AIBU to think it's not some random woman's place to declare that my son goes home from the park?

[CloudsOfChid]

My son is 9 and quite frequently goes to the park with friends. He came in yesterday and was very quiet (a lot earlier than usual) and I asked him what was wrong. He explained some 'shouty woman' told him to go home. I asked him why and he said because he wanted to keep using the swing AIBU to think it wasn't her place?

Adults can be arseholes and if I was the OP the thing I'd take from this is relief that my child too the sensible course of action and came straight home when he encountered someone who had a go at them.

I've never been to a park where children were told to get off swings. If someone is on the swing you wait your turn and if they don't look like they are getting off you go and play on something else. I spent alot of my childhood unsupervised in the park, quite normal in the 50s and 60s and I wasn't the only 7 or 8 year old who would be there for hours. You very quickly picked up how things worked. This is also my experience of parks. I just assumed this 10 min time slot for playpark equipment or gtfo if my child is younger than you was a London thing? And young children play out all the time here, unsupervised. Certainly 7 year olds walk to school alone and play out and about unsupervised too. My oldest played out with his friends in the garden from age 5. My mind boggles at 12 year olds not allowed out unsupervised. I hate the term but no wonder the next generation are considered having the special snowflake syndrome!

shit did you read the article WingsAloft posted?

If you did read it, then you would notice the line that said "Queensland Police Commissioner Ian Stewart said there was “more to this story” "

There was more to this story. There always is. Possibly the child had an accident on the way, or was very young, or had to walk a very long way - we don't know because the article doesn't tell us. We do know that what is being reported (the parent is being charged because they allowed the child to walk to school unsupervised" is N~OT the whole story.

We have a park in the middle of our residential area and 9 year olds commonly play out there on their own.

Sometimes other adults moan at them . IME they just move along and forget about it. If your child is not resilient enough to (even assuming the truth has not been slightly bent) to cope with another adult shouting at him to move off the swings then he probably shouldn't be playing out alone. Part of being independent is being able to deal with these sorts of situations!

I just assumed this 10 min time slot for playpark equipment or gtfo if my child is younger than you was a London thing?

Why?

10 minutes is reasonsble. Expecting a child to get off because they're a bit older is not.

I would never demand a child gets off. We would wait for a while and if the child doesn't get off I would say 'excuse me please could my dd have a go now for a little while?' They've always been fine about this.

Where I live the etiquette is if you child/grandchild can't be distracted to go on something else and you have waited for ages you say something to the little one like, "OK it won't be long, I'm sure the big boy will let you have a turn soon." You then give the older child a big smile and they will almost always offer the swing to the little one. Very British really.

Even if they were hogging the swings it's not for her to tell them to get off - still less to leave the park. Her child will have to learn that sometimes it's JTB and life ain't fair.

I wouldn't go with him, I'd watch him/them when they don't know you're about.

Children unsupervised can start off being a bit thoughtless etc, but it can escalate. I'm 48, we were told off, by everyone, but we still managed to behave in ways that we shouldn't have.

I've seen children under ten, behaving dangerously (as well as anti socially) and intervened, I doubt they went home and told the truth.

Now my DDs are 19-21, I'm still learning what really went on, when they were younger and it's not what I was told/believed.

Obviously I don't know what actually happened as I wasn't there but as an aside I do think 9 is too young to be left alone (or with friends of a similar age) in a park.

Hope your DS is ok

I think this idea that kids shouldn't hog swings and there is a reasonable amount of time for a child to use a swing after which they should let anyone who is waiting have a turn is a vary grown up view of how the playground should work. And I think it's based on adult desires not to be hanging about too long. Without adults around children don't do turns on swings in that way. They stay on them until they're done and then they move in. Much as adults do with most of their own activities. If you get a table at a busy pub you don't tend to get up after 10 mins because it's someone else's turn to sit down. You have the table and you stay until you're done. Kids see swings much more like this - especially when they're older. While I think it's fine to ask for a turn for your child, if the child on the swing says "not yet, you can have it when I'm done." I don't think the child is out of line.

The difference is, Boom, that an adult pub goer has time at their disposal (and probably a choice of pubs/tables) while a young child knows that park time is limited and that if he can't get the older child to move off the swings within the next half hour he won't get a go at all before he has to go home.

When you are a child, all your time is under the control of adults, so that is something that has to be factored into the equation.

Ime older children can be very possessive about swings. I had to break up a fight the other week, when a group of local 9/10yos decided that the 11yos from a couple of streets further away had no right to use "their" swings and decided to say it with stones and tree branches. The younger children (the ones throwing stones and wielding branches) were absolutely tearful about the injustice being done to them by these invaders and appealed to me as a supposedly sympathetic adult. It never occurred to them that they were not suffering some horrendous injustice. It's a council playground.

Another one who thinks there is a bit more of a backstory to this.

Children have a very clever way of leaving vital bits out of the story

So she told him to go home and he did? Is he usually so compliant? You may want to work on not always doing what strange adults tell you to.

Wow Boom, are you serious or just arguing to argue? Or maybe you are not a parent? You actually teach your kids that there is no such thing as "taking turns"? That if they get there first, they have to right to stay for as long as they please, even if it is a public/shared facility? Your kids must be very popular! At some point though, someone is going to come along who will teach your kids this very important lesson, probably not in a very nice way...

I'm serious. I'm a parent. And I didn't say I didn't teach my kids there is no such thing as taking turns. I said (on the whole) children don't see swings as turn taking equipment when adults aren't about. Slides, on the other hand, I see children do lots of negotiation and turn taking over. Roundabouts and who pushes etc. same thing. But swings and being at the top of a climbing frame - not so much. And I don't think it is somehow wrong that there are different rules over different types of play structure. We have different rules as adults over different facilities. Most people don't give up their spot at the beach just because others might want it, but they don't stand forever in front of a piece of art when the gallery is crowded.

BoomBoomsCousin, yes I think you are right. When I was a kid you really didn't see adults in the playgrounds much. There were unwritten rules and somehow you all learned them and it was fine. Yes swings, roundabouts and slides had very different rules like the big kids warning the little ones the roundabout was going to go very fast for a while so if you want to get off you have your chance, on the slide you don't hang about at the bottom and block other people. Actually it was all very sensible when I look back on it.

Ok Boom, thanks for clarifying! I thought you were a crazy parent... but ye, the distinction you made about slides v. swings, etc. make sense.

It seems unlikely - though not impossible - that an adult would shout at a child and insist they go home just for using a swing.
Only you will know op if your son is the sort to twist events to keep himself out of trouble but most kids do it. I have one child that does and one that doesn't. The one who is always straight down the line truthful (to the extent that he comes and tells me things that get him into trouble that I would otherwise have no way of finding out) is my son with asd so I think bending the truth to suit yourself is more 'normal' in a way.
If the woman WAS shouting at him in the park for using a swing he was probably best to leave anyway. Not necessarily because he was in the wrong but because the woman would not be someone I'd want my kids around.
If you think he really was just using the swing then I would praise your son for getting out of the unhinged woman's way. If you think there may have been some misbehaving going on then maybe supervised visits to the park are the way to go for the forseeable.
I don't necessarily think a sensible 9yo is too young to go to a nearby park though - depends on the child. I would have let my eldest go at that age but we are about a 45 min walk from our nearest park.

I would NEVER send my 9yr old to a park alone.

" on the slide you don't hang about at the bottom and block other people."

Yes, I remember all that self policing. Playgrounds when I was young tended not to be the kind of places which were particularly suitable for toddlers. The slides were high, the swings big, the equipment quite big.

Now there is a range and pre-schoolers are very prevalent. And I often found that it was parents of toddlers who caught their kids at the end of the slide and then let them sit there, shouting at other kids who came down the slide ages after, and crashed into them. The height of this was at Bewilderwood. There were massive queues for the big slides, and you have to take your shoes off. Cue endless parents of small children sitting them on the end of the slide to put the shoes back on, instead of scooping them away to a bench and allowing people to keep coming down the slides.

I remember being a protective parent of a small toddler and viewing bigger children as marauding thugs....and then when your kids grow up you get a different perspective.

Ooh I'm a mean park lady too! I told a group of lads your DS's age to leave a park recently. They were playing football within the playground when 1. there is a huge no balls sign up and 2. the playground is set within a sports field so there is plenty of area for a kick about that isn't next to tiny children. My DD was very nearly hit three times. I asked nicely the first time, warned the second time and shouted the third time.

My point is, I doubt a "random woman" would tell your DS to go home for no reason.

OP there is no way of knowing whether or not your DS was misbehaving. There is also no way of knowing whether she was actually "shouting" or whether that's your DS's way of saying she gave him a ticking off. Therefore there is no way of knowing whether or not she WBU.

BUT... this is only a big deal if you make it one. Either way it's not going to scar your DS for life. Just remind him about good behaviour and think about whether or not they need to be supervised - either to ensure good behaviour or to stop random adults shouting at them.

This is also my experience of parks. I just assumed this 10 min time slot for playpark equipment or gtfo if my child is younger than you was a London thing?

No I live outside of London and people are very considerate about play equipment. My DS would sit on the swings for half an hour but of course I don't let him when there's a queue of children waiting (just like I wouldn't hog a piece of Gym equipment when there were people waiting). I find it weird than an adult wouldn't teach basic manners to their kids.