to not stop my DC doing things because other people don't want their DC to do them?

[hollyvsivy]

My children are adventurous and unless something is dangerous or unsafe for themselves or others, I don't see the problem. Increasingly I find myself being scowled at by other parents whose DC want to copy mine as if I should stop mine to help them out. I've had passive agressive comments, too. As far as I'm concerned, it's up to them to enforce their rules on their children - not me.

Some examples to give you an idea of the contexts of these situations:

Splashing in puddles
Climbing trees
Standing up on the swing
Climbing the slide (as long as no one else is waiting to go down)
Painting their hands and feet at toddler group
Rolling down hills

AIBU to continue to let my children do what I'm fine with them doing and ignore disapproving outsiders who expect me to stop them so their children won't do the same?

Why do so many people hate slide climbing?!

Cos it more often than not makes a mess of the slide. Let's face it, most kids don't take off their shoes and it leaves mud or grit or at least footprints, and definitely makes it less slidey.
Nothing wrong with climbing up a slide if it's your own but if it's a shared public one it's just bad manners to mess it up for others.

x-post

OP These people tend to be strangers rather than friends

Really? That seems very peculiar. I find it hard to imagine all these 'dissaproving' people hanging around scowling at your DC and making passiv aggressive to you. How on earth do you notice all this scowling. There must be more to it 🤔

Are you sure you aren't doing some performance parenting 😂 I'd scowl at that.

All sounds a bit crunchy to me

I only know of one slide in the numerous local parks that has stairs up to it, all the others are attachment of embankment slides rather than the single crappy slide with stairs up. Have peoples playground equipment not been updated in 30 years?

When we were in London it was all hill slides but here our bit of Essex it is mostly step slides.

As you've used the adjective 'adventurous' to describe absolutely standard kid stuff, I'm guessing you've got the wrong end of the stick of what's causing the stares.

When we were in London it was all hill slides but here our bit of Essex it is mostly step slides

Yeah, I live in the flatlands too. A slide in our park would have to be a mile long to have any sort of slope on it.

The only time I get irritated is when other people's kids are causing a problem for others and the parents don't give a crap. Like the time DD was being trampled trying to come down the slide by kids clambering up it the wrong way while the parents were more interested in drinking their beer than what their kids were doing.

Or the time recently when at a local water park. Family sits down next to us, cracks open the beer and fags and tells the kids to piss off and play. Playing meant lobbing wet sand at each other's faces. Never mind they hit several toddlers in the process.

So, I move us and DD away to avoid an issue. Next thing I know, mum is bellowing at them to move further up because - shock horror - she doesn't want wet sand all over her. So the little bastards darlings start up near us again.

It's not the kids being kids that annoy me so much as the ignorant fuckwit parents.

I have no issue with my kids doing risky things. They climb very high up trees. They climb on the roof of the teen shelter thing, which I am a bit ambivalent about but I don't think it will hurt the shelter, or spoil the shelter for anyone. When DS was 2 and a half he used to climb right to the top of the netting thing and I did get other parents telling me he was too wee. But I do have issues with them using equipment in a way that will spoil it for others.

Same. Climbing trees and climbing slides is in no way comparable! Slides are not MEANT to be climbed. The clue is in the name slide - you slide DOWN it! Which is why steps were invented to go alongside them.
Trees, however. I have no problem with tree climbing. My two love climbing trees. It's a childhood rite of passage. Nobody's waiting patiently to slide down the tree but can't because someone's been taught they can climb up the damn thing and so have no realisation or empathy for anyone else.

What spirited children you have, ok

Congratulations

*op

Flossimodo / MaroonPencil most of the playgrounds are flat here too, but the slides are attached to a big climbing frame thing with lots of stuff coming off rather than an individual piece of equipment.

None of the no slide climbers have mentioned fireman's pole climbers - is that out too? Stopping the slidey-ness?

Step slides here too - I can think of only two hill slides anywhere near us. Even if the slide is part of a bigger climbing frame, it has a set of steps to it.

Firemans poles aren't very slidey anyway because kids come down them with their sweaty little hands, not their cloth covered arses.

God that did not come out at all as it sounded in my head.

Well you shimmy up poles so the slideyness isn't compromised slides and swings are meant for bums not feet

I don't like the slide climbing or swing standing because they encourage feet on seats. I HATE seeing children with their feet on public transport seats and their parents ignoring it. They are just as likely if not more so to be covered in dog shit and dirt than an adults shoes.

It's always 'those' kids that are left almost completely to their own devices that end up standing in swings and climbing in slides isn't it?

The inconsiderate brats adventurous, independent types who are being completely ignored while tearing up the playground and mummy has a coffee raised in a rather hands off manner.

I've never seen these polite children who only run up slides with their shoes off and always consider other children waiting to use slides and swings.

Those sound like things Children do? Things I remember doing as a child, so you aren't being unreasonable at all

Am I really reading the second post in a week about slide climbing?

None of the no slide climbers have mentioned fireman's pole climbers - is that out too? Stopping the slidey-ness?

Fireman's pole I'm presuming is being the same as the one in Bridget Jones Diary that she comes skidding down?!
If so, come ON. How is that even comparable?! Your average toddler/small child surely can't shimmy up to the top of those things with ease.
Even if a few could attempt a couple of metres, they're using their hands! Not their boots/shoes/wellies etc and attempting to run up them.

Ime the parents who's children climb up the slides are also the ones not bothering to watch what they are doing

It's because they are too busy scrutinizing the faces of passerbys for signs of scowling to have time to watch the kids. 👀 🤔

i wouldnt go near a slide as a kid if others were climbing up it-was too shy to say anything

so it might look fine coz noone is waiting but maybe its because they dont want to go near it

sirfredfredgeorge

Ours has all manner of climbing equipment tagged onto it but no stairs.