How often do you go to the park with your kids?

[scoobysnax]

Our local parks aren't usually very busy, and for some reason seem to have more tourists or visiting foreign academics than local people!

Just wondering how often people take their children to the park nowadays - or if different venues have taken their place in the world now?

Usually Monday and Friday, the days I look after him. He's passionate about the wing (swing) and the slide. I'm not so mad about it, but if the weather's nice, it's good. Also quite often a stroll in Dulwich park at the weekend with a stopover at the rather fantastic tea room. Hate noisy places like softplay and hate myself in a swimsuit so swimming and softplay are out for me.

Every day I can if the weather is nice we take a packed lunch, it is next door to pre-school and school though so maybe that's cheating.

If we've walked into town to go to the shops or library, and if we've got time, we tend to go to the park which is next to the shops. DD (15 months) gets bored after 10 minutes anyway so that works better than making a special trip.

every other day or more if poss.the thing is dd usually goes on just the swing for the whole time until it comes to leaving time,then she'll go on everything else until i have to drag her away kicking and screaming!.

every day - or twice even!

i dont go to the parks round here, as the last time i went it was full of glass, and empty beer cans. not nice. if i'm visiting people in the next town i go to the big parks there. but we go swimming and soft play most weeks, usually both if the kids are extra hyper.

Too often. Am sick to the back teeth of our (very good, very popular) park now after six weeks of school holidays. Was OK when I just had DS1 and could let him do his own thing while I sat and had a natter with friends but now I have DS2, hellbent on self-destruction and with no sense of danger, I have to climb on everything, push small children out of the way to rescue him, and perform weird contortions to reach him on high-up climbing frames

used to be every day,but lately our park has been turning into a no go area-kids on a motorbike just riding around the grass,revving up etc(they have been reported several times by differenr people,and also lots of people have talked directly to them)its so dangerous and scares the kids so they dont want to go,also large groups of youths hanging about on the under 7's equipment-spitting,smoking being foul and most recently 2 pitbull terriers-unmuzzled,off their leads in the dog free area.lovely.
all this has been reported etc but it does no good-anyone got any bright ideas?sorry for hijacking thread,its so awful not having our park to play in.

maybe it will all die down in the Autumn.

I feel its sad that Missdee and the others have to pay to go to soft play when we are paying council tax for crap parks,

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Only twice through this summer holiday as they have decided to bulldose our local one.
But we have to been the beach, various museums, cadburys world, butterfly farm, soft play areas swimming etc

I take my dd two or three times a wand we will go to farms snakes and ladders and we are off to choc world fantastic mmmyum yum

choclate world sound like my cup of tea

any way we take our boys once a week that every sat to the local one, then when we go to town there is one on the way, biger and batter, so we take them on the way and again on the way back, only if there good and of cause if daddys been good too

We go to park about 5 times a week, I try different ones, sometimes we jump on a bus and find a park that we havent been to before, other times we go to the one round the corner with friends, and if I am organised we take a picnic. Hours of pushing ds on a swing do get boring though, no matter how many variations I try.

i go maybe 3 times a week but my dd also loves the library and museum, (there's a tiny kitchen where she can play, ) also go to soft play and just started taking her swimming. Although she's 2 and a half i HATE wearing cosssies but have to grin and bear it now i think as she LOVED it I rang ,,,,i think it'd called "Children's Services" to ask about any clubs for her to socialise,dance, singing, stories, gymnastics.....ANYTHING. I was sent leaflets about one gym class in next town.........i think it's a crying shame and my hubby to be thinks I should set something up.......

Sounds like a lot of park sessions going on!
I have no idea why the ones near me are not popular as they are really nice!!!

Are the parks busy where you live?

It's so sad to hear about some parks not being properly maintained - park maintenance is pretty much the only thing my astronomical council tax gets spent on that I don't begrudge!!!

We go to the park about once a month (just putting the other side of the story here). Don't feel any need to go more often but then we do have 3 school runs a day which eats into available time and means we don't have the urge to get out of the house as much. In the holidays we do other things or they play in the garden.

Our parks in SE London are fantastic IMO. We have a little one literally a couple of minutes up the road with a fenced, dog-free play area which is well-maintained. A bigger park with a larger play area more suitable for slightly older kids about five minutes in the other direction (they've painted snakes and ladders on the ground which ds loves) and two others within 20minutes walk or a short drive, one full of squirrels to feed and another with a duck pond and paddling pool - plus the huge open spaces of Dulwich park and Brockwell park which has a lido, a huge clean shallow paddling pool and also offers music lessons for babies, baby yoga, baby massage etc and has a tea room which isn't as posh as Dulwich. SE London certainly has its cruddy elements but we are spoilt for parks! We do go to the park in winter too. But I agree, pushing swings has limited appeal.

Twiglett, I hear the Crystal Palace One O'Clock club is v good, and the Peckham Rye one is quite good too (ooh forgot Peckham Rye!). I rarely go though as ds still has a lunchtime sleep.

Ahem, funny enough I am becoming a bit of an expert on Public Parks (via work). Inner city parks are massively underfunded in Britain, a long term problem. Living in inner cities you usually have the poorest access at all, and what parks you can visit will likely be in very grotty shape.

Some IDIOT designed our local nice park such that 2 single swings are 20m apart from each other; what do my kids fight over? who gets to go in the swings (DS only does it because DD does). I used to run back & forth between them but gave up. Drives me crazy. I have had parents scold me for not keeping a good Eye on DD climbing things while DS clamours to be pushed in the swing; night mare. Try to avoid going without DH. DH is braver & often goes on his own.

i droped my ten year old at a park to meet her boyfriendlast week then picked her up an hour later.

i cant say i have been to a park with my kids for years. horrible places full of dog shit and glass with teenagers on the swings and fag ends in the sand pit not surpassed by the smell of piss from under the slide and the nazi logo on the baby rocking things.

My local park has a coffee bar which sereves the most wonderful Lattes and double chocolate muffins, a manicure place and somewhere to get a massage. It is also lightly scented with Lily of the Valley and Jasmine which waft in from the flower beds which surround it.

My park has wooden educarional non gender bias only toys and shiatsu massage by semi clad hunks. (not incredible honks)

Ps Lol at zebra trotting between swings!
Has she tried out the zebra crossings yet?