Children damaging saplings in the forest.

[WonderingWanda]

I'm interested to hear your views on this. 13y/o ds was waiting for me in the first car park, he saw some younger boys destroying a sapling and walked over and told them not to damage it. The boys ran off to tell their Mum who then came and told off my ds. She asked him where it said they shouldn't damage the trees so he asked where it said they could? She then told him she wasn't going to argue with him and it wasn't his place to question her parenting.

Personally, I'm rather proud of ds for saying something to the boys and have always instilled a respect for nature in my children. I told ds I thought he did the right thing. Bg the time I arrived the boys were booting their football at other people's cars and it struck me that their mother was rather ineffective at controlling them.

So YAIBU children should be allowed to damage trees in the forest, your ds should have minded his own business

Or YAINBU it is wrong to let kids damage trees and your ds is a hero amongst teens

This. You must be so proud of your son!

Well done DS. Some parents just seem to think their little shits should be able to do anything they like.

I often hear parents who constantly shout at their kids - never ever speak to them gently, but just shout at them as their only way of communicating.

I wonder if this is their way of trying to cling on to some kind of authority, once they've realised that, if you teach your kids that they can get away with anything that affects/undermines other people, they will naturally expect to do it with you as well.

I really feel sorry for the children, who are not the ones at fault for never having been taught any boundaries.

@holierthanthou73

well she bloody well deserves one. Her son sounds absolutely lovely, all too rare these days!!

@WonderingWanda what a lovely & articulate boy you have!!

the woman is a real bone head, no wonder her kids are the way they are.

ferral little shits!

The woman is a disgrace. 'Where does it say that my children can not damage the saplings?' Why would it be assumed that they can? Stupid twat.

No they shouldn't damage trees

I imagine they were showing off in front of each other

When the pandemic happened it became a trend in my local forest to plaster trees with tonnes of plastic tat that harms wildlife, becomes someone else's litter to pick up and takes hundreds of years to break down, and smear giant painted rainbows all over the trunks that was still there a year later so obviously wasn't water colour or non toxic. Apparently it didn't occur to the 'Be Kind' brigade that the message they were giving their small kids that it's fun to vandalise an ancient forest wasn't very kind.