Child height restrictions at theme parks and play areas.

[Lizzie888]

Why are theme parks and play areas so strict with their height rules and not show a little more understanding and empathy with younger children who are tall for their age. Our holiday has been spoiled by unsympathetic establishments who have stuck strictly to height rules when in some cases the rules are nonsensical. Our DS is nine but tall for his age at 59 inches. He has learning difficulties, not major, but has a mental age a year or so younger. We faced many difficulties at theme parks where he was too timid to go on the rides for older children or adults but was turned away endlessly from younger child's rides even although it was one to a car and no direct interaction with other children. We tried to finish our holiday by visiting an adventure playground. We paid the admissions for DS and our younger two children only to fall foul of the maximum height rule again. We then had the problem of whether to deprive the younger two their fun (they are far rougher playing wise than their older gentle 'giant' brother or to let them in and sit outside with DS. On this occasion we allowed the younger two in and tried to console the older one with a walk and an ice cream. We did ask around some other adults/parents and found that some kids as old as twelve were in and the general behaviour was very much rough and tumble as you would expect in an adventure play area, nothing too extreme, and far rougher than our DS would have added to the occasion. On the other hand some of the language of the older kids was sweary and inappropriate for such an area and when pointed out to the staff was met by a shrug. So why do nothing about that, allow twelve year olds who play like twelve year olds in because they are a few inches shorter than DS but not admit a child based on age alone and circumstances described to them. The fall back excuse is always 'health and safety rules' a pathetic cop out used by lazy, ignorant staff unable or unwilling to use any flexibility/discretion. It is heart breaking to see the effect is has on DS just plain heart breaking.

Your holiday was ruined by this?? Really?

policed by jobsworths with no common sense working for unfeeling insensitive employers.

Policed by young people on minimum wage who don't have the authority to break the rules they're supposed to adhere to and don't want to lose their jobs and don't want to be responsible for the fluke injury of a small child whose parent has decided the rules are silly.

Fixed it for you.

YABU for not checking the height restrictions before you went and then blaming the pleasurepark for your mistake

I think the taller kids are 'luckier' than the smaller kids at theme park, as a general rule. There's often far more for them. I'm kinda glad they have max height restrictions on some stuff so that the little kids actually get something the taller ones don't get for a change.

Yes. Really!!

Don't be an idiot. My point was that apart from not advertising a max height restriction the park allowed kids of twelve and over in. These older children swore, acted inappropriately for such an area with some sexual related remarks and were far tougher play wise than my 9 year old (with an emotional age of 7/8) would have been. The older kids were running up slides, pushing and shoving younger children and acting in a far more dangerous manner than a 9 year old would. But a couple of inches of height trumps an age related restriction. So the park persevered with a nonsensical height rule simply because it is a rule, doesn't show any flexibility and allows behaviour by older kids that possibly should have been curbed. An age related restriction would have been far more reasonable but let's just quite H & S rules as a cop out. You people have no idea!!

There is no way in hell I would want ride operating staff at a theme park to be able to override health and safety limitations set for the ride. By all means you can be happy about your child taking that risk, but I am not, and if your child is on the ride at the same time as mine, and puts mine at risk as a result, that's not acceptable to me.

The staff who run these rides don't have the training or knowledge to make an informed decision on what is safe outside of the engineer's set restrictions. And they don't get paid enough to take on the responsibility either.

We did and have checked them since. Minimum height rules on website, maximum height rules only at the park!

Partly, adventure playground wise, it’s because little children’s fun is spoilt if they’re constantly dodging much bigger kids. And bluntly the bigger the “big kids” are the more likely that crashing into one of them hurts - your son will hurt a kid more if he eg falls on one than if he was a foot shorter. It’s difficult to put in an age restriction because age not immediately obvious whereas height is easily checked and is definitive. It’s just tough luck. Asking staff to bend the rules on your description of your son’s personality is ridiculous - I’m sure he’s lovely but plenty of kids aren’t, how are staff supposed to know?

Maybe theme parks just don’t suit your son at the moment if he’s too anxious for rides for his age and size - nothing wrong with that, just choose from one of the absolute myriad of other activities out there. There’s absolutely loads of completely unstaffed and unregulated playgrounds out there.

Why post on AIBU? You don't want anyone to tell you anything other than you were right & have argued with anyone suggesting otherwise.

Ok, that bit is unreasonable and worth a complaint- but the expected resolution should be to sort out their website and refund your entry costs, not expect staff to bend a health and safety rule and invalidate their insurance.

Sitting in an open car on a simple roundabout ride, plenty of leg room and nothing at all overhead so what is the problem. What they should do is provide a waiver from for us parents to decide the non existent risk is ok by us rather than enforce daft rules. Personally I think there is far more risk in an adventure playground to other smaller younger kids from say 12/13 year olds an inch below the max height limit than a 9 year old an inch above said limit. An age related limit makes far more sense.

Parents can easily lie about age but not about height. It’s unpleasant and feels unfair when your child doesn’t fit the rules well, but the park needs restrictions for safety rules and can’t risk legging individual employees start making judgement calls outside of those rules. So it’s not fair, but they’re not going to change their rules because they don’t work well for your son. They might give you a refund if you complain.

Legging = letting.
Sorry for the weird typo

It’s not the staffs job to police the kids language or tell them how to play on the equipment. That’s their parents jobs.

Your child is to tall, the older kids are clearly shorter and are allowed in. If you don’t like it, remove your family and go elsewhere.

Why would minimum paid young staff go against the rules they have to follow just because you are in a piss. Get a grip.

Then I would take that up with with the management but not take it out on the staff manning the rides at the time. They cannot change the rules for your unusual sized child no matter how disappointed they were.

Can you clarify which park this is as my brother is hoping to head to that part of Scotland at the end of the holidays. They also has a child who is tall for their age so I’ll give them the heads up.

At 9 most children will be borderline for children's rides, the rules are there for safety. What annoyed me is when the adult ride told me dd was too short, and the kids ride too tall when both were based on 140cm! I did get them call their supervisor on that (she couldn't be too tall and too short!)

So you’re an expert on the physics behind behind the rides? Accidents are rare but would want to live with the consequences of a bad accident — especially when it’s your own child who suffers. Just accept that they’re not tall enough this time and that the behaviour of the children who were taller is irrelevant.

I think the OP just isn’t listening. Sign a waiver? As if the staff don’t have enough to do without getting people to sign bits of paper?

You honestly need to get a grip. You sadly sound like the sort of person who if anything went wrong would be screaming the place down saying you shouldn’t have been allowed to do what you demanded the staff allow you to do.

On the website for pleasureland height restrictions are published

Ride Restrictions
RIDE MIN HEIGHT MAX HEIGHT
WALTZER 92cm NONE
DODGEM 125cm NONE
BUNGEE TRAMPOLINE 100cm NONE
UFO JETS 92cm 185cm
MERRY-GO-ROUND NONE NONE
GIANT BOUNCY SLIDE NONE 140cm
INDOOR TRAMPOLINES 120cm 147cm
MINI BIKES 92cm NONE
SOFT PLAY NONE 140cm

That seems pretty clear to me

The staff were all youngsters about 16 17 years old and couldn't care less about bad behaviour in rides and inappropriate behaviour of smaller 12/13 year olds in an adventure playground, not rides, where it was a simple climbs, slides sort of place. They had no idea what H & S was simply called a supervisor who pointed to a sign and that was that. Apart from the adventure playground one of the rides was a simple carousel/roundabout sort of thing open cars not enclosed, one to a car. It also went extremely slowly. If you think that a taller child in one car would put your child in another car (and remember there was no weight restrictions and heavier smaller kids were ok) then that is probably the most preposterous thing is have seen in Mumsnet. But hey if your kid would be ok then to hell with others, nice attitude!! Age related restrictions I can accept they make far more sense. If a child had been turned away by the appalling attitude of the supervisor on race, gender or disability grounds that would have been roundly condemned on here, but a nine year old who is a little taller than his peers shouldn't be accepted either.

There has to be a cut off to keep younger/smaller children safe. They aren't going to weigh children and it's easy to lie about age, so height it the easiest option and for most children correlates with weight/age.

Its quite easy to check in advance that the place you are going is suitable for all family members so that you can avoid DS being left out.

Age related restrictions I can accept they make far more sense

Not at a theme park they don't?! You can be the wrong height for a theme park attraction, how can you be the wrong age? And height is easily monitored by a height charge, do you really want passports to be checked at every ride entrance? Do you really want teenage minimum age operatives to be using their discretion rather than following the rules.

You are being absolutely ridiculous in this and you aren't listening to anybody. Either check the rules before you go or stop going to theme parks if this keeps happening to you.

How could a park safety enforce an age related limit? Children don't carry ID - they'd be relying on parents to tell the truth about their children's ages. Frankly, parents would often have reasons for thinking the age restrictions shouldn't apply to their child, just as you think the height restrictions shouldn't apply to yours.