Moving a child away from the bottom of the slide

[amamma]

I was on the playground with my DD. There was a little boy who I moved out of the way a couple of times, because he was standing at the bottom of the slide and others were coming down. I did ask him to move, but he didn't, so I gently moved him.

I also did the same to my DD a few times.

Is that OK ? I'm paranoid it's super out of line. The mum was nearby but she was sitting down chatting, so she didn't see that he could have been hurt by another child coming down. She saw me do it and didn't seem do mind. I absolutely wouldn't mind if another adult did that to my children.

Opinions ?

You didn't do anything wrong. I have physically grabbed someone's toddler on many occasion when they are trying to climb a slide and there is a child coming down.

Only last week DS was on a swing and I wash pushing him, a group of children were playing tig, one stopped to turn around just in front of the swing not paying attention and I had to pull him out the way otherwise DS would have swung right into him.

Similar has happened to my kids. I'm grateful, I would rather someone moves my child/tells them to move rather than them getting hurt. It's not overstepping when it comes to safety.

Ask yourself this, would you rather have your child physically injured by someone sliding down on top of them or moved by another parent? If it is the latter you did the right thing. Even if the other parent is weird about it.

So you'd deliberately hurt a young child to prove a point to it's mother?

My DS is disabled (invisible disability) and cant be picked up by the arms/ribs (we have to scoop him up with our arm under him bum) so while hes still and normal hyper kid who doesnt let anything slow him down just running round with his siblings and other kids you could have seriously injure him picking him up wrong.

But surely getting hit by a child coming down a slide would be worse!

Don't let him stand in a position that necessitates him being physically moved for his own safety, then. But you surely knew that?

I'd move a child out of harms way without a second thought. I'd certainly not stand and watch them get hit by another child coming down the slide. That would be absolutely bizarre.

MrsTerryPratchett Sorry to hear about your child's health issues. I assume you'd be watching them pretty closely in a playground to avoid any injuries.

It seems like there wasn't much supervision or parental guidance for this particular child.

@drpet49 49

“I'd send my DD down and if she knocked the boy over, he'd soon learn not to stand in the way again.”
^Me too"

Under what other circumstances would you choose to injure a child? A shove on a escalator, with a shopping trolley, with your car in a carpark? Because in the first scenario it's you that's decided to injure the child. Would you injure an adult who is disabled, if their carer wasn't watching them? What about if they go close to the swing?

OP, I would have called loudly to be careful and if it wasn't picked up on, then I'd move the child. I've seen children need stitches from chin injuries walking up the slide the wrong way.

I’d def. move a child out of the way if its parent was too busy nattering/on their phone, to see that it needed to move. After asking the child first, of course. Would it be better for the child to be knocked over by another child coming down? Maybe a bigger, heavier one?

I would have gently moved him. If someone moved my child out of harms way I'd be grateful

Absolutely fine. If they have an objection to this then they should be supervising him more carefully.

I say this as a mum to 3 autistic children- the youngest loves to climb up slides and eat bark from the ground. Hence why I can’t sit and just ignore him when we go to the park.

I would’ve left him there, after a few kicks in the head I’m sure he’ll move.

I'd be glad you loved my child if I wasn't watching them and moving them myself

It's very annoying when an unsupervised young child stands at bottom of slide keeping others waiting at time and both children will get injured if they go down

So I'd ask the child to move, call-out "whose child is this ? You wanna move them" And if no one replied or looked up I'd move them

*if you moved my child!!

Please don't love my child! Gosh that was an unfortunate auto incorrect!! 😱😱

So I'd ask the child to move, call-out "whose child is this ? You wanna move them" And if no one replied or looked up I'd move them

^ this is what I do too.

I'd send my DD down and if she knocked the boy over, he'd soon learn not to stand in the way again.”
^Me too

• I can't believe these nasty replies. Sometimes kids make mistakes and it's quite evil to punish them just because their parent is distracted.

Under what other circumstances would you choose to injure a child? A shove on a escalator, with a shopping trolley, with your car in a carpark? Because in the first scenario it's you that's decided to injure the child. Would you injure an adult who is disabled, if their carer wasn't watching them? What about if they go close to the swing?

@Ponoka7 I would never do this, I do as op did or move away.

However!

Pp are not advocating injuring a child. Their principle is to ignore their child going down the slide, the same way the boys mum ignored him. Ie. Let nature take its course, not shove a child down an escalator.

Well I said I would distract my child and tell them to go on something else and had so many posters jump on me for that yet so many of them ignored the ones who would send theirs down to deliberately hurt the child 🤦🏻 Yeh because that’s so much better?!

A swift kick, job done.

No they didn't @FlyingSaucerss . They have called out, roundly and soundly, pretty much everyone who said they'd not interfere and if the child got hurt tough tits.

But you were going to another batshit extreme of not letting your dd use a slide because a kid was a) unsupervised and b) unaware of how playparks work (ie you don't stand at the end of the slide, or walk too closely to swings). Which is an extreme and incomprehensible aversion to simply kindly guiding the (unsupervised) child out of the way so the playground can be used for it's intended purpose. You and the "he gets what's coming to him" are the ridiculous, imo, extreme positions.

Steering a small child out of harm's way at a playground is a perfectly normal thing to do.

Christ, from some of the responses on here, you'd think you'd picked him up by one leg and lobbed him into a bin.

Like I said, sending your child down to hurt them is much better isn’t it 🙄

I would have said 'careful standing there, you might get knocked over' in the same way I bellowed at a woman on Sunday who was standing on a cliff edge with a great big crack almost running from her feet to the beach. (I was on the beach and didn't fancy wearing a tourist as a hat!)

Nothing wrong in looking out for people, whether guiding them physically or verbally if it means putting them out of harms way. We're too scared of doing the wrong thing when trying to help imo.

I would pick him up and move him if there were actually another child on the way down the slide. Otherwise I'd kind of "shepherd" him away trying not to actually touch him. We're probably all a bit too scared of situations like this though tbh.

Also, parents who can't be arsed with supervising their own children should really understand that someone else is very likely to have to step in 🙄

Like I said, sending your child down to hurt them is much better isn’t it 🙄

you are so bloody determined to misunderstand. Whatever. I hope your DD loves being dragged off things because other parents don't supervise their kids and you're too much of a wet lettuce to move them.

I'd do the same, but saying that I once jumped in to move a tiny toddling baby out of the way of getting nutted by a bigger kids zip wire at an indoor play and the Mother came over and snatched him away with the kind of look I'd expect to get if I'd tried to set him alight.

I took it that she was embarrassed / frightened by her lack of attention and chose to direct it at me 🤷🏻‍♀️

So you would deliberately upset and hurt (maybe seriously) a little boy AND your own child!?
That is all sorts of wrong in my world.