Woman at park wished my son to fall off climbing frame...

[justanothermanicm0nday]

At a popular theme park this week with my 12 year old son who albeit is prob too old but is appeasing his younger sister and friends.

They were playing in the play area between rides. We were sat watching actually inside the park, I was probably 4m from the actual frame. My son has climbed on top of the climbing frame and has just sat on top and is talking to his sister below. He was not doing anything silly albeit he prob shouldn't of been on top of the climbing frame roof bit but wasn't overly high or dangerous to him and he was quite capable.

There was a group of women sat next to us. One of the women was getting very agitated about my son being on top, I only caught mid convo but overheard her saying at first "I hope he falls off" which is what caught my attention. She then continued to say how stupid it was and she hoped he fell off and it taught him a lesson etc not just once but over and over.

I was a bit shocked tbh, I didn't say anything to her directly as didn't want to cause a scene, I'm not that kind of person but it's really been playing on my mind.

Yes the he's being silly bit but the wishing he would fall off, who says that?

I don't know why I'm posting this on here either, just to check aibu? Or hoping she may be on here to explain her side to help me see why she wished my son to fall off and hurt himself.

(If he was to fall of I doubt he'd of actually hurt himself tbh because it actually wasn't too high)

Where in my post did I say 10 year olds can’t play in the park?

I said a parent had no control over a 10-12yr old and this particular one was behaving really inappropriately. She was also in the toddler area and she was behaving dangerously and the mother didn’t care at all. I should have made that clear.

Still though, don’t know where you got ‘10 year olds can’t be in the park’ from.

If it's possible for a kid to climb on top of the climbing frame, there's going to be a kid on top of the climbing frame. I don't understand what her problem was, unless he was in the way of other children or causing a hazard to them by being there.

Most play parks in our area are for up to and including 12 year olds.He was with his siblings with his parent there.
She could have told him to get off the top if it was a problem.
A nasty woman.

I agree with posters who have said your interpretation of your son’s behaviour was likely mismatched with her interpretation. For whatever reason, he was annoying to her, and if she made that comment whatever he was doing he probably shouldn’t have been according to whatever ‘rules’ she has in her mind about that space. The time has now passed where you can say something - but reality is, most people find other people’s kids more annoying than the parents do. Next time a, ‘sorry is my son causing an issue’ might help you to figure out if the other person’s objections are reasonable or not.

I bet she meant it, not unlike the people that say it’s migrant’s fault they drowned in the channel.

Would have been golden if he'd fallen.directly onto her kid.

Of course, I don't mean it .

You should have called her out on it.
This is the sort of person that has be kind hash tags on her social media profiles but is nothing of the sort.

Really?!
you’ve literally said he was sat on the roof - that is not part of a climbing frame…it’s a roof. He shouldn’t have been up there. Full stop.
Why were you allowing him to use play equipment inappropriately?

Also you said yourself if he fell off he wouldn’t have hurt himself - so what’s the actual problem here?
She was simply hoping he learnt a lesson..seeing as you were incapable of behaving like a responsible adult and teaching him yourself by telling him to get down. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Like the women who get their knickers in a twist if the child uses the slide the 'wrong' way, she needs to get over herself.

It’s a nasty comment to make, irrespective of the rights and wrongs of the child’s behaviour ( it’s also not something northern people say either, as suggested by another person wtf)
I doubt there was genuine malice in it, but how thick do you have to be to say it in an area where the parent is likely to be. she’ll open her big gob in front of the wrong parent next time and learn the hard way to think before she speaks.

@elenacampana "older kids dont belong in the play park"

And I think less of people who allow their children to do stuff that is clearly irritating to others . “But they are just being children” is not an excuse to lack empathy for those around you.
Nobody “hates children”, they “hate” what they are doing or allowed to do, especially if you are at pains to make sure your own children are doing the right thing.

What were you having at the time? Just asking because I would've probably thrown my glass of whatever in her face.

We have a new park near us - the bigger children are always on top of the blasted thing. Whilst they are probably unlikely to fall off and hurt themselves or others it's more that my younger children will try and copy them and definitely fall off!

It looks like a total lack of respect for the equipment too (shrugs)

I said ‘older kids don’t belong in the play park’, at no point did I say ‘10 year olds don’t belong in the play park’. By older, I mean 12 and up - 12 year olds are not little children and shouldn’t be sat on the roof of a climbing frame.

The example I gave was about a 10-12 year old on the toddler play structure. She was behaving dangerously and using the equipment so inappropriately that her own mother said ‘I don’t want to look at you doing that’ and went off to a bench and sat looking in the opposite direction so she didn’t need to see it. Meanwhile there’s my not even two year old unable to go near the slide because this much bigger girl with very long legs was sat on the rail above the slide singing something from a musical the school was putting on the next day (which she very audibly shouted about to her mother) and kicking her legs everywhere. She looked every inch to be an overindulged little pest and I didn’t want her kicking my toddler in the face from her perch, that she shouldn’t have been on.

jamdonut
It's the summer holidays and there's lots of threads on here at the moment about so-called child hating.

Most boil down to:

• I wasn't appropriately supervising my child/ren
• My children were being inappropriately noisy/boisterous/disruptive/charging around in a place that common sense isn't for that behaviour
• Either someone has said something to me, or other people have left when I was allowing this behaviour, or I've sensed people find my children irritating

Then when lots of posters, who are parents and not child hating, comment about appropriate behaviour the inevitable comes out:

• everyone hates children
• everyone thinks children should be seen and not heard
• but it's developmentally appropriate for children to run around/be noisy/touch everything in sight in a shop
• anyone expecting parents to actively parent their child is unreasonable

I don't think it was malicious. Neighbour once wished a relative would drop dead ...2 month later he'd died...well it definitely stuck in my mind....though logically I know it's unconnected.

I wouldn't have said what she said but it might have made me squirm.... I've seen kids break limbs falling from relatively low heights....but mostly I'd be squirming thinking it was
a) Encouraging little one's to climb up
and if
b) Your son fell onto another child

It wouldn't be enough to make me comment unless I saw little'uns tottering underneath and their parents not noticing.

But then I'm a little overcautious.....pet hates

pushing a pushchair with child into the road while waiting for traffic

very young toddlers walking 300yrds behind or in front of their parent next to a busy road.
(maybe swayed as I had to emergency brake to stop hitting a little lad once as he ran onto a road to overtake his mum.)

that kind of thing.

I doubt she meant it literally. I am sure we have all said something similar in the past. There are bigger things to fret about.

I would turn and say:
“If you are at a play park vocally wishing harm on children perhaps you have somewhere else you should be.”

As for other commenters who are minimising this behaviour. Ask yourself if this was a man sitting by the child’s play park saying “I hope they hurt themselves” about someone else’s child. I suspect you would be looking for a member of staff to deal with the situation. This is not normal behaviour, someone in public wishing harm on children really ought to be carefully observed.

Thisistyresome
I'd take it as a flippant comment and move on.

With play areas and soft plays I'm generally of the view that parents who do nothing when they watch their older children behaving in a way that is likely to intentionally or unintentionally hinder the target aged children to play freely are likely to be the sort of parents who'll get defensive if anyone has even a polite word to say, so the best thing I can do is move my children away.

Maybe she was thinking that your son being up there would encourage other children who don’t have the ability he does to try and copy?

On the basis of what you’ve written I’d guess she is quite a risk averse parent and/or someone who expects children to use okay equipment in a very prescriptive way.

I think there is a big grey area with what is and isn’t appropriate in children’s play area.

Personally I don’t think his age is an issue. I think it’s lovely he is still playing on play equipment…older children like using this equipment too. So long as they aren’t hurting you her children I don’t see the issue.

Oh blimey, don’t be reasonable on here, it upsets people!

A child climbing on a climbing frame? Heaven forbid!!!!

You should have challenged her at the time. You didn't! Let it go!