To be really angry when I see flowers being picked in public places?

[Sativa]

Today I saw a small boy of about 4 or 5 picking a daffodil from a park to present to his mum/nan (hard to tell). All very lovely but if everyone stopped to pick one there would soon be nothing left but a few leaves!

I like seeing the Spring flowers and I taught my children to leave them where they were for everyone's enjoyment.

.....so I screamed like a banshee out of the car window "Stop picking the flowers !"

What a lovely kind boy to have thought about such a kind gesture of giving a flower to his mum/nan at the park.

Of course it is not ideal. But mine have done it mistakingly in the past and so I have explained that we shouldn't pick those sort of flowers. Perhaps the mum/nan did the same. I certainly wouldn't shout like a banshee at a 5 year old though!

I've always told DP that sometimes children like to buy flowers for there ums ;)

Mums!

Children should be taught that they must not pick flowers in public places. Not even one.

I would not object to someone explaining to my child why they shouldn't pick flowers from the park either sue52.......but I would not tolerate someone 'screaming' at my child over the incident.

But a five year old is past the age of making an innocent mistake surely? They try that sort of thing when they are much smaller, get told they shouldn't and don't do it again surely? I have to admit if I saw a five year old picking flowers in a park I would assume that their parents condoned it and they had likely done it many times before.

Screaming like a banshee is of course OTT, but a fierce word is totally appropriate. When parks were staffed a bit the warden might well have had some very angry words for the family in question.

Telling a child to stop doing something is hardly screaming, Mrs DeVere.

What a strange place MN is sometimes.

No way is a grown woman screaming at a little boy over a flower okay.

Unbelievable.

But if the op was in a car hence screaming out the window and the child was in the park there is going to be some distance between them and so the op could hardly just have a gentle word. It is not like the op got in the child's face and screamed so i doubt the child is going to need long time counseling over it.
The child is old enough to know better and should not be picking the flowers. It is not the childs fault but the adults with them.
No doubt the parent would soon be moaning if their child had picked a toxic plant and ingested some or got the sap over their hands had had a bad reaction to it.

I still don't understand. The child in question did not pick a toxic plant. He picked one flower - an impulsive, childlike action - because he is 5.

He was then screamed at. How is that okay?

But he shouldn't be picking the plant and at 5 is old enough to know better. If every 5 year old picked one flower the parks would be bare within a week.

Every 5 year old wasn't out picking flowers. One child, one flower. And then screamed at?

No way. In fact, really quite strange.

I now have this image of an angry woman driving round town with the window wound 'screaming like a banshee' : 'don't pick that flower' 'pick that cigarette butt up' 'don't go until the lights turn green' etc etc....

I agree with you that the flowers are there for everyone, but you don't know that the lady wasn't gently telling the child that while it was wonderful that he was so thoughtful and the flower meant a lot, he should not pick flowers in the park. I hope the pleasure in giving to another person stays with him a lot longer than the memory of some random woman screaming at him from a car.

'I now have this image of an angry woman driving round town with the window wound 'screaming like a banshee' : 'don't pick that flower' 'pick that cigarette butt up' 'don't go until the lights turn green' etc etc....'

Me too.

I agree with MrsDeVere.

I don't like children picking flowers either. If my five year old did it, I would explain to him why it was wrong to pick flowers that don't belong to you if he had never done it before. (And perhaps that was what the mum was doing here too.) If he had ever done it before, I would tell him off.

But I think shouting at a five year old for an impulsive action like picking a flower is not on. I don't really ever encounter situations where I would shout at someone else or their child. I don't like shouting and aggressive behaviour in general and I wouldn't want my five year old to learn that it's okay to shout at strangers.

So YANBU for thinking that it is wrong for kids to pick public flowers; YABU for reacting in that way though.

And seriously, over a daffodil.

Your image is spot on. Don't have nightmares....

I think a five year old should know better because most five year olds will have visited parks or gardens many many times before, and if it's such an instinctive thing to do then they will have attempted to pick flowers before, when they were much younger and been told no.

As the other thread on this shows lots of children are allowed, even encouraged to pick flowers in their local parks, and it is a problem when there are no flowers left to enjoy. This not surprisingly pisses people off.

When I was younger people were more comfortable telling other people's children off for doing bad things. I think this was in general a good thing.

I would not personally yell at random children, but I would tell one off for picking flowers and other acts of vandalism, and I'd make it pretty clear that what they were doing was very bad especially if it was clear that their parent wasn't doing anything / was encouraging them. I wouldn't be too bothered if it upset them a little bit because it is a bad thing to do.

If my children picked flowers without explicit permission from the grower of the flowers of course I would tell them off, and I'd not be particularly gentle about it. It is very antisocial behaviour.

I disagree that this child did something 'very bad' or antisocial.