Judgepants on,,,,kid swimming in sea unsupervised

[HarderToKidnap]

On the beach today. Mum and Dad next to me with their (roughly) 8/9 year old daughter. They are obvbiously local, from overhearing their conversation. At one point she stands up and says "can I go swimming?". They say yes and then she tootles off to the water which was about 100ft away and down a hill a bit, so she was just a speck in the distance.

Mum and Dad immediately commenced snogging and then turned on their backs to sunbathe, so facing away from the water. In the meantime she was swimming quite far out, literally just a wee speck. I was so worried I went paddling to keep an eye on her. Quite busy beach but no lifeguard. DH reports they didn't once look round. I came back after about 10 minutes and they didn't look round until their daughter came back after another 15 minutes or so.

Is this is any way acceptable? Or am I being judgey and U?

YANBU I would judge like hell.

one of our local beaches had about 13 children rescued in ONE DAY last summer after floating off on inflatables.

some parents are thick when it comes to a nice relaxing day at the beach - they forget there is no such thing as time off.

if a child goes under and you are not immediately to hand, the mirky water makes it very hard to see them.

well i wouldnt do it. i think id have my judgypants on too.

LOL! well she probably was harder to kidnap in the sea!

yes they should have watched her, she could have got cramp or anything

Was it choppy? And if they are local they may be aware of the sea more. But I would probably be the same if I were there so yanbu to worry.

YANBU. Stupid, stupid people.

last yr DD aged 9 went down to the sea to rinse off DSs toys for us - we were about 5 metres away, max, and were watching her.
as she bent to splosh the mud off the toys , a bigger than average wave came in and went right over her head. this was on a nice gentle day - not a storm, but because she was crouching, it totally submerged her. very scary for her, but becasue we were watching and alert, we fished her out in seconds.

and laughed about it! she was then angry we were laughing when she was so shaken. till i explined the laughter was a form of relief that she was OK

the sea is dangerous. parents MUST supervise. end of!

KAQ - you've not heard of those cunning kidnappers who use snorkels then........

Peed, I was just slightly surprised by the combo of opening post content and posters name!

Agree - we were at the beach the other day, 5yo DS was splashing about, I sat and watched him constantly - he was only waist deep but if a big wave had knocked him over he would have gone out of sight and I would have needed to get him immediately. I've been knocked over by a wave myself and it is very powerful (and I'm a strong swimmer).

Some DC not much older were swimming much further out and it did worry me.

At that age I was off swimming on my own all the time (aah the slack parenting of the 1970's),but I would worry about my own daughters doing it.

If they live by the sea and know the beach/tide pattern well, I don't see anything wrong in this at all. Calm sea, child a good swimmer, fine.

I grew up by the sea and we were left on the beach all day every day in the summer holidays with no adult; none of us could swim either. But we knew the beach/tides really well and would never get on an inflatable in the water.

I too was swimming alone at that age ( and I had done my personal survival badge and part of my lifeguarding badge by then.....)

I was swimming alone at that age too. My brother and I would go down to the beach early, my mum would say "don't go in the sea until we get there"

We would say "yes mum"

And then go in the sea.

Also depends on the beach - at low tide we could walk out for miles and still only be slightly above knee level.

There were never any lifeguards, either.

It's a wonder how anyone survived the 1970s.