People who don't take age/size restrictions seriously for their children

The BBQ Pit
1

A recent thread reminded me of one of the more frequent obnoxious parent behaviors that I have witnessed. People disregarding age or size restrictions on children’s play areas that are put in place for safety reasons.

In the pit thread about the mother who left a dirty diaper in a McDonald’s play place area, people jumped all over her for leaving it there without cleaning it up or notifying the McDonald’s management. After a couple of days she updated the story to explain that she did attempt to clean it up herself and saw that the McDonald’s employees were sterilyzing the structure. Even if this is true, she was still at fault for letting a 2 year old play in the big structure of interconnecting tubes because McDonald’s PlayPlaces have signs saying that they are for children 4 and up (on the same sign that asks parents to remove their kid’s shoes before they climb in it, which is frequently disregarded as well). Besides the hygiene issues of having children who are not potty-trained playing in what is essentially a hamster house for kids which is difficult for adults to get into, there is also the very real danger that a small kid could get stuck in a dangerous position. Why do people ignore the sign?

A situation that has affected me similarly in the past goes with people ignoring the other side of these restrictions. In a local mall there is a play area for small children that has soft floors and big rubbery animals and fake rocks to climb on. It has a sign asking parents to remove their children’s shoes, and on it has a section that says you have to be under “This Tall” to play in the play area, with the marker at 4 feet, yet both these warnings are frequently disregarded and I often see children who are much too big (at least 11 or 12 years old) to be playing in this area for toddlers and young children. There are these tall “trees” that are obviously not made to be climbed on, yet big kids often climb up on top and then jump down 5 feet to the soft floor. Earlier this year this led to a serious injury. Me, my wife, and my wife’s cousin had brought our kids to play there (the oldest a small 5 year old). Some girl who was bigger than many adults I’ve seen (she had to be 5’2 and over 150 lbs) was climbing up on the tree and jumping down, and landed on my wife’s cousin’s 4 year old, which immediately led to the loudest crying I have ever heard. The girl (she looked like she was probably about 12 though her fatness may have made her look more developed than she was) started saying apologizing frantically until a woman I assume to be her mother grabbed her by the arm and hurried her out of there. The little boy’s arm started swelling and the crying didn’t stop, so he was taken to an emergency room where X-rays revealed he had a fractured ulna. The cast has since come off, but there’s concern that the bone may always be a little shorter than it’s supposed to be due to the age when it was broken, and all this suffering and expense was caused by a woman who felt it was OK to let her oversized kid play in an area that is clearly made for babies and small children. Oh yeah, the fat kid was wearing shoes, too.

Why are parents so short-sighted when it comes to making their kids follow basic rules of safety? I guess the mother figured it couldn’t hurt her kid to break the rules, which is probably right. Maybe it’s not that they don’t notice, but they just don’t care about anyone else.

2

I think it’s the first, honestly. I don’t think parents and their big-ass kids are thinking, “I don’t care about anyone else. I’m gonna get my play on! Fuck THEM!!” I know it wouldn’t occur to me that smaller kids could get hurt with my ten-year-old running around. They don’t have age/size restrictions on park playgrounds, after all.

Thanks for the information.

3

Tweens trampling little children in playgrounds have always been a pet peeve of mine. I am often fairly vocal about it, talking the kid and taking them to their moms if they don’t respond. I have no objection to older kids who are there clearly to take care of their little siblings, though.

4

They have a play area like that in our mall. My kids are 10 and 7 and we haven’t let them play in it for at least the last 2 years much to their dismay, because they’re too big now and it’s dangerous for the little kids. But it’s much harder to say no when they can see even older kids ignoring the rules.

5

You could change this to “Why are people so short-sighted when it comes to following basic rules of society? I guess people figure it couldn’t hurt for them to break the rules, which is probably right. Maybe it’s not that they don’t notice, but they just don’t care about anyone else.” and it would probably answer your question. We live in a society of rules made for the good of everyone; unfortunately, we have a significant portion of our society thinking they are so entitled that the rules don’t apply to them so they simply ignore them. I don’t know why people are this way; being lazy and unable to comprehend that there are other people in the world and your behaviour affects everyone around you is my guess at how people justify doing what they do.

6

A few years back, my little ones were playing at a McD’s playland. They were, if memory serves, 6 and 4 at the time.

Some older kids (MUCH older) came in and started horsing around in the ball pit. After one came very close to falling on my 6yo, I walked over and with a big smile spoke to them.

“Hey guys,” I said, all friendly like, “How old are you?”

“12”, they both replied.

“Well, my little girls 6, and a lot smaller than you. If you fall on her, or hurt her, I’ll break your arms. Have fun!”

Smiled and waved and returned to my seat. They played, much quieter, for about 5 minutes or so, and then left.

I was probably in the wrong on that, but I was protecting my little one. I would do it again for my youngest now.

7

Where there’s no size restriction, I’d say the onus was on the parent of the smaller child, to make sure they didn’t go there if they were liable to get hurt.

We have a similar situation at our local park - 90% of the time all the kids in it are under four, but the kids from the local high school go there on their lunch break and they (well, the boys) can play pretty rough. I’ve just pretty much accepted that when they’re rushing and jumping round I have to limit where my two-year-old goes (my four-year-old limits herself … she has a sense of self-preservation!)

I don’t know if I can really condone Tristan’s strategy though, that’s…umm…
:eek:
Effective though, I have no doubt

8

To me that’s like saying “my child’s a boy, so I don’t need to teach him about safe sex.”

Both sets of parents need to be aware of what their child’s doing and the bigger child should also be aware that he must be careful around little ones. We expect this from older siblings and cousins but it also applies when the kids aren’t related.

9

If I tried this, I bet the police would be called, or the parent of the boys would turn out to look like Hulk Hogan, and would arrive looking really angry, or something

10

AFAIC, the play equipment at McDonald’s and trick-or-treating are the province of the under-10 set. I understand that they’re attractive to older kids, but at some point, they need to accept that they’re too old for those things and find other interests.

In the case of an open public park, older kids need to just stay away from the younger kids. If they insist on coming closer, you need to speak up and tell them to stay away.

Robin

11

Hogan’s hip and knees are shot. You could take him. Stick and move.

12

I understand the impulse to protect one’s child. Don’t know if threatening other children with physical harm is the best way to do it. How well can you protect your daughter while you’re busy getting ass raped in lock-up?

13

In our instance, when the high school kids come, I kind of feel they deserve a bit of space to do “big, rough, high school kid” stuff - after all, we get the playground (which is designed for all ages) all week and they just get forty minutes or so at lunch to let off steam.

And I certainly wouldn’t condone a big kid jumping on a little kid’s head, but the high school kids round here are good kids - you can just see them pausing and thinking “oh crap, I’m gotta half-speed this bit - ankle-biter in the road”, and I feel bad about making them do that.

I wasn’t really addressing the OP - just monstro’s point. I agree, if there’s a posted age limit you ought to obey it

14

Geez, back when I was a 12-year-old in school, there were two sets of playground equipment. Jeebus help you if Mr. Fenlan caught you on the “little kid’s climbers” if you were in any grade higher than the third.

If an age limit (or height/size) restriction is posted you should follow the rules. If there is none posted, the parents have to be discretionary. I wouldn’t let my little kid on equipment that had a pack of older kids on it, and if I had an older kid, I wouldn’t let him play on the kiddie equipmet where he/she might squash a toddler.

I was never allowed on the carnival rides if I wasn’t tall enough to meet the sign that said “You must be THIS TALL to go on this ride!” And nowadays, I don’t get to ride the mechanical horsey at the mall that has a weight limit of 80 lbs.

15

The other day hubby and I were driving to work when we stopped behind a car with the cutest little girl in the backseat, about 3 years old, who was turned around, waving and smiling at us. While standing in the backseat of the car.

I motioned for her to sit down, and she laughed. She then waved and waved at us and neither of us waved back, we were so stunned by what we were seeing. I then motioned toward my seat belt, wondering why she didn’t have hers on. She turned to report this to the driver of the car (who I can only assume was her mother) who then gave us the evil eye in her rearview mirror, while the light turned green and she was so busy giving us dirty looks she didn’t notice the light turned until we motioned for her to go. Which she did - right onto the freeway.

I can’t get over this! Who does that? I can’t get over the dirty looks she gave us - “how dare you question me breaking the law and endangering my very small child?”

:confused:

16

What Tristan does, see, is get his dad to walk up to the cell, smiling, and say “If any of you guys ass-rape my son, I’ll break your arms!”

17

All the malls around me have those play areas and my son (1-1/2) just loves them. He does occasionally get run over by a crazy 3 year-old but they’re so little also no harm is done.
However, when I do see the bigger kids in there that obviously don’t belong in there (as per the posted rules) I’ve had absolutely no qualms about kicking them out. It’s usually as simple as getting in their space and saying authoratively “Hey, you cant be in here. You’re too big.”
I’ve had their parents give me dirty looks for telling them to scram but none of them have challenged me on it yet.

18

I think it has to do with people who want to avail themselves of a particular resource deliberately “not looking too hard” at the restrictions and rules and just going right on and doing what they please.

This is a big issue at the off-leash dog park I attend. There’s a set of rules for everyone’s protection posted in several places, including on the damned gate you have to swing open to enter. Inevitably people break the rules, even though it could cost us the existence of the hard-won park itself if the county decides we’re a source of trouble.

People with unlicensed dogs are only breaking a bureaucratid rule, albeit one that the county will probably most wish to enforce. Those without rabies tags are gambling with lives…or at least letting us wonder if they are.

But the worst ones for self righteousness are the parents bringing in little kids. Big dogs play nin the unlimited-weight off-leash area, and no children under the age of nine are allowed in there, period.

I often see little kids there…running erratically, staring down male dogs, yanking toys out of the mouths of strange dogs, running up behind them and yelling, flailing little arms in front of dogs used to tug-of-war, and generally being out-of-control. I’ve seen a six year old get all white-faced as a Great Dane pressed forward to lick his face. I’ve seen a little kid run into a pack that was snapping and snarling to sort out a dominance encounter. I saw one woman breastfeeding an infant – the wee one began caterwauling and six or seven dogs rushed over and wanted to jump up on her and see what that noise was. The parents are more typically on a cellphone, or smoking like a chimney, if they can be identified at all.

That area is for the dogs – it’s paid for by the dogs’ guardians – and it’s almost the only area around that the poor things can run free off leash. People using it to baby-sit are risking an injury to their child – but they’re risking my dog’s life. If my dog is bouncing around with her mouth open in a wide grin and somebody’s precious four-year-old bangs into her without looking, the police may come and they may very well kill my dog.

Yet these people throw all kinds of huffy little fits and mumble snarky comments if one asks them to leave, despite the fact that they had to touch a sign with three-inch-high letters each time they open the gate to get in.

Listen, you freaks, your kids have the run of the entire rest of the parks and recreation department, not to mention the world. Please don’t get them hurt, and please dont make animal control kill my dog just because you wanted to use the park fence to control your kid for you.

Please. I am a guardian too, with a rambunctious little life to protect.

Sailboat