WIBU here?

[IfYouLoveSomebodyLetThemSleep]

Our drive has lots of blackberries growing on it, the children that live on the street were taking a big interest in me giving some to DS so I invited them to pick some theirselves (after checking for allergies and the usual speech about always checking with an adult before you eat wild berries). I gave them a bowl and told them to get picking.

Next thing I know one of their Dads is storming across the street shouting about them being poisonous, the kids were all crying by that point, thinking that I'd poisoned them.
I calmly pointed out that they are obviously not poisonous as they are blackberries, can be bought at most shops etc. He carried on shouting about not being so reckless in future, how I could have poisoned all the kids.

I apologised for upsetting him but really, there was nothing to be upset about. I still don't think I was being unreasonable for letting the children do something as normal as picking blackberries, or was I?

How old are they? I wouldn't have let them do it by themselves in case they picked anything else and ate it, to avoid accidental poisonings. But his reaction was completely silly and definitely over the top.

I wouldn't encourage strange children to pick berries no. And I would be mighty pissed off if someone else encouraged DS to

He is being very silly.

I can understand why someone might not want a young child to be introduced to the idea of "pick things and eat them", but he went about expressing that feeling in a very over-the-top way.

I think you were being U.

Even though I can see you were just trying to be nice and the father was being OTT.

If the kids are old enough to play out, they should be old enough to know what blackberries are.
Bloody cotton wool parents!

I think you're not supposed to eat berries growing near a road because they pick up traffic pollution. I could be completely wrong, but people thinking this sort of thing would be reason enough not to encourage others' children to pick berries on your drive! X

Sirzy why? It's a bloody Blackberry! OP YANBU of course the Dad sounds like an idiot.

Because I don't think strangers should be encouraging children to eat food, certainly not pick food. There is no need.

Why not just say to them "well come back with an adult and feel free to help yourself to some if they say ok?"

Crazy, crazy world.

My husband is a keen (and knowledgeable) forager for mushrooms. On our recent holiday my daughter's friend joined us in eating a breakfast made from delicious parasol mushrooms.

It's Coke and cheesy wotsits and hydrogenated fats and and milk chocolate that has hardly any cocoa solids and fast food burgers that that are bad for you....

I can't believe people are saying you were being unreasonable!!!! Blackberries are a healthy natural free food - what is wrong with people today.

I have spent the afternoon picking blackberries with my children and will be making bramble jelly tomorrow.

Frau - it is different when it is with a child you know. You can't make decisions yourself to feed a strangers child.

It's tricky - on the one hand it's obvious that you were being kind and trying to encourage these children to eat something delicious and healthy. However, the dad wasn't to know that you had given them the speech about not eating any old berries, and we are always drumming into children that you don't accept sweets etc from strangers, so perhaps he was concerned that this was setting a dangerous precedent by encouraging them.

He was being completely OTT.

I have always picked blackberries and so have my children and most of their friend.

Get a sackful of cotton wool, take it round to his house and tell him you thought he must be in need of this because he obviously shrouds his kids in it.

I do know the children as DS plays out on the cul de sac a lot with them, have had them round to play etc. there are no other berries on the drive, only blackberries. I told them all the info they needed to know about only going for big black ones.

Maybe I was BU, I was just so shocked that they had no idea what they were and wanted them to have fun learning about them. They're only blackberries FGS!

I think it's about us -as a society/community - empowering children to make sensible decisions themselves. It's just a bit unfortunate that some parents are fearful to the point of stupidity. (Quite possibly the same parents who think it's fine to let small kids have unlimted access to technology on which they encounter all sorts of scary and unsuitable stuff.)

So he was fine about letting them play outside alone, but got funny when you interacted. You are not unreasonable at all.

He was OTT imo, but do you run a car up & down said drive-if so, yuk!

I think it was a perfectly innocuous thing to do. And the op is not a "stranger" to these kids; she lives in the house across the street from mad Dad!!

Why not send them home to check first then?

Yanbu

He's a nutter!
We pick black berries on the way home from Sch by a main road

No one's died yet!

I don't think YWBU. I'd like a neighbour like you.

We have blackberries growing wild in a dead end past our house. The local children come round and pick them, they then bring them to me to check that they are all blackberries and then the children take them home.

YANBU you know these children and as long as the children know they can't just pick and eat anything then it's fine

He was OTT but I don't think you should introduce other people's dc to idea of picking fruit off bushes and eating it, not without knowing the parents well and knowing they're fine about it. The trouble is, the dc might then pick something like a berry off a bush and eat it.

YANBU at all IMO.

As Cluffy says - if they're old enough to be playing out they're old enough to pick blackberries.

Jan49 - the OP does specifically say that she gave them a lecture about checking with an adult first....which they were!

Bit on the fence here.

It's safer not to encourage other folks kids to do anything, go anywhere or eat anything without seeing their parent first.

He reacted like a prize prat though. What's wrong with going over calmly and saying 'i'd rather my little Jonny didn't pick fruit without my knowledge, but thanks for the thought'.