Park Runs: Children - Why?

[Knowillbeflamed]

There’s a park run every Sunday near me. They jog along the pavement by the seafront taking the whole damn thing up so no one else can even walk along it.

Honestly, I don’t get running. But, what I understand even less is dragging young children along?! Yes, the older one’s (10+) seem to enjoy it but there’s at least 5x more that seem wayyyy to young - toddlers, very young kids - who hate it. They’re dragged along by their parents, literally kicking and screaming and crying.

AIBU to think if your kid hates running that much or patently doesn’t want to be there, that you do NOT force it on them?! Just because you like running doesn’t mean you force it on them. Find them an activity they enjoy.

PS. Yes I am annoyed by the sheer ignorance of 100+ people taking up that much space and forcing others to dive out the way - but mostly it’s the shrill screams of toddlers being forced to run that drives me bonkers. Someone will pop up and say ‘they love it,’ but I’m sorry - kids screaming ‘it hurts’ ‘I don’t want to’ whilst their parents drag them along by their wrist just angers me. And it’s not one parent one week - it’s multiple different parents on various weeks.

Lots of parents force their dc to do things though, I find it quite funny seeing some rebel on my Sunday walk.

@Hwi

people can fall out of love. Grow apart. Have affairs.

are you really saying people should stay in really unhappy marriages for the sake of the kids??

Kids will often be crying one minute loving it the next.

But I must say the kids parkrun seems much more competitive than the adult one!

Yes, and kids will also say they really really want to do an activity, then change their minds half way through!

Oh yay, it's been a few weeks since the last let's slag off parkrun post.

Parkrun and junior parkrun are a fabulous initiative, unlike many other sports money is not a barrier to taking part. Neither is speed, walkers are as welcome as runners, and disability is not an automatic barrier either.

Not the child's problem

It doesn't always turn into that quiet love. Sometimes it turns into bitterness and hate.

My own parents married young. That 'crazy love' wasn't really love, it was lust. It wasn't quite the thing still in late 60s to live together and there was a baby on the way. So they married. And discovered, as so many do, that it wasn't love. They weren't compatible. They would have been miserable if they'd stuck with it longer than they did. Because they sensibly called it a day when my sister and I were still pretty young, we didn't have to live with the model of tension so many of my friends witnessed with their parents.

They both married again, and I had the chance to see what that quiet, happy love you talk of looks like. Because I have had that chance, I'm pleased to say I have had a 30 year relationship that's still going strong because my parents had modelled for me what that really looked like. Many of my friends who watched their parents' love disintegrate over many years have struggled to find what they never saw. A happy, healthy marriage.

Added to that, if your partner is in any way abusive, physically or mentally, you are always better as a single parent.

Got to laugh at this, what i see at parkrun is parents desperately trying to keep.up with their under 11s (11 and over can run without an adult), or walking/running while encouraging. I never see parents forcing their children to keep.up with them

It's weird isn't it? We don't get loads of threads about eg selfish footballers taking up parks. Why is it only parkrun that annoys people?

Not sure whats so funny! What you are seeing in your Parkrun is clearly not what OP is seeing in the Parkrun in their area. I was responding to the concerns raised by OP, I wasn't referring to children who would happily race their parents! If the children want to join in , well done to them. But children who do not want to participate should not be made/forced to do so, just because that is what their parents fancy. I doubt there will be many 4-5 year olds who will happily race their parent/s for 2k.

Well said.

No, you are right. The children will obviously be happier if their mum will split up with their dad in pursuit of new love, who would love her more than the dad and above you, he would adore his newly found step-children. MN is a testimony to that, surely. Because we all know that step mums and step dads have their step children's best interests at heart, right? Especially step mums. Well, step dads too. What is good, there is always a cast-iron guarantee that a new marriage would not be loveless and would be happy. And they will never grow apart or have affairs, because of their previous sterling record.

Because it's not something I've seen at any of the parkruns I've been to. I'm a back of the pack type of runner, so I see a lot of the children doing parkrun, and I have never seen the behaviour the op describes. Yes I've seen parents encouraging the child to have another try at a run interval, I've even helped encourage a child (over 11) to keep going. But never seen them being dragged along.

Kids don’t like vegetables too- does it mean we don’t try make them eat veg

If an adult forced another adult to run 2k "to build up their resilience " etc, I am sure it'll be be deemed abusive. So not sure why it is okay to force a child to do so

Agree 100% that if your partner is abusive or mistreats you, single parenthood is so much better, no question about it. What I was referring to was 'looking for new love' in the absence of an abusive partner. Horrid example - mummy's new boyfriend or daddy's new girl-friend, because mummy and daddy don't love each other anymore. Children don't ever think about parents 'loving' each other. They are self-centred. Years later, when they grow, they start to justify their parents behaviour by making sense of it, but when children, sorry, they don't give a damn about their parents compatibility or love. They just want mum and dad.

Agreed!

Why can’t he just run around in the playground? Why make him do the park run?

@Breakingmad1 getting him out of the house to go to the park is just as much as an effort. I don't think it's much to ask of a 7 year old to go swimming, do a 2k run or do a bit of climbing (or any other sport he requests to do (obviously within reason) once a week.

So, again, they are better off remaining in the first marriage, knowing it is loveless, pretending that their kids can't hear the arguing and don't notice the fact that Mum and Dad never really talk to each other.

Of course, children might not know that Mum and Dad aren't sexually attracted to eachother, but if you think they don't notice something's off, you have obviously never lived through it. Doesn't matter how much they think they hide it, either.
You think the affairs will not continue throughout the first marriage? You think the kids will never know?
Absolutely no psychologist worth their money would say to parents, 'it's ok, keep living a lie for your kids. They'll never know.'
Yes, kids are self-centred. It means they notice things that affect them, and however much you dress it up, unhappy parents WILL affect the kids.

No, it might not work out if another partner is involved. I was lucky it did for me. But knowing damn well it isn't going to be good and sticking with it 'for the kids' makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

Bringing MN posts into it, haven't we also seen enough posts of deeply unhappy women in awful relationships with the father of their children talking about how their depression is impacting on their relationship with the kids? Or how Dad's behaviour towards Mum really isn't what they want the kids thinking is the 'norm'?

It's very rarely just about the loss of sexual attraction. It's very rare that two people forced to live together when they no longer even like each other can totally avoid the kids noticing.

A friend of mine said he knew his parents loathed each other and felt dreadful when, as an adult, he asked his mum why she put up with it and she said, 'so you wouldn't have to come from a broken home'.

@Instakilogram

it will be if the parents health deteriorate through lack of exercise!

Please, let's don't normalise the abnormal, shall we?

You are completely underestimating how much being in a bad relationship can spill over into the relationships parents have with their children. Yes, kids want 'Mum and Dad'. But do they want depressed mum who is always snapping at them? Do they want Dad who is always out, anywhere rather than being at home with the woman who drives them nuts.

Kids might not know why Daddy isn't home for dinner again, or why mummy cries a lot, but they do know when they aren't getting much attention from either parent because both are too exhausted dealing with the emotional pressure of living in close proximity with someone they just don't want to be with.

Miserable people don't make good parents.

So you see the ones at the back of the pack? Maybe read the posts from the numerous marshals on here who support park run but see the problematic behavior that OP mentions. Of course it’s not everyone and park run is a brilliant endeavor, but deny this happens is just ignoring the elephant in the room.

Actually with many parkruns, there are laps or there and backs, so I see the ones at the back, the ones at the front and very often the ones in the middle.