AIBU and a horrible mum for not enjoying parks or walks?

[RabbitInSpace]

A bit of context first, I have adhd and anxiety so my brain is frequently looking for stimulation, distraction and dopamine.
I'm receiving therapy and I know I need to work on feeling calmer and settled in myself long term and need to find ways to manage this.
However, I'm not there yet.

I have a 4 year old and 18 month old. Of course they love going to parks and we do go because I know it's for them. But I really don't enjoy it one bit. There's no stimulation, no interest, nothing to absorb me. My mind becomes anxious and thoughts can be more intrusive. If we go with friends, that can be better but we don't do that very much.

I love taking the children to different places where we haven't been before. Museums are great because they're interesting and absorbing. Children's classes and groups are fine too. But these things aren't possible all the time.

Tbh, I'm writing this today because it's January, a Sunday, nothing is going on, nothing really to do and nobody available to see with the children so what does that leave us with... a park or a walk?!!

Park gets easier once you're out of the phase of needing to helicopter over them to prevent themselves killing themself and you can sit back and have more of a transportation/coffee consumption role in it (while obviously still maintaining looser supervision).

The park is boring. People nowadays are obsessed with putting themselves through misery to entertain their kids, and they think they’re bad parents if they don’t do it. When I was a kid I just got chucked out to play in the street, it was very rare I got to go to a park! Only when we went for a day out, because there were no parks available nearby to use on a regular basis.

I fucking hate going to the park, especially in winter. I suffer through it because the children like it though.

What do you like doing? What gives you dopamine?

Find a way to include the kids in what you like doing and what you find fun, and take them out because they like it sometimes, but with a headphone in and something to drink.

We always go to the shop or coffee shop when we go to the park, even though it's further, because both me and my ADHD child need the shiny thing on promise at the end (an ice cream, iced coffee, slush drink, hot childcare, hot coffee, whatever it is!) but we also benefit a lot from some exercise and outdoor time. My ASD child also needs a lot of outdoors time. It's not relaxing though, it's highly stressful and we only go for short trips. We spend more time walking to and from the shop or coffee shop than we do actually in the park. Seems to help the dopamine seeking though.

We all love having dance parties with glow sticks, putting the bubble machine on, playing board games, cake decorating and watching movies, so we do more of that than going on walks. But I've come to realise that fresh air does me as much good as it does my DC so try and get out a bit, but don't beat myself up for days spent at home which are well needed sometimes too

talk to them? about anything and everything? what you see on the walk? Use different or interesting vocabulary. Say hello to people, especially older people, you see working in their gardens as sometimes they like to chat to kids. Get on a bus/in the car and go somewhere different for your walk so there are different things for YOU to see. If you have the money, get on a train or a ferry to vary the method of transport. Do some very early map-reading with trail maps which can often be downloaded for free and see if they can figure out where to go. Use lots of different prepositions as part of it, not just "we have to go over there now". Maybe it's a bit different for me as I work in an infant school so it just comes naturally to do these things, but I did used to do that when my kids were young before I worked there anyway.

I think some parents now seem to think that entertaining your child involves lots of organised indoor paid-for activities and classes. There is lots you can do yourself though that costs very little.

Well, no that all sounds incredibly dull to me.

@Runningincircles that was brilliant 👏 and has made me feel much more normal somehow. Very funny. Thank you.

So you are a person that enjoys being around small children. Good for you!
But, a lot of people do find it extememly tedious, and implying they are just not trying hard enough shows a lack of understanding.

[shrugs] some people are just not outdoors people, I guess. I suppose it depends what you like. We're all different. My kids used to like water parks on holiday, probably still do. I absolutely LOATHED them. I hate waterslides and the whole crowded, queuing, cheap horriblee food, nasty and stressful atmosphere. Maybe that's my equivalent of your park trips. I don't even get anything out of seeing the kids enjoying any part of those waterparks as I hate them so much myself I'm just so tense all the time. They are intensely boring to me.

No ADHD here and I agree 100% with your comments so not entirely convinced thats relevant.

you just don’t enjoy parks as much as museums. Fair enough. Some parents hate watching their kids play football every weekend. Or listening to them play Frere Jaques on the recorder over again, but they do it as their kids love it.

No rule to say because you’re a parent you have to love any of that stuff.

Oh God I’d wish I’d read this thread when my kids were little. All the other mums seemed to absolutely fucking LOVE ‘the park’ and I always thought I was the evil deficient mother who hated it. I’d cope with about 15 mins then have to drag my kids away before I had a panic attack with the sheer tedium of it. Now I realise that the other mothers were either liars or really dull park-loving people.

Hate the park, hate family walks.

Well, no, not all small children. Some are total brats, let's face it. 😆

I wasn't implying they aren't trying hard enough, I just wondered what people were actually doing when they go to the park, and how it's different from eg going to a museum - you are still looking at "stuff", just a different type of "stuff".

It's a shame because parks are free and a good way to tire kids out and keep
healthy. l was never in when my sons were young, but l have always been an outdoor person and love nature. Even now my youngest who is 17 still walks with me over fields, lakes and woods.
I think you need to be careful kids don't pick up on your dislike of exercise, in a few year's you won't be able to get them off the sofa, tv, tech etc.

I love the outdoors but playgrounds/parks are tedious. I find it a bit depressing to be there on my own with the children. Standing by the swing and mind numbingly push them back and forth for what seems like hours is excruciatingly painful.

When my lot were young, I would prefer to take them to a woodland where we would make a swing/build a den. The children really liked geocaching - I really liked it too, we'd be out ages looking for "treasure". Just download the app, it's free to use.

Kids parkrun is good - its a 2k jog/walk.

I quite like foraging, it's something I got into when one of my mum friends used always pick up wild garlic/hazelnuts/blackberries/wild cherries etc etc when we were out. I just started to do it too.

Going to a river with some string etc and weave some boats out of twigs that they can sail.

It's amazing the stuff that kids enjoy, mine used to LOVE going to macro to try the free food samples followed by a trip to IKEA to play houses in the mock rooms 😁. This for them was a perfect day out 🤔

Librarys/museums are great - taking them on the bus is part of the adventure for them too.

I'm back to high pressure full time working over the last few years and as I'm writing this, I'm feeling a bit nostalgic of my part time hours and slower paced days. I didnt achieve anything in a day except make a twig boat, sandwiches and enjoy the children. Mine are older teenagers now and hardly ever come out for a walk with me. I've had to get a dog instead 😁

What DO you like doing with your family, @DeoForty ? It's actually interesting to realise that not all families like doing outdoors things together, and now that I think of it, during lockdown when nothing was open, our local parks were actually unpleasant to be in, the sheer crowds of people who went there, shuffling along the paths. I remember thinking that those families must do other things during non-covid times, otherwise the parks would have always been that busy.

I like going out to the big park near us, which has a lot of different areas - gardens, a wooded bit etc. DS is 18m and is obsessed with going up and down slopes. He'll happily walk up and down a slope for 20mins while all I have to do is stand there and agree that yes he is going up! Yes, and down! I can think my own thoughts for a little while. To me it's better than sitting in all afternoon.

All parents must find some aspects of parenting tedious. (I definitely did not enjoy getting up at 4am this morning). We can probably all agree that sometimes it's crap, that Sundays in January are particularly crap. It doesn't mean there's anything wrong with you to feel bored by it.

I wanted to add that if you do stuff with the children you don't like - the mundane groundhog day of childrearing is not nice.

Drag them along to stuff you like to do - this was a revelation for me.

Yep parks are shit. I can do about 15mins max in decent weather. Unpopular opinion on MN though as apparently everyone puts their kid in a puddle suit and spends hours upon hours in the park in the pissing down rain with a picnic and flask.

I’d rather do actual activities, bowling, swimming, soft play, go for lunch or icecream, or just stay at home and play, bake, crafts or even just sit and watch Disney+ with snacks.

do you mean the playground?
the slides and the swings?
that is fun for dc

Yes indeed. Children also need to be outside a lot, for their eyesight to develop properly as much as anything else.

i would hate to be indoors, although i can cope with biscuit making
the woods were great
the streams
but we are not all the same

Maybe some people like doing crafts with their children but I can't fathom that at all. God I used to HATE it. All of it. The preparation, the amount of equipment you have to have, and there's always something missing, the constant moaning from them that they'd done it wrong, the constant asking for help, the mess and cleaning up. Mine had no patience for it so it just didn't seem worth all the stress and effort. The only thing I liked doing was playdoh. God I could have sat there for hours making all kinds of crap with them.

So yeah, maybe it's about doing things with your kids that YOU enjoy. Some things they have to be a bit older for though I suppose. eg if you like climbing they have to be a certain age before they can go to the climbing wall.

crafting like knitting?' which i cant even do myself?
eergh