To think parents who let their kids 'play out' are just completely abdicating responsibility for their kids' behaviour?

[MaybeIWillFuckOffThen]

We have a little walled playground near our house - little climbing frame, slide, stepping stones, toddler swing, very clearly aimed at a young primary/pre-school audience.

It's currently being completely taken over by a huge group of 10-12 preteen/early teen boys playing very rough games of football with real leather footballs. The bang the balls off the walls and hoof them in the air so they go careering everywhere at speed, they run around roughly after the ball pushing and shoving each other and getting in other people's personal space, they fight and shout aggressively and swear. Not a parent in sight of course so no-one to appeal to to get them to moderate their behaviour/find a more suitable venue (like say the massive park 5 minutes walk away). I've had a word now and again but generally just get mutinous stares and/or backchat. I can't really take my kids (2 and 6) there to play any more as it isn't safe for them and the atmosphere is so aggressive.

Why do people just turn their kids out of doors with no idea where they're going/what they're doing? It makes it impossible for other parents - either they have to tell your kid off for you (immediately in the wrong) or they simply have to either put up with inappropriate, loutish behaviour or give way to it and leave.

Children of different ages are separated at school because it's intimidating when the older children (yes usually boys - I'm a retired primary school teacher, yr 6) are rough housing - don't say they don't.

And in the real world outside of school people of both sexes and all ages need to get along together and have a little tolerance for each other.

If this happened in my village, someone would moan about it on the local Facebook page and ask the parents to speak to the kids.

Funny you didn’t mention your bleeding toddler in your OP. Just something about an ‘aggressive atmosphere’ being the reason you don’t feel you can take them anymoreZ

More than once this has occured as well 😲 I'm surprised it wasn't mentioned immediately.

I would have thought the idea would be the parents teach them how to behave responsibly first, and then release them into the wild, rather than the other way round?

You'd think so wouldn't you? But perhaps the real issue here is that you're expecting parents to do just that - parent - and some simply don't want to

Obviously they're kids and in their excitement they'll sometimes forget the normal human decencies, but from your description these don't sound like those who've been taught much of anything

Same.

I live next to a park. Most of time no issues. It’s nice children can walk there & play out. If there’s an issue with balls being kicked near equipment then contact council and ask for signs or fencing. If it’s anti social behaviour report to pcso. Pcso pops down to ours just to check sometimes.
Especially at younger age range they may only be ok’d to go to small park not big one 5 mins away eg if busy roads to cross.
They need to play out and get used to some independence before secondary school.

You obviously have no open spaces for your sons nearby. So you think it's acceptable for them to intimate toddlers.

<scans thread>

Remind me where I said that? I also don’t have ‘sons’

Re the playground - the schools I’ve worked in, haven’t had as much space and a football area is cordoned off next to where the others play.

Infant and junior playgrounds make perfect sense in that the two divisions usually have similar year group schedules. I.E infants classes all have the same schedule as to junior classes. Also, hundreds of large children openly encourage to bomb about would make it dangerous to do so near hundreds of tiny children - and cause a massive publci liability headache for the school.

Very different to a park which has fewer numbers of people, people coming and going all the time rather than one set schedule, and the acceptance of personal responsibility.

Hth

Yeah funny that!

Yes it would in our village too.

Same in ours. And people would start tagging those (they secretly) hate saying “could this be your Dylan?” Etc 😂

I'm scared of the ball hiting my two year old, knocking her down and making her bleed. As has happened on more than one occasion. At which point cue much apologetic behaviour by boys (looking very worried they're going to be "in trouble") but no moderation to future behaviour.

This doesn’t sound at all like the feral louts who tell you to fuck off.
Maybe there’s hope for them! But no, of course, they’re boys, so their apologies aren’t sincere, just offered to cover their own sorry backs.

Yea it’s funny how she politely told them to play nicely but never mentioned ‘because last time my DD got hit didn’t she and was hurt, you don’t want that to happen again’.

I hate to say it but these mums of only girls do seem to view them as delicate flowers, more deserving and superior and boys as smelly and rotten. And it rubs off onto the girls. The only girls who’ve been nasty to my son are from all girl families whose mums have the ‘ew boys’ attitudes

No, because I work. You know, when i can bear to stop helicoptering around my spoilt little china doll children for a few hours.

With fifteen pages of responses, it's going to be difficult for me to be responsive if people don't even read the OP properly.

🤣

👏🏻

If their 12 yos can;'t be trusted to behave considerately towards others, yes.

Well since I've seen it and you haven't, then your 'call' isn't worth much is it? So pointless questioning the truth of the OP when I have no way of proving it's true and you have no way of proving it's false. You're just trying to bait me.

Touchy touchy

Laughing hysterically.

"just used to walk up and down the beach singing to myself and making up stories".

Whereas the rest of us played 'out' normally. As do my teen ds's now.

So this is it. The pre teen boys should be supervised by adults in case they offend mum of precious girl (who is also too old for the toddler playground) for playing boy games in an offensive manner.

Do you also work in HR op?

A few things in this.

Firstly, mass drop feed, which I'm not wholly convinced about and begs a few questions about your own parenting and watching your child. Did you do a mental risk assessment of flying balls?

Secondly, if these boys were truly antisocial monsters they wouldn't be apologetic or concerned about consequences.

Thirdly, it's a perfectly normal response for boys that age, seeing parent dealing with the situation adequately to return to playing as before.

Fourthly, they have as much right to be in that space as your child. Indeed as children that age it's probably harder for them to find alternative places to go. You could go to this area at different times when kids aren't about or an alternative space. You aren't using the space for socialising. You could go somewhere else if you are finding it difficult to share the space.

Fifth and final point, you certainly don't seem to be rationalising here. You are blowing things to a point which is unfair. You think because you are the adult you automatically have entitlement to that space that trumps these kids. They don't sound bad kids. They sound like somewhat self absorbed kids getting on with their own thing, but again that's age appropriate rather than actively antisocial. You aren't stopping to consider the alternatives for these kids and what options are open to them. Instead you are stacking blame on the parents for kids being kids who are acting like fairly normal kids and not going out of their way to make anyone else's life miserable with malicious intent.

I'd be curious to know the type of area you live in, because I don't for a second think that you live somewhere there's much social problems. You just have a conservative (small c) attitude to youths who may or may not 'wear hoodies' and automatically are deeming them as 'problem' without having a clue as to what a problem actually looks like.

Sorry, but you aren't realistic and you need to be a little more tolerant of how you live in a world where there does need to be a certain amount of give / take.

How's your daughter now? Need stitches and an A & E trip did she? Think about it. It's not nice but accidents do happen and life carries on. You've obviously not thought it was life threatening the first time it happened, because you returned to the same scenario a second time!!!

Never said nose-breaking, I said will cause nosebleed. I said pre-teens and early teens. You really don't need to do this you know.

You sound a bit hysterical OP, why don't you go to the massive park 5 mins away if you are so bothered?
Most kids don't walk up the beach singing to themselves!
Boys are definitely viewed with disdain on here and in RL, just remember your precious little girl will be a teenager one day!

They're not always there, and when they are they don't often get hurt. I don't think we should be driven out by bad behaviour. I mean are you one of those people who think women shouldn't go out alone at night because they're 'asking for trouble', as opposed to condemning rapists? Not saying it's the same thing before someone starts saying i'm calling little boys rapists 🙄Just drawing the parallel that it's my fault if they get hurt by boys behaving badly, and our responsibility to withdraw rather than theirs to behave better.