Ds 12 & DD 7 climbing on our scaffolding this morning

[lavenderpekins]

Sooo dangerous? Neglectful possibly? I was in the bath, DH was meant to be with them? They went to the top. Am I unreasonable to have been livid??? 😵

I agree with the principle and practice of children being physical and taking risks. My children do lots of climbing, scrambling, balancing etc and more than lots of children I see. They have been doing it since they were little and I can see them assessing whether they make a leap, climb up the rock etc before either deciding they can and doing it or deciding they can’t and not doing it. If the risk is too high or the consequences if something goes wrong too high DH and I would intervene. I think climbing on scaffolding is insanity. The risk of them slipping may be small but the implications if they are enormous. Building sites are hazardous and not playgrounds. Your husband is an idiot - listen to the builders and construction workers on here.

Probably not the best comment to add but when my brother and I were about the same age (me being the eldest), my brother was climbing all over the scaffolding and running along the planks. I dared him to jump from the scaffolding in to the field behind our house... He stupidly did and badly sprained his ankle! I was in the bad books! Hopefully your kids didn't do anything so stupid!

We did this when similar ages. it was summertime, house was being rendered and siblings and I took a picnic out / sunbathed on the scaffolding, it was the 80s though and parents had no bloody clue what any of us got up to, all four of us made it to adulthood; relatively unscathed!

what kind of scaffolding are we talking about? bungalow, or 2 storey townhouse? townhouse - dangerous. bungalow with grass underneath - harmless.
Btw, builders hard hats are completely useless if you fall of scaffolding...

what kind of scaffolding are we talking about? bungalow, or 2 storey townhouse? townhouse - dangerous. bungalow with grass underneath - harmless

WTF Yura? Falling on your head from bungalow height is lethal.

You both have very different ideas about acceptable risk. IMHO the person who is more conservative wins. Explain that it's not just the risk to the child who might fall it's the risk to your marriage because you couldn't forgive him. A risk to the others because your marriage could fall apart and destabilise the whole family. I'd offer something back like not freaking out about dirt so he feels like you're compromising. Being pulled up another adult for every little thing is tiring too. Let the dirt go but hold firm on safety.

There are fall protection regulations for scaffolding. No one should be up scaffolds without training and proper PPE.

Wondering what the correct PPE is for climbing scaffolding.

I regularly work on scaffolding and agree it's no place for a child or an unconfident adult for that matter.

I would be very angry if I found out my children had climbed to the top of a building (even a bungalow).

Personally I would let the dirt go as long as he washed the floor and the wellies.
I bet he didn't though.

Livid with them after they did it? Of course YANBU

Livid with them when they were up there? YABU. It's a lot easier to fall off when you're being yelled at than it is if you're concentrating.

Also it kinda was inevitable if they hadn't already had the fear of God put into them about it. The trick will be to make sure they never ever do it again.

Dh's view with lots of physical stuff is they need to learn risk...

Sadly this has now become a convenient line to be parrotted by lazy parents who can't be arsed to assess anything and don't like to say no to their kids.

Working at one place some years ago, they had a scaffolding tower with inbuilt ladder up. Everybody told under no circumstances were they to go anywhere near it. It was fenced off.

Huge (6 foot 3), incredibly athletic, parkour loving 16 year old climbed over the barrier and decided to go to the top. All well and good, he could easily support his own weight one handed. He decided to come down the outside of the tower, having shown that he knew 'exactly' what he was doing at height ignoring the fact that he obviously didn't know that inbuilt ladders are designed to be used from inside the tower.

Got to the bottom rung and caught his foot. He pitched forward onto his face, his foot stayed where it was as he fell an entire two foot. The resulting damage meant that he practically severed his foot internally and will not be ever be doing Parkour (or climbing, dancing, or walking without a limp or pain) again. Had he done exactly the same further up the tower, it would have been catastrophic, rather than just permanently disabling.

He might have got hurt any other time, but it was the moment he was above ground level for more than jumping (and obviously, not wearing the sort of boots that builders/site team are required to wear) that he caused himself permanent damage.

Guess he learned about risk, though.

With the fool of a man you have married, irresponsible builders and your feeble self-doubt when it comes to actively parenting your children, I’ll be astounded if all your children make it to 18 without major injury or death. I thought this sort of jolly jape was left behind in the 70s. One of my friends died climbing a pylon. He was 12 too.

This debate reminded me of a photo of my 3 aged 2,4 and 6. They were being closely supervised . My youngest was famed for having got out the back door, up some steps and up to the top of the slide months before she ever walked. Providing they are being supervised I think it is ok but I am now preparing for some outrage.

My upbringing was like this, and then some. I survived it, as did my siblings. Still think it’s shit parenting. But hey, let’s just show how free-range and zany we are, how unstuffy and exciting. Cue small children frying their own chips and experimenting with free diving.

I think there needs to be a balance Armchair and I personally think we have swung far too far in the opposite direction. Children get to secondary school these days without ever having done anything independently. I remember a friend who was a teacher telling me that when she did road safety with year 6 kids they barely knew what a pavement was. They only ever went front door to car and dropped at front door of school or wherever. Kids need to be cared for but allowed to learn a bit of independence within that.

We had scaffolding around the house for a loft conversion when I was 8 and DB was 10. DB would climb out of his bedroom window along the scaffolding at the back of the house, over the garage roof, along the scaffolding at the front/side and back in through his bedroom window. He survived and is 40 now! My dad used to take me up to the top level of the scaffolding when home from work.

Whilst it's not entirely safe, neither are a lot of other things in life.

I'd probably leave the older one to get on with it, but maybe guide them in how to risk assess their decision to go on it, ie wet and slippery or windy or dark. And then make it clear that the younger one isn't allowed up without a parent and that the older one will be grounded if you find they are taking the younger one up.