AIBU to wish people would not use playgrounds yet.

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So I've just been walking in the local park with my DD (5) and she's been so upset she can't use the playrgound. Virtually every other child was being allowed on the swings and slides, despite clear signing saying it's not allowed and tape around the equipment. She was asking if she'd been naughty and therefore wasn't allowed on and I had to try to explain that nobody was meant to be on them. Am I being unreasonable to follow the rules? Have I got the rules wrong? AIBU to wish people didn't break them, especially while other children are around?

Where I am no one seems to be using playgrounds. Tbf we are rural and the playgrounds are crap, much more fun to be had in the woods and rivers.

But I agree that it's not great to blatantly break open taped up playgrounds in front of children. We have to follow the rules to keep everyone safe. That's a good message to teach young children I think.

I'm at the fuck it stage with my DCs. After 3 months of no school, no family, no friends, no sports and nothing near normality until at least September, I am no longer overlooking an accessible play area.

They spent a glorious hour climbing, balancing, swinging and chasing around an empty playground last week, and it was worth shivering in a sharp wind, seeing them enjoying themselves, laughing and being self motivated instead of the surly lethargy and anger that's been building up for weeks. Under any other circumstance, the way they have been isolated for months would be classed as abuse-neglect.

DS1 has dyspraxia and regresses easily in his gross-motor skills. Normally he builds them slowly, oh so slowly at swimming and karate, but he just hasn't been in an environment to do anything other than walk, scoot and re-learn how to ride a bike for the 3rd year in a row. Playgrounds are great for developing proprioception and reducing the atrophy.

We hurt no one. The DCs have had minimal risk of exposure for months. There was no one else there. I sanitised their hands when we were done. Literally a victimless crime with only benefits to them.

There is no magical difference in safety between July 3rd and July 4th, and playgrounds should have reopened at the start of June when some children got the opportinity to go to school/ nursery and other children remained frozen out of the system.

Do you tell people off for crossing at the red man?

People are past caring. The government have probably been choosing when to relax the roolz by picking things out of a hat: garden centres yes, playgrounds no; and now pubs yes, but gyms, no. Perhaps someone tossed a coin to decide on the playgrounds. I think there are slipperier slopes to worry about: our own government criminalising house guests (and probably quietly intending to keep the laws in place for years to come, when they think we've forgotten about them): to me, that is one hell of a slippery slope. And the mental health of children and teenagers: not so much a slippery slope as a yawning abyss.

There is no magical difference in safety between July 3rd and July 4th, and playgrounds should have reopened at the start of June when some children got the opportinity to go to school/ nursery and other children remained frozen out of the system

I agree so much with this

YABU. I agree, former.

Equally do you make your kids wait at the curb until the light goes to green? Even if no cars are coming? Some do, some don't

@formerbabe @BogRollBOGOF totally agree. You cannot keep treating kids this way. It’s time to let them have some enjoyment

Is there any evidence that anyone, anywhere has caught the virus from a "surface"? I know that it's theoretically possible but not only does it need to be present and to have survived, it needs to have survived in a viable condition the child needs to touch the right spot, transfer sufficient quantity to their hands and then transfer it to their eyes or mouth without washing their hands.

The risk seems minuscule to me and it's outrageous that these play areas have been closed so long.

What do you think will change between now and next week when it is allowed?

You should have kept her away from the park if she wasn't allowed on the swings.

And DS1 also has autism and it is useful for him to understand the logic and purpose of rules and that life is not entirely black and white with slavish devotion to every illogical rule ever created.
It is also useful to him not to feed his naturally anxious nature and to let him have fun and understand risk and cost/ benefit analysis.

We did 3 months of mostly following the guidance and hadn't done anything against the legislation before that point.

I'm well used to training him around social niceties and not to go around yelling at every Tom, Dick and Harry breaking minor rules so it's a life lesson being the one on the opposite side for once.

Hmmm I think I should retract my posts actually, if such an option existed. Suddenly feeling guilty for parents and kids who have nothing to do or play on outside except playgrounds. This is not my situation and I shouldn't really be weighing in on it as who knows what I would do if I lived in a city with no other options for playtime.

Sorry all.

The thing is that these are now guidelines not legislation there is no possibility of a conviction the police never could enforce visitors to houses as police need a search warrant to enter a house unless owner decides to invite them in or agrees they can come in when asked

I've started letting mine play in the playground now. Our local one is open, and the signs have been removed. A couple of weeks ago I started to see that lockdown was having a clear negative impact on my children, whereas the levels of virus in our community, and the risk to children even if they do catch it, are both low. In my opinion, the benefits of play outweigh the current risk of the virus to my children. Others are free to make their own choices. Our government are morally bankrupt and don't even follow their own rules, so I don't particularly care what the rules say.

Yanbu, even if you’re not worried about the virus it’s not great to be teaching young dc to ignore warning signs. Other times equipment gets taped off because it’s broken and not safe to use.

There is a big difference between raising kids as anarchists and raising them to see that not all rules are logical or rational and sometimes there are bad laws and protest against them and even disobedience is sometimes justified and raising kids to follow every rule and regulation regardless

You could always tell your child the truth i find that works best

@GalesThisMorning Absolutely I make my daughter wait for the green man before crossing - I'm actually a bit surprised this is not universally the case, but it appears it's not!

@legalseagull I don't think there will be a huge difference between this week and next in the context of transmission rates, but the big difference will be that there is no longer a sign up saying do not use this equipment. That will mean my daughter does not get conflicting messages about which rules to obey and which ones to ignore.

Green man, cycle helmets, keeping the right side of escalators : These are measures for public safety which are designed to protect people but are not compulsory and often ignored.

Necessity to stop you car at a red light, kids in car seats, smoking in pubs : These are measures for public safety which are illegal to ignore and carry a penalty if and you are caught.

I thought all the COVID stuff fell in to the second category, doesn't matter how I feel about them.

Have you sought help for your health anxiety OP?

And don't take your DC past packed playgrounds, because to be honest, it's a bit cruel if you're not going to let them play.

@TeacupDrama I totally agree that there a bad rules which should be changed. And there are ways to change them. What I don't think is that whilst trying to change them you ignore them. I might think that the speed limit on the motorway should be 100mph, but that does not mean that I should drive at that speed. It's not to do with being convicted - it's to do with civic responsibility - both to the infection chain my daughter might be part of and the other parents struggling to do the right thing. @UltimateWednesday this is still quite a novel virus. It will be some time before we understand the transmission vectors. In the mean time, I think it's better to stick to the rules.

In reality very very little of covid stuff falls into second category, shielding was and is voluntary, how many exercise shopping trips you made was discretionary, there were a very small number of things with actual legal penalty and all of these could be argued against in court you may not have won case but it seems now that large numbers of fines have been overturned as were issued for breaking guidelines but not the law. The 2 metre distancing was never law etc etc

I’m counting down the days until ours opens.

I’ll never take a trip to the play park for granted again!

I'm with you OP. We've decided to follow the guidelines as much as possible. We've discussed this with her and expressed our disappointment that other people aren't following the rules. I think it's important for her to learn about principled stances. It's still shit and I'd rather she didn't have to deal with it.

In the meantime, we make sure we've got other fun things planned at the park. Bikes, scooters, football's all on hand. And loads of tree climbing. Lots of hand sanitizer before and after.

Playgrounds are open from Monday here so we've got plans for a big playground day.

@UltimateWednesday

Is there any evidence that anyone, anywhere has caught the virus from a "surface"? I know that it's theoretically possible but not only does it need to be present and to have survived, it needs to have survived in a viable condition the child needs to touch the right spot, transfer sufficient quantity to their hands and then transfer it to their eyes or mouth without washing their hands.

The risk seems minuscule to me and it's outrageous that these play areas have been closed so long.

It's like dealing with food allergies. Obviously you don't eat food that contains the allergen. But the majority of foods have "may contain traces warnings" and only "free from" foods have a guarentee of being free from traces.

The majority of people with allergies accept the hazard of traces because it is too restrictive to avoid them all and the benefit of a varied diet outweighs the risk. Often even with people at risk of anphylactic reactions, a much more dangerous gamble than Covid 19.

Traces left in outdoor spaces are highly, highly unlikely to be of sufficient quality and quantity to overwhelm the immune systems of healthy people. If they were a significant risk rather than borderline hypothetical, there would be considerable evidence to support that by now.