‘I can’t wait til X is hanging round the streets like I used to’

[Incywincyspidey]

Work colleague yesterday said they couldn’t wait until their 11 year old was hanging about the parks and town like they used to when they were younger.

There’s been so much antisocial behaviour in this town in the last few years and tbh I wouldn’t say it’s safe anymore for tweens to ‘hang out’

I said ‘didn’t you used to get up to no good, hanging about the streets?’ She said ‘yeh but it was a good laugh’

AIBU to think you should want a bit more for your 11 year old son than to be hanging around parks and streets? What about hobbies or after school activities?

I know I’ll get branded ‘judgy’ and boring blah blah but it was just a really odd comment to make.

My DS has always preferred going to mates houses, or having mates round rather than hanging around the streets. McDonalds is the "place to be" around here but it's an absolute hotbed of bullying and anti social behaviour in the evenings, some older boys were starting on a younger girl in the car park last weekend. DS doesn't go there much thank god.

I think there are more worries for parents nowadays. Grooming and county lines for starters.

As for the local park, I did allow DS to go but didn't particularly love it. Our local park is not great, there have been sexual assaults and often older kids steal bikes from the younger ones. I remember there being fights on the skate park and somebody got bottled over the head.

Gurrier....love it 😆

I'm delighted when my kids go out with their friends and look after themselves for a few hours. It helps that I know and like their friends. How else would they have learned to be streetwise and found their own limits?

I'm not so delighted if they're making a nuisance of themselves - but for the most part, they're innocently hanging out with friends or exploring the city: much better than locked in their bedroom experiencing the world through a tiny screen.

Mine are older, and if that includes a bottle of wine or a pack of cigarettes to share then so be it. Or, shock horror, even a discreetly smoked joint 😲

Learning to navigate the world independently is what teenagers are supposed to do - and those are some of the best memories of my youth. Eleven is rather young (13+ more the norm here) but only you know your area and its challenges.

You might think you know where he is but do you know what he and his friends are up to?

They are at secondary school! It's not going to go down well if you go to the park with them.
My 12 year old goes to the park with his mates all the time. They mainly climb stuff and kick a ball around and run around or just chat, I have discreetly walk past and checked! I would rather he was out running around and getting some exercise. He knows the rules and if he doesn't stick to them he's not allowed out.
Recently we've practiced going to town on the bus and a few weeks ago he did it on his own with a friend, they went to get something to eat and went to the war hammer shop and had a great time. He knows he has to keep the volume up on his phone in case i want to talk to him and he always phone if he's not sure about something. He phoned to check he was at the right bus stop.
It's not about letting them go wild it's giving them some independence and trust. I know who his friends are and he never goes to anyone's house unless he checks with me first.
I really hope the comment about letting an 11 year old get his own lunch was a joke!

What a strange thing for a parent to be looking forward to.

My dc's have never hung around the street, at any age - they're now older teens. Very low bar to set.

Can all the parents on here honestly say they know what their children are up to whilst they are out. The amount of anti social behaviour I see from groups of children in our town. DS went out but not for hours at a time and for a purpose, not just to wander aimlessly about

I live in a lovely area, and I know the local park very well because I spent hours and hours there when DS was smaller. It's full of local kids, who are all nice kids with engaged parents.

Perhaps later at night the older teenagers get up to nefarious stuff but DS is tucked up at home with us from teatime.

Things happen in lovely areas and not always at night.

It's full of local kids, who are all nice kids with engaged parents.
Every one of them? I take it you live in a tiny village, not a big city; that you literally know everyone you're likely to encounter when you leave your house?

My middle child is 14 and I wish he would go and hang out with his friends in the park etc. He is in his room most of the time when not engaging with the family stuff. My daughter is 11 and she meets up with friends and plays out. Eldest is always with his girlfriend. I wish my middle son would go out and get up to a bit of the mischief I used to! I worry about him 😞

No, no parent can honestly say they 100% know what their children are up to whilst they are out. In the same way that you can never 100% trust what another person tells you.

What we can do is instil strong values in our children, and also maintain an open relationship so that we can have a high level of trust in what they say. I know that my son sometimes smokes weed because he's told me. He's also told me it's always been at someone's house and he wouldn't smoke it somewhere like a park or with small children around. I believe him on the second statement because he's been open about the first. Of course he could still be lying to me.

I do believe my daughter doesn't drink or smoke because her views about both are so strong. Again, maybe she's pulling the wool over my eyes. And maybe she will change her views in a year or two.

IME as well, the parents that put the most strictures on their children are the ones who are least likely to know what they are doing. One of DS's friends has parents who think like some of the posters on here that he shouldn't be leaving the house without a very clearly defined purpose. Guess what? He either lies to them, or he sneaks out.

My parents encouraged me and my siblings out of the house from an early age (often insisting that if I was going out I take them too - saved them the job of parenting). They would, I'm sure, tell people we were adorable, adventurous den-makers and whatnot but I spent most of my time trying to protect myself and my siblings from dangerous situations that the other 'independence-building' kids were up to. I didn't have many friends, partly because I always had younger kids in tow.

I'm sure it's different if a parent is pushing the child to get out rather than it being the kid wanting to do it. Still... I see so many groups of kids roaming about vandalising things and engaged in anti-social behaviour, and I just think that their parents probably don't actually think they're engaged in wholesome character-building activities. They just are fed up of parenting them and would rather chuck them out and let them wreck havoc elsewhere.

I never hung around the park or town as a teen, a few of my friends did.. mostly with the more .. rebellious kids.

A group of kids were hanging around there a few month ago and two lads started play fighting and knocked over an elderly woman in the process.

I said to my DH after that I hope to god that isn’t DD when she’s a teen, it makes me cringe awful at the thought.

Can they just get what they need from town then go to the skate park? Or even just the park as long as their not just sat on a swings and slides talking preventing other actual children from using them.

I think it's really sad for teenagers/pre-teens that it's assumed that any group of teens must automatically be up to no good.

I used to live in a holiday town with a beach. Obviously, in the summer, a lot of teens go and hang out on the beach, sometimes they are a bit loud or silly but they are in essence doing no harm and just enjoying the place where they live.

But you'd definitely get people (especially holiday makers with young children) complain about their existence/presence to e.g. lifeguards etc, and even in some cases the police.

I'm not saying they never do anything silly or dangerous, but it's ridiculous that people think that the mere presence of a group of teenagers somehow means a crime must be being committed.

I also think going out and about with no adult teaches different skills to organised group activities.

Yep, same. I’m an anxious mess wondering what he’s getting up to 🙈

I think it's really sad for teenagers/pre-teens that it's assumed that any group of teens must automatically be up to no good.

It seems a common attitude sadly.

In our 20s we lived in another city there was a nice grassy areas we often walk through to get back to our flat - any dry and especially sunny weather it was filled Saturday afternoons by teen - it was a mix of after Saturday school and music lessons. We were frequently out at weeks so most weeks saw them all and never saw any issues they were sat in groups talking. Every fucking time FIL saw them he's insist something was going off - trouble was brewing and maybe police should be called - and it shouldn't be allowed - every time we'd say it was usual and benign and he'd not believe us.

DD1 didn't get a prom - and did what many suggested on here had a meet up with one food to say goodbye - as they were scattering to different educational institutes - they were worried about being moved on and reported from the off and it was mid afternoon to early evening hardly late and they were the well behaved kids.

My parents let me roam as a child was allowed up the town at 11 with friends then as a teen wouldn't let me go anywhere - it meant at 18 university was a bloody steep learning curve and I didn't have nearby parents to bail me out of situations. I think a large part of that was my mother anxiety and worry about what could happen which left ,me much more vulnerable when I was on my own.

IME as well, the parents that put the most strictures on their children are the ones who are least likely to know what they are doing. One of DS's friends has parents who think like some of the posters on here that he shouldn't be leaving the house without a very clearly defined purpose. Guess what? He either lies to them, or he sneaks out.

I've seen this too - with one of DD2 friends who frequently lies to her mother and keeps her very much at arms length.

Don’t most high school children make their way to school (unattended) from 11? For many that means public transport. The idea of children making a stop on the way home to get a snack with a friend seems normal and from that it doesn’t seem too much of a jump to imagine them out getting lunch with a friend …?

I don’t want to comment on the park bit. It could be lovely (and obviously far better than screen time indoors) but my experience of high school children in parks is mixed.

We live fairly near a high school and I see hundreds of them arriving, almost all “unattended” - usually on local buses, but some walking or biking.

I think as a previous poster suggested our views are clouded by our experiences of our local areas and parks.
I very very rarely see any anti social behaviour in my local area. I see younger teens playing sports or having picnics in the parks. Sometimes the older teens might be sitting in groups and having a drink and a smoke but there are also groups of mums having picnics with wine in the warmer months too.
Occasionally I will bump into my older child's friends in the park and I never see them up to anything terrible.

Same, my son when he was 11, hes 15 now, loved playing out with his friends (maybe the words "hanging around" is the problem), they played football outside, walked around to the green and sat on swings, and we never worried about him, more worried now as he wants to go into city centre with his 2 friends and i trust them but dont trust the dodgy people in city centre, lot of drug addicts around and hassling people for money. I much preferred when he was out doing what a 11 year boy should be doing, rather that than sitting gaming all day (which he does a lot of now as well). I wouldnt have been happy if he was 11 and i didnt know where he was or who he was with though

"Hanging around" seems to an undesirable thing if you are a pre-teen/teen/young adult in a way that it isn't at other ages.

Group of pre-schoolers playing in a park with their parents sitting chatting. All lovely. Great for the pre-schoolers to get out and their parents to socialise.

Group of primary school children in a park with a ball. They may occasionally kick it. They may occasionally randomly chase each other. They may have discussion about who did what a school. Lovely. Nice to see them out the house and not on devices.

Group of adults sat round on benches in the park with takeaway coffee or someone going for a walk round the local area with other adults. No one bats an eyelid. Particularly if one of them has a dog.

Group of teens in park, or sitting chatting on benches, or randomly walking around? Must be hooligans.

Sad state of affairs when teens going to the park, or knocking about, is seen as scandalous! It's part of life, It's part of growing up.

Every minute of Kids and teens lives shouldn't be micromanaged by adults.