until too late?

I have no idea what toy could be more attractive than charging round screaming!

YANBU. Drowning is silent, there is no splashing and shouting because the child is under the water. No one would have heard her.

What on earth is your DH on about that she deserves another chance? Another chance for what? To be trusted to not go near the pool again? He should be fighting to be given another chance by you to actually look after his child again without you around because I wouldn't trust him again. She's not much more than a baby. Water has an attraction for kids. I wouldn't leave them unsupervised around water until a much older age. I don't even know what age to be honest but definitely not 3. What an idiot. YANBU. He's on another planet.

YANBU

Well, as someone who pulled her dd out of a swimming pool once, I would be sensible. I was shocked that dd, who jumped in whilst I turned to talk to another mother, just hung there, bottom up and not moving. She can still remember it so must have been about 4. I don't know if she would have panicked and struggled - I pulled her out pretty fast!

Keep a watch.

Other parents loons, as above

YAN even vaguely BU.
Jesus has he NO common sense?!! A 3 year old has no sense of danger and cannot be expected to follow your instructions. (No child can, or will for that matter) Older children should never be left in charge of younger ones - not when they are playing themselves.
Something terrible is just waiting to happen.

He wouldn't have heard even if she screamed. He was inside.

I think kids of a certain age need watching completely when they are in the water. On holiday if my DS was in the pool age 7 I'd sit on the sun bed but watch him. I used to read then I thought that actually you can get into the story, lose track of time and it takes seconds for them to get in trouble so paranoid or not I stopped reading when he was that age and in the pool. Same with your DH and all those other adults. They are drinking, laughing and having a good time. They are not conscious whether they've left a child unattended for 2 minutes or 20 minutes. Not on. She wouldn't be going with him again because he doesn't get it and I'd be thinking he thinks I'm being OTT so he might just be saying yes I'll be with her the whole time to pacify me. I'd have to be there.

He is lacking in brains.

YANBU

My head wold be spinning like the lady on 'the exorcist' by now. I would also be fucking livid!

my gast is flabbered. an unsupervised 3 yr old, a swimming pool hidden out of sight behind walls and a tree and distracted parents having a drink. there can be noone who thinks this is acceptable.

FWIW, even though I was promoting compromise, any 3yo (or older) of mine would be (a) in a flotation jacket and (b) within my sight at all times under such circumstances.

Having a swimming pool is statistically more dangerous than having a gun. Would he leave a three year old with instructions not to touch a gun? Or be supervised by other children? He is insane.

Of course YANBU.

OP, when I was about 11 yrs I was playing in the sea with my dad and two younger sisters. My dad asked me to take DSis 6 yrs back to where my mum was sitting on the beach. I took her halfway then pointed in the vague direction of my mum and ran back to the sea, where I'd been having fun. Sister got lost. Thank God she stayed away from the water and sat on someone else's towel where we found her sometime between 30 mins and a lifetime later. I was a good kid, but I got distracted. I still feel guilty but I see now that my dad also misjudged a bit in giving me that responsibility - it's too much to expect the older kids to look out for the younger ones. And how exactly are they meant to help if a three yr old jumps in the pool? Jump in after them and perhaps get in trouble themselves or run back for help and maybe be too late?

I wonder are they mostly British expats you live with? I have seen discussions on here where mnetters from Oz put Brits right on their lack of sense around water. As other posters have said, drowning is silent and quick and in Oz, where there are pools everywhere, they are extremely conscious about supervising garden pools, keeping kids locked out and fitting alarms.

"....He wouldn't have heard even if she screamed. He was inside...." so absolutely no supervision of his child then. just flings open the door and out she goes to do whatever with whomever. i hope you deal with him appropriately OP because i know damn sure i would. how can he not see that what he did was out of order totally.

Sitting here with gooseflesh...you have been very lucky.I fear any water around little ones.Friends little boy fell into a pool while she was reading and she heard nothing.They only go down twice,do not shout for help and are gone.Please,please ask the venue not to allow unsupervised children there.Shuddering.