To think this is without doubt one of the most irresponsible parenting fails ever?

[Charlie97]

Talking the dog for a walk, very cold and icy here today. We drove to a common nearby, it's just stunning when it's covered in white frosting.

On the drive alongside the common, there is a pond. A family of five where walking across the large frozen lake!

Three children, mum and dad.

I wanted to stop the car and tell them to get off and to stop putting their children in such massive danger.

OH, said it's none of our business drive on.

Why would you do that, everyone knows it's so bloody dangerous.

finallyfinishedit,

"That story about the hockey boy is horrific, so tragic"

Just to reassure you: my description was a scene from the mentioned film, not of a real-life case!

The only reason I pre-warned people was simply that, even when fictional, the imagery's not pleasant one bit. Sorry to have alarmed you (or anyone else) unnecessarily

Fernanie As you might expect, my parents took me walking up several mountains, several hundred times (yes I exaggerate), from when I could walk. I never question this until one day I weighed up the possibilities. I could see an Atlantic front coming in and we were being asked to walk a dangerous ridge. I said no and left. I huddled behind the car in the car park. I was 12. Obviously my parents had to retreat, when the bad weather quickly rolled in. I was absolutely raging with them regarding their folly and risking our safety and theirs (one a head teacher and the other a vice head).

Re Everest. Sherpa's live in the area. Totally different to a teenager going there. Doctor's in various camps do advise not to carry on to many people, but some disregard the evidence and carry on.

Water can freeze very quickly, it's amazing how this happens, but the retreat of the ice can also be just as quick. Unless there is constant sub zero temperatures for at least a few weeks, I wouldn't risk walking on ice. Lots of shallow ponds have debris at the bottom. Which is why you should only wild swim in areas that have been screened for it.

I went into a river about 3 foot deep when it wasn't frozen and air temperatures were over freezing, and still only just made it out alive.

What happens first is that the cold water knocks all the breath and sense out of you. You can't tell which way is up. Your clothes very quickly saturate with water - and if it's winter and you're wearing a reasonable quantity of clothing then as pp notes that adds an astonishing weight, so even if you could work out where the fuck you need to be going, you're dragging something near half your body weight in dead weight. Meanwhile all that panic is using up your precious oxygen stores, so you start to panic more.

Fortunately at that point several strong arms came from the bank and dragged me out by the scruff of the neck bastards had thrown me in as a jolly jape. It gave us all a big scare and a valuable life lesson.

I was lucky because (1) it wasn't that cold, (2) I was very near the bank and (3) there were lots of strong, fit young men around to drag me out. None of those would have been true of a family mooching about on the middle of a lake.

So, yeah, I'm in the camp saying it's "fucking dangerously irresponsible".

I live in New England where rivers and lakes freeze over and people go out on the ice to fish.

6-8 people a year die falling through the ice. Because they have not checked it properly. This is the picture that the wardens release every year.

YANBU OP. They were horrendously stupid! DS and I watched Harry Potter and DH the other day and it had the scene in where Harry goes into the icy water and gets trappen under the ice (ok not RL as he went in on purpose then got dragged along by the horcrux) but my point to DS was that this could easily happen in RL and you never ever go on frozen water.

I swear MN has a handful of people that hang around, purely to be utterly contrary for the sake of it. I'm seeing it more and more and it's fucking tedious as hell.

This lake freezes over so much it's used as a car park. However it did melt. And very quickly

If it's Wandsworth or Clapham Commons that is recipe for disaster. Neither are ever frozen solid.

When I was a teenager a local boy died when he fell through the ice on a local canal. He slipped under the ice despite desperate attempts to help by his friends they couldn't get him out as he slid under the intact ice. He was 11 years old. I would say the parents were astonishingly and possibly even criminally irresponsible.

Unless it is just a large puddle, then of course it's dangerous.
A child could easily get trapped under the renaming ice and be difficult or impossible to reach in time.
That's common sense I would have thought.

It's a shame we don't have park wardens anymore, so that they can keep an eye on these dickheads.

I'm in Kent and we had an article online about a park near by here

www.kentonline.co.uk/tonbridge/news/children-play-thin-ice-119314/

Would I send my child out on a frozen lake? Um No

Irresponsible, yes, but some people need to learn the hard way. "Natural Selection" as it is sometimes known!

Even a large puddle is dangerous - though for different reasons. You can get nasty breaks from slipping on ice.

It's not Barnes Pond is it?! Never got thick enough ice for walking on when I lived there at a child so highly unlikely to now.

Very stupid to walk on a frozen pond/lake in the UK, it just doesn't get cold enough.

Even in countries where its normal to walk/skate/drive on frozen lakes you still have to know the water and the weather conditions, otherwise you can't know if its safe or not. I live in Finland, regularly go on the frozen lakes and we have an ice road every year going across the lakes by my town but the other day two teenage girls drove out on to the lake. They drove over an area that had a strong current underneath so the ice was not thick enough (probably they were students who didn't know the area) and went through the ice. One of them was saved, and that was only because by sheer luck the fire brigade/water safety people were doing a training exercise right near where they went in and were able to get there quick enough to get one out alive, the other died.

It was on Wimbledon Common pond, the ice does get thick there, but IMO, no pond in the U.K. Is thick enough to chance walking on!

Thanks to Witchof for seeing the ridiculous comment of they haven't murdered their child, so get a grip! If every parent was viewing that as the yardstick well god help us!!!!

Someone was in the news for doing that on Wimbledon Common
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1241374/What-thinking-Woman-ignores-ice-warning-sign-leads-young-girl-frozen-pond.html

Or there's a blog with someone doing it in the same place acorneroffrance.blogspot.co.uk/2010/12/on-frozen-pond.html?m=1

It's a shame we don't have park wardens anymore, so that they can keep an eye on these dickheads.

That's what parents are for, though, Cauliflower!

Also its very foolish to go out walking on a frozen lake without taking a pair of ice stabby things with you, or at least two sharp knives so that if you do fall in you can get a grip on the non-broken ice with the blades and pull yourself back up.

But proper frozen lakes are so pretty to walk on - look at the pretty patterns

But I accept that the British don't have the same intimate connection with the natural environment.

Totally stupid. Unless the mum or dad was some sort of.... engineer (??) With an intimate knowledge of ponds and ice. do such professionals exist? still mightily irresponsible as others may copy and children will see.

Equally boggling was a kid at the beach yesterday who was walking out on a kind of concrete spit thing which periodically would be covered by a large wave rolling in. It was about 4 degrees air temp and had he fallen in he'd have been in big trouble even if he could swim. He was about 7.

Saw a couple on a frozen pond in Glasgow pushing a pram with a baby in it. Beggars belief people could be so irresponsible.

Very stupid in extreme. I agree with Hookiewookie29 I have seen people take young children out on piers and rocks with huge waves crashing. My sister lives in Devon and a couple of weeks ago told me she saw a woman pushing a buggie along a pier with huge waves crashing on both sides and the spray going on the buggie. She said she gave the woman a daggers stare as she came scurrying back to her car. My view is if idiots want to risk their own life then so be it but they should not risk the lives of babies and children.

Very stupid in extreme. I agree with Hookiewookie29 I have seen people take young children out on piers and rocks with huge waves crashing.

Yes - look at the very sad deaths in Aberdeen this year due to very similar behaviour. Beggars belief.

And Tapandgo - a pram?? Fucksake.

We've done this with our kids in London but only on a shallow pond which used to be used to cool horses. We knew it froze solid from our own childhoods and it's wide but only about 60cm deep.
My point is that maybe they knew the pond well enough to seem it safe even if it went through?
If not then of course hugely irresponsible. If it were just kids of course leap out and have a conversation but it's tricky with adults involved - I see your concern - thank goodness they were ok.