WIBU? How much do you parent your children in the pool?

[justkeepswimmingandoverthinkin]

To set the scene: private spa type place attached to a non-chain hotel in a non-particularly touristy area. I’d say about 80% of the members are retirees as the facilities are small and it doesn’t really compete with the likes of David Lloyds / Ballentynes etc despite charging more. I only joined with my kids (who get set hours after school + all day weekends & holidays) because an elderly relative prefers the smaller, quieter setting.

We go together most mornings and I take the kids a couple of nights a week. Sometimes we’ll be the only people there and sometimes everyone will be sharing lanes and moving over to let others past.

All good.

So when I take my kids (6 and 11) there are rules (unless we’re the only ones there).
⁃ You want to play shark etc you go in the kids pool.
⁃ If you’re in the adult pool you’re swimming in lanes (one needs help and still at the V splashy stage so we use the lane closest to the side so people can avoid us and I’ll lift her up if Betty with her perm is passing so we don’t soak her).
⁃ If you just want to float around, fine, but stay in a lane if there are other people trying to swim.
⁃ Respect other people and try not to get in others’ way / soak them etc.

I thought this was normal and honestly the only other kids I’ve seen have been babies having a float with their parent in the lane nearest the wall (and I don’t care if they splash me - they’re babies!), or older teens just swimming normally. The handful of times there have been kids ages with mine the parents have all been doing similar - that I’ve noticed.

Obviously if this was a fun type pool with flumes and a wave machine then all bets are off and kids will be kids.

So - AIBU? Is this normal? Would you expect the same in this situation or are the kids entitled to do otherwise because we’re paying members using the set child hours and if people don’t want to be bothered by children they should go when they’re at school?

I ask because I went alone this morning - completely forgetting that English half-term is different from ours. There were 3 families there and it was just COMPLETELY DIFFERENT. They were all loud, splashing, and using the entire pool (basically what you’d expect kids to be doing in a “fun” pool).

One particular family of 3 children (ages with mine) was the worst. Nobody could swim a single length without having to stand up or swim around them. My hair was drenched. Everyone was drenched. I know swimming caps exist but I've never ever needed one for 40 mins worth of breaststroke or even when I've been teaching my youngest to swim. An elderly lady got hit in the face. Another almost knocked over. Forget the fact it’s supposed to be 2 under 14s per adult, this Dad had 3 of them and he sat on one of the chairs at the side the entire time and didn’t tell them off or adjust their behaviour or tell them to take it to the kids pool once. Not even when the lady got hit. Adults were practically on top of each other trying to avoid these kids and I just couldn’t believe anyone would be so oblivious to this?!

But… nobody else seemed to say anything. No passive aggressive tuts or slightly longer than normal stares (except maybe me one or twice haha! I was just so shocked and couldn't help checking if he just wasn't seeing this - but he was!).

So, while I would never let my kids behave to that extreme - are my rules militant in comparison? Is there some happy medium that most parents do and most adults accept and I should give my kids more free reign?

They don’t dislike the way things are - they absolutely love it - but I’m not going to lie it CAN be exhausting sometimes feeling like I have to have eyes on the non-swimmer, while making sure the older swimmer isn’t just drifting around in front of people, while keeping track of who is swimming by so I don’t soak them, while reminding them to shout across the pool and the other swimmers at each other.

And I feel like the Dad was definitely being unreasonable but feel free to change my mind. Is it me or him or both of us?

And yes I agree different people need different things but that's presumably why they have a kids pool which sat empty while the dedicated swimming pool couldn't be swam in

Having no regard for other users is unacceptable. And playing so wildly they hit a woman in the face is really, really unacceptable. But in general, if I were staying at a hotel that in someway advertised as having a kid friendly pool (even if it mean going outside and across the car park) for guests I would expect the kids to be able to play in it, not just accommodate laps. Especially if the hours kids are welcome are restricted, implying the rest of the time is expected to be quieter and more suitable for laps.

I think there's a lot of middle ground between what you've been doing and what the hotel guests were doing.

However, as Lucked said - being a member and seeing Betty everyday is very different from a one off stay.

YABU for ‘everyone was drenched’ - it’s a pool and it’s holidays. That’s kind of the point of one - getting wet. It’s a hotel pool that allows kids.

How do you not get your hair wet during swimming? Especially breaststroke? Surely your head goes under water when swimming?

But YNBU for being cross with them for not being considerate of others and not being picked up on for that.

How can you do breaststroke for forty minutes without getting your hair wet?
It’s a pool people must expect to be ‘drenched’.
No excuse for bad pool etiquette though.

I used to work at a small private swimming pool. 90% of parents are like you and we, the staff, really appreciate it. 10% are arse holes usually but not exclusively male and children's hours get reduced because of them. We had one woman bring 6 dc, not all hers, in and she was vile when we asked her and the feral darlings to leave.

There is a balance. The other family sound a bit obnoxious but your rules are pretty strict and unlikely to be stuck to by families on holiday in the child-access hours. It sounds like there perhaps need to be more adult hours during half term at your pool but I’d expect splashing, jumping in, kids messing around on floats, kids doing widths rather than lengths etc during the child time.

This is a wind up right?
You swim for 40 minutes without getting your hair wet and wearing mascara? You expect not to get wet in a swimming pool?

You need to ask management to put a lane or two up in the pool. Regular users don't trump holiday users so if the pool was unusable due to children being loud and splashing in a pool, again you need to speak to management.

The dad was unreasonable for allowing his children to get out of hand and the regular users were unreasonable for expecting the children to follow the retirement village type rules.

Are there no signs up in the pool for rules of the pool area? Are there no T&C's for bookings? Either way, again its down to the management to enforce these.

@justkeepswimmingandoverthinkin

And yes I agree different people need different things but that's presumably why they have a kids pool which sat empty while the dedicated swimming pool couldn't be swam in

Why didn't you use it then?

YANBU. If kids want to play in the water they should be told by parents to do it in the kids pool. If they want to swim lengths, then use the adult pool but be mindful of other people. Children's 'fun' shouldn't take precedence of other people's enjoyment of the facilities.

The dad just sounds like a useless twat. I think most people would err on the side of behaving like you with their kids rather than like him, especially in a place like you describe. And actually while I agree you’re not going to be able to keep your hair dry, I don’t think you do need to expect to be actively splashed by other people in any kind of pool. I’d correct my kids for splashing where it was reaching other people even in a ‘fun pool’.

Ask if they can half the pool for swimming vs playing. Preferably with the kids getting the shallow end and the adults having to put up with doing widths...

Around here its nearly impossible to find an open session you can take the kids to. Out of all the council pools, there is one you can use after school (at all the others it goes lessons then adult only lane swim). And thats 5pm-6 30pm. The others are open for a few hours on Saturday and Sunday afternoons. I'd be annoyed to go to one of the few family sessions and the kids not be able to play tbh. Even more when they say the younger kids have to stay in the shallow end and half of its closed of for lanes.

An elderly lady got hit in the face. Another almost knocked over. Forget the fact it’s supposed to be 2 under 14s per adult, this Dad had 3 of them and he sat on one of the chairs at the side the entire time and didn’t tell them off or adjust their behaviour or tell them to take it to the kids pool once. Not even when the lady got hit.

YANBU. You’re being civilised and teaching your DC thoughtfulness.

The parents you describe are selfish and thoughtless. Was there a lifeguard or manager to speak to?

This is why I would never choose a hotel pool for a regular swim.

Hotel pools are to attract families to have fun and they earn income in the quieter months by cheap memberships. Your only option is to get there as it opens.

OK, I think the behaviour of those children was unacceptable and rude, but family swimming time is for family swimming. Not 'lane' swimming. If family swim hours are too long, that's the problem.

Our leisure centre has swim for fitness and family swim, and I find it incredibly irritating when adults turn up and start swimming lengths during family swim time so that I have no space to play with my 4yo or try to teach him to swim. There was one time when the whole pool had been taken over by people trying to swim lengths so we were just sitting on the steps, unable to go in any further without getting in someone's way. I ended up speaking to the lifeguard on the side who said loudly to me, "This is family swim time. You do what you want with your son and they'll just have to swim round you." Which we did. Though if there was a single swimmer trying to do lengths, we would try to stay out of their way.

@justkeepswimmingandoverthinkin

Everyone was drenched YABU for that comment. It's a pool. They're filled with water

Hahaha I accept that 🤣

It's my leftover trauma from the teacher trying to force your head and extra thick hair inside a talc'd up cap the size of a condom that makes me shiver at the thought of having to do it. But then I guess I maybe can't complain if my hair gets more than a little damp 🙈

Note to self: also skip mascara during school holidays.

Or maybe don't and hope it repels them in terror 😂.

Missing the point, but doing breaststroke and not getting your head/face wet means you are not doing it properly!

@Aroundtheworldin80moves

Ask if they can half the pool for swimming vs playing. Preferably with the kids getting the shallow end and the adults having to put up with doing widths...

Around here its nearly impossible to find an open session you can take the kids to. Out of all the council pools, there is one you can use after school (at all the others it goes lessons then adult only lane swim). And thats 5pm-6 30pm. The others are open for a few hours on Saturday and Sunday afternoons. I'd be annoyed to go to one of the few family sessions and the kids not be able to play tbh. Even more when they say the younger kids have to stay in the shallow end and half of its closed of for lanes.

And we have this too. DS as a non-swimmer is not allowed in the deep end. So the area we can go in is quite small to start off with. If people start taking chunks out of it by making up their own 'lanes', then we can't really go anywhere at all.

I never get my hair WET with breaststroke 😂 I know how to do it underwater but I've not done it for years. I mean maybe the baby hairs at the back of my neck will get wet and there might be some damp bits where people splash etc but for the most part it all gets twisted up on the top of my head in a big bun and clipped (with a bowless jojo bow I stole from my youngest - those things are STRONG!) and the blowdry lasts 4 days. Has a nice relaxed curl to it too 😁 It's almost bum-length and thick so I think I'd have to stop swimming if it meant washing and drying it every single day 🙈

I will take a photo this morning to prove this isn't a wind up - provided the family from hell has gone home 🤣

Was there a lifeguard or manager to speak to?

No lifeguard or manager in the pool area no. You'd have to go out, get changed, and walk around to the reception if you needed them. (There's a button for emergencies but otherwise totally unattended).

Hotel pools are to attract families to have fun and they earn income in the quieter months by cheap memberships.

I do get what you're saying. The only thing I can say is its really not marketed as this lol! Think quiet relaxing spa and the memberships are not cheap. Like I said, we only go because an elderly relative would rather pay more for a quiet spa type place than a bigger one - even if the bigger ones have way better facilities. But I totally understand a family on holiday is just going to see "you can access the pool on your stay and your kids can use it all day" and not the marketing they use to pull in the monthly memberships.

@ChocolateMassacre I agree with you I would not be happy if that was going on during a family swim session and my kids didn't have a single place to go without being made to feel like they're a nuisance.

That really wasn't the case here though. If they'd taken even half of the adult pool I wouldn't have bothered. Like even if the Dad had said "leave one lane for people to swim" I'd have been fine.

Maybe they need to have "child access hours" and "family swim sessions". Or reduce the child access hours from all morning, all afternoon and all night. Because I feel like there is definitely a difference. You can avoid a three hour family swim session if you want to, but you can't really avoid child access hours when they're "whenever they're not in school". Like I said, when you account for Scottish / English differences that's literally months of the year devoted to "family swim sessions" if that's how they're treating child access hours.

It sounds like the issue is not the families having fun in the pool (with the exception of the three very rowdy children whose behaviour sounds unacceptable). It's the way the hotel has been marketed and the lack of restrictions on children's hours. At a family hotel, I would expect at least a few hours a day of "children's time" where children could play and have fun without serious swimmers hogging the space. And no the children's pool doesn't make up for it unless it's deep enough that children can have a proper swim in it (which I'm assuming it's not as most children's pools are just for paddling?).

I think yanbu if there's a kids pool too. I would do the same as you -kids pool for splashy playing, other pool for swimming. I think you are on a hiding to nothing though unless the management have signs up making the rules (if any) clear. If it was me, and there currently aren't any rules I would be chatting to the managers now (or before the summer holidays) about their expectations for clients/use of facilities etc.since I doubt they want to risk losing members over it. I wouldn't do that if there were only one pool, but with two I see no problems about setting out that pool a is for playing, pool b is for swimming

We were lucky there was a lifeguard on duty in our hotel pool that we were members of. They would calm it down if anyone was impacting the enjoyment of the other people using the pool. Yes children are permitted to have fun but not at the expense of the other people in the pool.

There were "fun" sessions during school holidays where they put giant floats in the pool and they were a lot of fun. But there were set times for this and they still retained the lane section of the pool for anyone who wanted to lane swim. There was a giant window to the pool so you could see what was going on in there before you got changed.

Every gym pool I’ve ever been to has approx half set up as lane swimming (not one person per lane) usually a fast, med & slow then half free swim which is we’re I’d expect the kids to be.

I would never let my kids play in the lanes but would expect them to be allowed to play in the open part of the pool.

I think it’s the pool set up that sounds wrong, not you or the family.

YANBU. Though I think the hotel should still enforce adult only swimming times even in the holidays, maybe not as restricted as usual, but there should be some hours that are adult only. If I had a membership for a pool to exercise I’d be annoyed not being able to swim properly during the holidays. Ok, half term is just a week, but during the 6 weeks school holidays it’s not great.
Completely agree with what you say. I’ve been so annoyed in the past when I’ve gone for a relaxing spa day (definitely not during holidays) and ended up with kids screaming and shouting in the pool, but probably as I was working as a nanny and went for a break from kids!

We stayed in a spa hotel with restricted access for kids to pool over half term. While I did keep an eye on my kids so they didn't get in anhones way I completely believe that for those very restricted slots they shld be allowed to play and have fun. Children's rights do not always just have to be over ridden for adults

Being on holiday isn't the same as visiting 3 times a week maybe those children can't afford to come all the time and we're enjoying the rare treat.