To dislike it when crowds of rowdy teenagers gather in parks designed for SMALL children?

[poshsinglemum]

I know they are bored and don't have any youth clubs to go to and blah de blah de blah but I felt intimidated when I took my dd (15 months) to the park today.
There was a tiny group of three teenagers but they were throwing around a litre bottle of coke which was spraying everywhere and they found it HILARIOUS.
Thay were making a lot of noise for a small group and there were loads of tiny tots around.
Why can't they bugger off to the skate park and leave the liitleuns alone? I would have said something if I didn't think i'd get stabbed. . If they must then do it at night. Not in the day with teenies around.

your tot will be a teen one day
all teens don't stab people you know

YANBU I hate it too, and they leave broken glass, cigarette butts and burnt out coke bottles on the floor for my dd or other little ones to tread on.

I know- that was a flippant remark but these kids were intimidating.

Can't you remember being a teen? Things like squirting coke were hilarious.

So they are making a lot of noise. Am sure they are not deliberately terrorising the toddlers. And a lot of them don't have anywhere to go (blah de blah ).

Your daughter will be a teenager one day. Don't tar them all with the same brush.

I don't hate teens but there is a decent skate park in town they could mess around in- unless they have been pushed out by the cliques.

yabu

in my experience most of the kids who hang round playgroups are absolutely harmless, usually the posh kids tbh. no need to be intimidated.

YANBU it really pisses me off too. I don't mind them being in a park, it's practically law for teenagers to loiter in parks I do however resent them being in the playground area.

I hate that too, so much so that I ask them to leave. I politely point out that the area they are in has an age range, they are too old, the play area is very small and the rest of the park (where they can go) is very big. They always go. If they give a bit of back chat then I ask which school they go to. Usually shuts them up (I work on their assumption that I can probably find out who they are).

i know where you're coming from, but were they being intimidating or did you feel intimidated?

I just didn't want my teeney tot to get squashed by a heavy, flying litre bottle of coke. They were chucking it around at one point. A big bottle- not a tiny one.

i work with teens and some of them are lovely and I do think they need proper youth clubs etc. I even remember the silliness of being that age but I do think they could have chucked it around on the large green that is situated right by the park rather than in the actual park itself.

Outside the park there is a piece of common ground about half the size of a rugby pitch. Thay could have done their coke flinging there.

I think I am more easily intimidated now that I have a dd to consider. I used to work with teens before dd so I dealt with large groups of them regularly. Mabe that's what freaks me out!

I think when dd was little I too would have got annoyed by lumbering great teens arseing around near my toddler.

However now I have got a 13 year old I am probably more understanding of the silly teens. They really are daft lummocks, mostly. They are probably just being thoughtless, not malicious, probably wouldn't enter their heads that coke bottle antics would piss off a mother of a small child.

I do understand why you are annoyed, however I think that parks are always going to be places where teens arse about, tbh.

I have a teen ..most of em are lovely really

i also work with teens....you could give them a smile and just ask them to watch where they were chucking their bottle because you didn't want your baby to be squished by it...they might well be unaware that you were intimidated by them and oblige!! (or they might not! )

YANBU and I agree with what Ewe says too.

Our local park area is massive: Football pitch, cricket pitch, tennis courts/basketball area, large expanses of woods/fields, plenty of benches, shelters etc... but the childrens playground area is pretty small in comparison.

The local teens tend to congregate in large groups by or on the (2) swings or at the bottom of one of the 3 slides just chatting/listening to music etc... thus making younger children unable to play on the equipment.

I know teens aren't malicious. I didn't really mean that stabbing comment - it was very flippant. They just need to be more thoughtful.

I have teen siblings so know teens aren't scary etc but I find it ridiculous that my toddler has to wait to go on the swings because some teens are trying to squidge in them and muck around!

Oh my god, just wrote a long and fascinating post that disapeared into the ether. So just to summarise. Older children who frequent parks designed for little dcs are poo poo if, and only if, they do not move from the equipment if they see a small child wants to use it. My own dcs are lovely, but do hang around in parks as there is nowhere else to go. However, if small chidren arrive they will move off equipment or else push them on swings and generally play with them. My dcs love littlies and would not do anything to upset them.

Exactly. And it really bugs me when park equipment gets broken and vandalised.

In one park I know the ground is littered with fag buts and spliff ends. I'm not saying that teens have done that as plenty of adults smoke (including parents) but as there are small children aroun dpeople should be more mindful of where they throw their litter.

I think there should be more skate parks for big kids. There are quite a few round here and most of the kids love them. They love to skate and can hang out and do teen stuff there.

I am not underestimating how territorial teens can be though and I know that teens end up in parks because they feel intimidated by going into other areas. Mabe some are scared of going to the skate park because they have ''enemies'' there or whatever.

I am trying to recal my teenage years.

It is annoying, but my toddlers were never intimidated, having an older brother and so they always just walked to whatever they wanted to use and the teenagers always moved.
They just don't think a lot of the time.

A teen boy once amused my 3 year old for about 45 minutes, answering endless questions such as "Why is your hair blue?" "Why are you there?" "Why are you moving?" and "Why are you drinking that?" and "Why have you got a think on your eyebrow?" and "Why are you goingnow?"

he he he

When my ds was younger (2 - 3) he would go up to said rowdy teenagers and ask them to play with him. They either scarpered or took turns pushing him on the swings .

Coldiz and Mollie- lol!

I guess I wouldn't mind if they were sitting down and having a picnic but it was the flinging of the coke bottle that riled me.