to get really arsey with parents who...

[ethanchristopher]

smoke and swear in childrens playgrounds.

i am not averse to smokers, if you want to suck on cancer sticks thats your choice entirely and smoke where you want.

but yes i realise it is an outdoor space but i dont want my kids exposed to other peoples fumes and ultimately to grow up thinking its normal and acceptable

I DONT WANT TO BURY MY KIDS!!!

also swearing, i dont want my kids spending their school break times and free times sitting on the naughty chair for swearing (despite not knowing what it means or why its bad to say)

Lets face it, kids are parrots, why show them these examples??

Sorry bit of a rant, and remember im only angry at people that do it in the playgrounds, not normally. I mean i am human and do swear occasionally!

Far too busy worrying about the used condoms and hyperdermic needles scattered around than to worry about some fag buts. Moreover, I don't like swearing in front of children but so long as you don't swear it is unlikely that your toddlers will.

ethanchristopher my dc are not perfect angels, my ds1(19) will never smoke, i know this for a fact, he is an adult and very anti-smoking and i know he would never even try a cigarette, i know this because he has told me! (unless you want to suggest my dc are lying to me) i have no reason not to believe him, and of course you cannot make a 2 yr understand swearing is wrong, but you can make a 4yr and upwards understand that, you cant stop people smoking or swearing around your dc in public, fact of life, deal with it.

please read the other posts. i do not relli care about the fumes its the example set that bothers me!!

and crack fox, that is a very good point about the needles n condoms. havin said wich at least we know that the teenagers who are on heroin are at least being careful and not producing offspring.

pmsl at that

'my issue is that they will grow up watching people smoking around kids and thinking its acceptable and normal'

well at the moment it is acceptable and normal. but i agree they shouldn't smoke in the play areas.

Nobody I've seen ever smokes in our playground it is banned, I have actually seen one mum go out the gate to the otherside of the waist high fence to smoke thought this was amusing but considerate.
I don't like swearing but have to say DC's have never copied anything a stranger has said to someone else (they have both copied MIL who says bugger for every other word which really annoys me I hate that word GRR)
I can understand your annoyance though.

Think the OP is going slightly over the top here, yes I agree neither habits are good in front of children, but as far as the smoking goes I'm with Lilysmummy and solidgold, your kids will not come to anymore harm from someone smoking out in the fresh air than what they will pick up in their pushchairs going down a busy street from the traffic etc. There is polution all around us, they are getting it everywhere. They get radiation from television and computer screens. To stop your children getting polluted you would need to lock them in a sanitised room. I do not condone smoking, however, they are all smoking outside now and not in public places, it is a free country you know, you can't have it all your way. If they all stop I won't be able to afford to pay my taxes anymore!

please please read the posts. i do not care about the fumes

IT IS THE EXAMPE

ah well whatever. the government are passing a bill in a couple of years to stop smoking in playgrounds anyway. i was just peed off about the one day.

thanks for the responses.

Your dc will be exposed to all kinds of language that you don't approve of in the playground when they start school. That's where my dcs learnt some very interesting words. Their peers are also more likely to influence them re smoking than seeing people smoke in a playground at the age of 2.
Educating them is the way to go as you can't possibly stand over them 24/7 for the rest of their lives.

They will be shipping them all off to an island soon!! I don't smoke, but It does annoy me that smokers get treated like leppers. Alcohol abuse, drug abuse just as bad if not worse. I would rather my DS tread on a dog end than a needle! As for toddlers crawling round on dog ends, what about dog shit poo then! Why would you want your child crawling round on the grass in a public place, tbh dog ends would be the least of my worries.

Incidentally, we are all trying to prevent our DC's from swearing and yes that is the right thing to do. But I will guarantee you that once they get to Secondary Education they will swear at least once, if you are lucky, whether you like it or not!

TinkerBellesMum, when my ds was really naughty the other week, dh said to him, " do you know what my dad used to do.... he used to put washing up liquid in my mouth, to wash away those naughty....... And believe me it is really unpleasant, you wouldn't want me to do ....."

And I was a bit shocked. But ds thought about it and said, no I wouldn't like that. And dh said, no, exactly, good.

Do you consider the threast of w-up-liquid, to be a very bad thing that dh did ?

When my DS was about 2.5 I went through a week of hell. Somehow somewhere he picked up the phrase (and you will have to excuse me here) "fucking hell". He kept saying it to me over and over again. I cried, I shook him by the shoulders, I screamed and shouted for a week. Then on the Sunday we went to a christening, I worried the whole way through the service that he was going to say it. Fortunately he did not, on the way home we called at Grandma's for a cup of tea. He got up from the table and said "fucking hell". It sounded totally obscene coming from his little mouth. I went to the bathroom and cried my eyes out. My MIL said don't worry he will grow out of it. On the way home, it was dark, a little voice came from the back of the car and said "I'm sorry mummy for saying those bad words". From that day on he has never sworn. If he has heard someone say the f word he has actually looked at me as if to say "well aren't you going to tell them off" He is 8.6 now and never swears and has never used the F word since. It was a horrible time though and I will never forget it.

For what it's worth I don't think YAU. This is unfortunately the upshot of the smoking ban. Where before those wishing to smoke could go to a cafe or bar etc and smoke in a designated area, indoors, they are now forced to smoke outside (which is worse imo, because as a non smoker you can choose not to go into a smoking environment, but now the smokers light up everywhere).
Smoking in a park around children is not acceptable. Just as drug taking in parks is not acceptable. But it's more about exposure and what you allow your children to see. Yes there might be needles etc , but your children are not witnessing drug taking while playing on the swings. And if you have worked hard to prevent them hearing swearing or seeing smoking and drinking, then it does spoil an otherwise nice trip to the park.

KVC glad I'm not the only one who has gone through it. I was so upset, I felt like a complete failure. It was because he was so little it sounded so awful. Can smile about it a bit now but it still makes me shudder a bit.

thats what i felt like!!!

but it was more the fact that i couldnt have prevented it short of locking him up in the house.

i just want parents to be a little more considerate around other people's kids, if it was turned around im sure they wouldnt be happy about it!

When my ex and I were still together, not long after the swearing incident, we were walking through town and some teenagers were swearing very loudly. My ex stopped and asked them to stop swearing. They looked at him in amazement and made some rude comment. We carried on walking and went inside a shop, I noticed that they had followed us and were waiting outside, I was scared to death! When we went outside one of them came up to us and apologies! He then took us over to his mates and they all apologies too. It was truly amazing, I told them that when they are older and they have children and those children swear at 2 years old it will break their hearts. My estimation of teenagers went up ever so slightly that day!

sorry that should be apologised and I did it twice too! Should read my posts first

If you scream, cry, shake and slap your children for swearing, you are setting them a far worse example than a stranger saying 'fuck' in front of them. You are teaching them that it's OK to hit people for saying things you don't like.
Also, this is not the way to deal with swearing in small children: the less fuss you make the sooner the child gets bored with the word.

I hate it too, think both swearing and smoking in a playground inconsiderate. To those who say fumes won't harm etc, I have ended up in hospital for 2 weeks before after breathing in smoke from someone at a bus stop, have a progressive lung disease, much worsened by family smoking round me when a child. So some kids with asthma etc may be affected - it's not just the same as traffic fumes etc.

Well, there was a guy drinking cans of Carling in my local playground, and then slinging them in the bin from a distance....

Or AIBU as well

Daphnemoon - sorry but that was a total over reaction!

my DS 2.11 said 'piss off' today (my fault swearing at the computer not knowing he was in room) , he walked out the room saying piss off piss off... I said to him you mean miss moth, miss moth so he spent all day muttering miss moth to himself,

shaking him by the shoulders is a bit tight really

on reflection i have changed my mind

i have decided that IANBU to expect people to (if they are going to smoke) to put their fag ends in the bin and smoke away from the kids, addiction or whatever - and it is legal

i dont think im being unreasonable to expect people to dispose of their fag butts tho...

or hyperdermic(sp?) needles

Oblomov washing up liquid isn't something I would feel comfortable doing, but if that's what someone else does that's their choice. My problem was with my brother and his partner doing it when they tell their kids to swear when they're starting to talk, call them every swear word under the sun and then come out with a line like "How dare you f'ing swear, I'm going to put f'ing washing up liquid in your mouth cause I don't want to hear you f'ing swear you little s!" I'm sure you can see it's not the washing up liquid as such that is the problem there!

I just remembered a story from another forum. A little boy (American, just to put some perspective on what he was saying) was playing with his mum and pinned her down, kissing her all over and saying "Mommy you retard!" over and over again. She was really upset because she doesn't like the word and keeps telling her brother and husband about using it. She called her husband in to hear it and he started laughing. The little boy was trying to say "Mommy you sweetheart!" bless!