To ask why parents let their kids do this?!

[MustardScreams]

Took dd out for lunch today to a lovely little cafe, geared up for kiddies (playroom, good kids food) as a treat as I haven’t been well, and work full time so we never have a week-day off together.

There was a little girl (the only other child there at that point) around 4/5 with no parents in sight and she saw me playing with dd and latched on. Usually I wouldn’t mind, but I really just wanted to spend time with my child. We couldn’t shake her off, and I couldn’t find her parent/guardian anywhere. Surely if you’re taking your kid out for lunch or whatever a) you keep an eye on them and b) you don’t let them harass other families?!

I have a totally different viewpoint on this: I don't really like it when parents go right into the middle of the play area at soft play unnecessarily, eg on slides tbh. They tend to create hazards, eg waving coffee around, and get in the way or step back without seeing other children. Let the children play by themselves! Standing at the side is fine, and of course very young children need supervision, but the play areas are designed for children and there is rarely much room for adults. If all parents went into the play area, including parents of older children, there wouldn't be room for the children!

Anyway, children need unsupervised play. I always watch mine, but I think they benefit from the opportunity to play and talk to other children without close supervision. I do intervene of I see that they're annoying another adult, but this is rare.

I’m with you OP - if my DS wanders over to peoples tables I’ll tell him to come back. I don’t want him annoying people just like I don’t want to be annoyed by other people’s children.

I was never annoyed with the little girl, I was friendly to her, I’m not evil. I was annoyed that she wasn’t being supervised and there wasn’t anyone around to interact with her. Her parent/guardian is the annoying one here.

For context this is the play-room. I’m sitting on the sofa talking to dd. The little girl was sitting next to me at this point.

I definitely should have mentioned it to the staff, absolutely BU not to do that. But if her parents had been parenting then there wouldn’t have been any need would there?

YANBU. Was in the library this summer with DS1 and 2 when a two kids appeared by themselves. The mum had dumped them in the child area and cleared off over the other side of the building. There’s signs all over the place saying that under 8’s need to be supervised.

Mayagoldchoc I completely agree with you. Different if a parent is following a child dutifully from a slight distance because they are prone to lash out or have difficulties using age appropriate equipment and need a bit of help, but tinies shouldn't be in areas meant for older children if they can't access it without help purely due to age, and leave the poor kids to play if they can manage, get out of their space!

I despise especially the special breed of parents/ uncle/ parent's mate who gets on inflatable or wobbly equipment or slides at the same time as other people's children and puts those other people's children at risk due to the massive weight discrepancy, and grins around at their mate/ lover/ adults in general expecting to be admired for being so "fun" Watch out for that 8kg toddler you're pulling into your orbit you selfish oaf!

YANBU I'll never forget when I had just had my second, who was constantly on the boob as new-borns are prone to do, and I didn't seem to have a moment with DS1.He was really missing me, and me him. Finally one afternoon I had about an hour while baby was sleeping and I took DS1 to the park to play with a new kite. We literally had not been there a minute before another child wandered up and said 'can I play too?' I was caught off-guard (brain working v slow due to sleep deprivation) and didn't know how to say 'no'. I was horrified to see my poor DS's face sink as it dawned on him that this precious one-to-one time was not going to happen. The child's parents were just on a bench watching as their child kept asking for goes with the kite, running after it etc. If I was the parents I would have at least gone over and said something like 'is it OK that little Jonny plays with you, or would you prefer me to take him?' I wasn't annoyed at little Jonny, I was annoyed at myself and at little Jonny's parents. . . . . even 10 years later a bit annoyed!

At the end of the day, I guess you have to make your feelings clearer. Adults do this too: I was chatted to by a woman in a coffee shop recently, and was annoyed as I'd been planning on sitting reading my book alone for the first time in years! Also, she wasn't my kind of person really. She hadn't taken gentle hints like turning away to my coffee and cake. I eventually phoned my husband and that got rid of her. I should have done so earlier I guess. But I'm usually really happy to chat, and other people aren't mind readers. I'd hate to live in a world where nobody chats to strangers. Goes to show adults can make the same mistake though, it's hard to know whether the other person wants to chat, and we learn these skills from experience.

I've always been excessively anxious about annoying people by chatting, and I think it's a factor in me finding it hard to make friends. I'm also extremely shy to the point where it's affected my life/career etc. I'm happy for my daughter to learn that many people are happy to chat and some are not - I still tell her if it's obvious that they're not, but I don't stop her from ever talking to people. She's friendly and many adults, including some elderly people, genuinely seem to enjoy a quick chat with her. I am still aware of her annoying people though! Adults and children are all individuals, and some enjoy chatting, some don't.

Oh! That triggered a memory of another unsupervised child. On another continent. We were driving back home from small town Saturday morning shopping on a main (four lane but not massively busy) road and a child crossed all four lanes in front of us. Told DH to stop and got out, leaving my three with him.

Caught up with child who was trotting purposefully across grassed area towards sand dunes and beach. No relevant adult in sight; no adult at all. Child was barefoot and in a nappy and t-shirt, age at a guess 18-24 months. Not coherently verbal but clutching a coin in his palm and wanting ice cream. I think he was on a shopping trip! No ice cream kiosk in the vicinity.

Scooped him up and set off to hawk him up and down the houses, nice older ones, lining the far side of the road. Man in a garden disclaimed child but said there was a party going on a few doors down. Found party house with gate open, knocked on door, which was ajar, nobody came. Pushed door open, heard partyish noises of music and adult chatter from further in, called out, nobody came. Proceeded down a passage, through a kitchen and out into a nice backyard where a lunchtime barbecue was going on: a dozen or so adults, various children, food, beer, laughter etc.

Asked if anyone was missing a child and handed him over to nice young woman who claimed him. She hadn't missed him and was totally unfazed when told how far he had got. Stressed that gate and front door had been open. She offered me casual thanks and I left, shutting front door and gate carefully.

Went home, hugged my kids and shook for ten minutes or so at the thought of what could have happened!

Absolutely get it. Always happened when my DC were little and I had to go in the soft play with them. Always,always would get an annoying kid trailing us who usually wouldn't stop talking. I'll admit I would absolutely ignore them, it was the only way to get them to go away. That doesn't make me miserable, that makes me a tired and frazzled mum who's just about reserved enough energy for her own three little ones.

This has happened to me on the beach quite a lot. I'm fine with it as long as the child is well behaved, but if they aren't it's annoying. To be honest 15-20 mins is a long time and I would have been worried.

Was it in the child play area? I would imagine the parent was at a table eating and the child was allowed to go play in the play area alone. This is what is normal in all the restaurants I see where there are child play areas. There are no adults in the actual play area. If your daughter and the other girl were the only children in the children's play area is it really surprising the little girl was wanting to play with your daughter. Stop being so bloody miserable. If the little girl was at your table whilst you were eating, that's another story.

@haggistramp she didn’t want to play with my daughter (I have repeatedly said this) she wanted to climb on me, sit on my lap and whilst that is fine, I’m not her parent! I was there to spend some much needed catching up time with dd, not supervise or entertain someone else’s child whilst they relaxed and didn’t parent.

100% with you op.
The posts saying this isn't an issue are the lazy parents using these places as free childcare to drink coffee and not interact with their kids. Exactly the same at the park/libary/trampolines everywhere, cf parents who "don't realise" their little darling are interfered in a families day out and leaves their kid to be looked after by other people. A night away last week and went went swimming in the hotel pool, an hour and a half of having this annoying 7 year old kid following us round, splashing, taking my child float, telling us about her family, desperate for attention so obviously we were polite but her lazy git of a father ignored her and sat in the spa and couldn't even see her. We wanted time together as a family not being a childminder.

@Veterinari

Right so now you’re calling the OP a dick for kindly managing someone else's Child? Nice

No! I suggested that making assumptions about other people's expectations was dickish behaviour. The glaringly obvious clue was in my use of the word 'assume'.

FWIW, I have some sympathy for the OP. It's annoying if you don't want to interact with other people's children but it happens if you go to public play places, so you need to be firm and clear if you want them to leave you alone. But the assumption that the parents of these children are expecting free childcare is ridiculous. I doubt they expect you to and probably just think you're a mug for doing it.

The fact that you weren’t concerned enough to alert staff is quite chilling. You didn’t need to interact with the child, all you needed to do was alert staff instead of morning about it here.

*moaning

Chilling? I hope you don’t read the news if you think that’s chilling. Blimey, that’s quite the overreaction.

Right so now you’re calling the OP a dick for kindly managing someone else's Child? Nice

No! I suggested that making assumptions about other people's expectations was dickish behaviour.

Fair enough @DontMakeMeShushYou

So what you’re saying is that it’s dickish to make any assumptions about the absent parents of an unsupervised small child who is climbing all over the OP, wanting to sit on her lap and generally disrupting her day In a cafe where there are potential hazards?

So you think parents should be allowed to let their small children behave as they like with no supervision and we’re dicks for judging that or making assumptions about their lax behaviour which results in inconvenience to someone else?

That sounds pretty entitled to me!

It's annoying if you don't want to interact with other people's children but it happens if you go to public play places, so you need to be firm and clear if you want them to leave you alone

Which the OP was - it didn’t work and it’s not her job to parent someone else’s child.

wingsandstrings his parents couldn't know that this was special, rare time for you. The interaction you describe is normal, and happens all the time. It's wierd for parents to talk over children's heads about them in that situation - the kid didn't want to play with you he wanted to play with your kid and the kite. That used to happen all the time in our village playground when my kids were young enough to need me with them, and continues now they go alone. It's not childcare, it's children interacting.

Most of these problems seem to be about adults thinking everyone else should be able to read their minds and know that going to a play area or playground is a rare, special one to one time thing for them and not a normal, very ordinary daily thing.

Going to public places where children are normally playing with other children, are taken partly for opportunities to socialise and for independent play opportunities (both of which are necessary for development) and are normally line of sight supervised, for your 1:1 time is fraught with the potential for your plans to go awry as you're using public space differently to most families and expecting everyone else to intuit this somehow.

When my second and subsequent babies were born I had them in wrap slings and went to the park daily with dc1 / dc1 and dc2, the baby slept and fed in the wrap and was no more a hindrance than a third trimester pregnancy bump. The older children, dc1 especially, still welcomed every opportunity to play with other children on our daily trips to the playground. Nobody has any way of knowing that for someone else it's a rare 1:1 thing requiring a quarantine zone.

A place I used to work part time shifts at had a 'kids day' with a bouncy castle etc and a cheap kids menu - all well and good but screaming kids running under and tripping up wait staff carrying hot food and drinks was not a good plan. I left very quickly but a former colleague had an incident a couple of years later - small child tripped them up and in an effort to prevent said child recieving 1st degree burns from hot soup former colleague burned themself and spilled most of their tray on the floor - child's mother complained that the cordoned off area (that their child caused) meant that their child couldn't easily access the bouncy castle - some parents just don't give a shit

Yanbu op. This wasn't a case of one child wanting to play with another this child wanted to interact with you. And why are people saying that it's fine for their child to attach themselves to another child - why do you think other children exist to entertain yours? Ime, the children who approach other children do it in order to commandeer toys or to generally take control of the game and be in charge.

We always used to fall victim to this - if we were at the park pushing our children on swings we'd get another child come over wanting us to push them on the swing because the mum was sitting relaxing and smiling indulgently as the child, as though we were her paid staff. Same at swimming pools - because we were playing with our children, diving for things or just generally playing there would always be other children turning up to join in. It's not on.

Best example was when we staying in a condo in America. We'd exchanged pleasantries with the family next door and said hello when we saw them at the pool etc. Sitting at the pool one day the children turned up on their own, dropped their stuff next to us and promptly announced mum had told them to come and play with us. Err, no. I don't want to be responsible for the safety of other children at the swimming pool. Honestly, people need to.look after their own children. If they need or want adult supervision or interaction then as their parent you need to be doing it. Don't foist them onto other people under the guise of "children like playing with other children".

DecomposingComposers do you really believe children don't play together? Are your children so used to being adult led and adult directed that they don't play with other children except as a ruse to steal their stuff?

We live right by a playground and I was often the only adult in there when my kids were little (we live abroad where kids have more freedom) and children are drawn to other children. They'll speak to an adult but the adults shouldn't be directing play in playgrounds, children play together, adults are there for children who need them for safety, not to direct play. The place to actively play with your own children without other children or do adult led activities is at home.

But she’s not my child! I’m not free childcare when someone else wants to sit and eat in peace ffs.

I agree your position is entirely reasonable, despite the goading PPs claiming you must be miserable because 'she's only a child'. Presumably if you'd wanted a childminder's role you'd have taken one on on a paid basis. I like other children and I encourage my DC to play with other children provided they don't mind and he's not being a nuisance. But I would never swan off out of eye/earshot, doing whatever else took my fancy and leaving my own child to latch on to any other family who could, let's face it, be anyone. My child, my responsibility.

The story of the swimmer is particularly negligent and dangerous. Most pools have rules about children swimming unsupervised - regardless of their level of ability - and in my own pool the minimum age is 15. If I ever witnessed the situation that PP described, I'd report it to the nearest lifeguard without question.

YADNBU.

Sitting at the pool one day the children turned up on their own, dropped their stuff next to us and promptly announced mum had told them to come and play with us. Err, no. I don't want to be responsible for the safety of other children at the swimming pool. Honestly, people need to.look after their own children.

I agree this is outrageous. You could easily have had plans to go shopping or out to lunch: what were your CF neighbours expecting you to do then? Take their darling kids along at your own expense? Leave them unsupervised at the pool (as they clearly had no compunctions about doing)?

The CF'ery of these people shouldn't amaze me, as there are a hell of a lot of CFs out there. But my jaw clanged even so.