Is it ok to meet friend and her kids for a outdoor picnic this week (half term) ?

[betterlucknexttimer]

What do you think? Obviously the kids will interact if we meet, as they are under 5 they won't social distance. Would be friends two kids and my two kids.

Would you (assuming you needed to) send the kids back to childcare/nursery etc. next week? If so, then nothing wrong with it.

We've met up with friends and let the kids play.

Seriously just don’t! Against the guidelines and poses a risk.

Why ask? The government rules are clear enough, its up to you whether you obey them or not.

Nope. It's against the rules.

No

All the people citing DC as an excuse to do as they like are pathetic. Just because he broke the rules and isn't being 'punished' for it, doesn't make it safe to break the rules. FFS. People drink drive - does that make you think it's ok for you to drink drive?!

Meeting would be bad enough, but if you were both single parents then, I'd understand wanting to see another adult and having to take the kids, but that's not the situation. You're meeting do the kids can play. - that is stupidity

that same risk will be there when they go back to school/ preschool/ nursery

Realky so your kids & her kids all go to the same nursery & no other kids and you two run the nursery? Wow. That's handy.

If not it's an ADDITIONAL risk to going back to nursery and your kids are taking an additional set of risks into nursery.

Don't be daft. Don't put your family, their family & lots of other people st risk just so the kids can play for a few hours. They'll have friends to play with the next week.

No. I wouldn’t.

Neither families have had coronavirus

Neither family have knowingly had CV. Though one or more of them may have been asymptomatic and passed it on to loads of others. Twats.

Would you have considered this before this weekend’s DC debacle, OP?

No.

How about the mental well being of the child? Government seemed to have forgotten this aspect.

Some Kids will be in their social bubbles from next week. My DC will be exposed to at least 15 households - 14 kids plus 1 teacher from next week. Oh and my DC is autistic so it seems I can justify anything.

Use your judgement seems we are all allowed to. I stuck to the rules and my kids mental health really suffering teenagers and young children need to see their friends.

@IncrediblySadToo my brother has asthma, and my nephew has one kidney. I think they'd have noticed. The risks they have taken are using grandparents for childcare, and meeting friends and family outdoors. I think they have got away with it, as we live in a rural are with hardly any cases in our rural county.

We have been so good, even getting up at 5am to get a couple of hours work done before kids wake. I sometimes wonder who's got it right, us being good, and constantly knackered or bother and sister in law bending rules.

Why not hold on a little longer, garden fetes are going to be allowed soon and as you say, dc will be in school. Don't follow the crowd.

I disagree with almost everyone! I know what the rules are. But I think the rules are too tight.

Everyone saying that the kids will be back at school/nursery next week? Exactly.

So how come it's not ok to meet one mum with her child, meet another mum with her child, as long as they are 2 metres apart.

How is that not allowed already. If indeed the schools are due to go back.

And why they have to meet in a park, so the police? Can see, rather than someone's garden.

Why you can't go and visit your parents, in their garden?

(Not that this even applies to me because my parents live far away, so that my visits we plan)

Yet schools are going back. And we are being encouraged to go back to work, if we can.

I find it questionable.
I find this ridiculous.

I think your DH working outside the home does change things as it means there is a route in / out for transmission. Will the kids be in the same preschool / nursery? What does local data tell you about the number of new cases in your area at the moment?

The latest evidence is that kids do get / transmit the virus, although they are less likely to both get and transmit it than adults so there is a risk from them meeting and not socially distancing.

For those saying its unfair if you're sending them back to nursery/schools etc. I'm sorry but if you're happy for schools to open and send you're own kids in you're going to have to take the additional risks that will obviously bring.

Either accept it's not safe for schools to open or deal with the risks associated. To think your DC will be secure/safer in a little bubble shows little understanding of schools/children in them. The school bubble concept is just there for show to make people feel good especially with younger ones.

Make a choice based on your needs. If you and your friend/family are happy, then do it. Why would you worry about being judged by some complete random.

Course it is! We've had 2 already

Yes. Go. Enjoy yourself. The most pro-lockdown people barely go out so they don't realise how much the world has changed in the last week or two. I am out all the time now because I'm caring for a sick family member and have to move between my house and hers. My local mini-Waitrose line degenerating yesterday as one person (actually a man well into his 70s) insisted on pushing forwards to bypass the bread. People actually touching me because it was so crowded. Huge groups of people picnicking in park, some staggering around pissed. People snogging. (With a level of enthusiasm that suggested not someone form their household.) Today am looking for a big Tesco or Sainsbury's to take my reception DS to get some new shoes for school next week.

This is his half term after an extremely grim period of time and before the shock of school again, so I would absolutely take him out this week for a picnic if I can get enough time off work and caring duties.

The risk is so tiny it isn’t worth worrying about. There is no logic to the ‘rules’ at all as they are now. Make sure you don’t go out if you aren’t healthy and wash your hands or use hand gel, the rest makes little difference especially if you are young and don’t have any comorbidities. If shops, schools, childcare, car showrooms etc will be open in a few days how much will meeting your friend add to the risk?

No if the children are in different bubbles at school. It’s not fair on the school and nursery staff for them to have to take on the extra risk.

No. Yabu. The number of new cases is still very high. You risk either catching the virus or spreading it.

Don't be a disease vector. Even if you survive, others, say your friend's parents, may not.

No. You'd be an idiot to do this. You say the kids are going back to school like that makes it OK, but what you'd be doing is increasing the risk of your kids picking up the virus from your friend's kids and then passing it onto other children at the school.

I was walking the other day and saw a couple of friends picnicking whilst their 6 children (not socially distanced) drew "Thank You NHS" in chalk. Bunch of hypocrites

SarahMused - as the disease can be spread by people who are asymptomatic or don't know they have it yet, it is irrelevant if you seem healthy as you can't know if you actually are.

We all have a responsibility not to spread the disease and make others sick.

HairyToity - sure your imaginary friends have broken all the rules and not had the virus.

I would go and have a good catch up. They are guidelines, your choice whether or not to obey them.

If you and your kids can all social distance then yes, don’t really see the problem with small groups meeting outside sticking 2m apart. If your kids will not social distance then definitely not! That isn’t a small stretching of the guidelines, it’s completely going against them. We all want to come out of lockdown and see friends and family properly, please don’t be part of prolonging it for everyone just because you are getting a bit fed up. Think how long it will take if everyone does this.