Playground Etiquette

If your child pushes, shoves, or otherwise treats another child inappropriately on the playground (baby gym, gymboree, etc) do you reprimand your child right on the spot (in front of the other child's parents)? Do you apologize to the other child or the other child's parents?

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Absolutely.

Mine are older but they are told if can't play nicely than we'll have to leave (and we do).

I thought this would be a no-brainer.

Message edited 6/5/2007 1:45:26 PM.

Re: Playground Etiquette

DD is usually very good but occassionally she may take someone's ball or something... I will take it away, tell her No and give it back and apologize to the other child right on the spot.
I don't think it would work very well if I waited, she is only 15 months old.

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Yes!

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I do, and I think sometimes I look like wacko mom.

But I feel he needs to be corrected on the spot to know what he did was wrong. If I wait til later all will be forgotten, and the added lesson of apologizing is gone.

I will say that 9 times out of 10, he is on the receiving end of the inappropriate treatment, most times no one is even paying attention to their child

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All the time - I find I'm constantly telling Alex to share toys, or to wait her turn. If she pushes, or slaps another child, I immediately reprimand her, and apologize to the parent if they are in the vicinity.

If she's REALLY bad, and doesn't listen to me, I immediately remove her from the park and take her home.

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Absolutely. It might just be a quick "No hitting" followed by an elaborate gush over the victim... I'd save the more elaborate reprimand for after I've removed her from the situation as that can be just as startling for the other child as the aggressive act.

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Ok, that's what I thought because that's what I'd do.

Unlike this woman whose two daughters were positively terrorizing all the kids while she barely said anything and NEVER apologized to ONE parent.

I've never seen evil children before... these two little girls were, in fact, evil.

They "claimed" every toy/ride for their own and kicked out whatever child was there at the moment by any means necessary (kicking, shoving, hitting), then would immediately move on to the next toy/slide/car, attack that poor child, etc.

One of them actually laid across the slide, and intentionally tried to trip Jake as he was about to go down the slide. She looked over at me with an EVIL look on her face and I gave her the look of death, poised to jump, and shook my head and she sulked and removed her legs.

They were almost 5 and should not have even been on this particular playground.

I'll tell you, I have never felt the urge to discipline someone else's child but at that moment wow... it took alot to contain myself.

So - another question - would you ever reprimand someone ELSE'S child at the playground if their mother/father was not doing anything about their behavior?

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My son is on the passive side so I've never really had to deal with that, but if he did I would certainly reprimand him on the spot and have him apologize.

I have encountered many parents who do not, though, and it ticks me off.

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Yes, I would tell another child to stop the behavior if it directly affected my child. So if some kid was kicking Jack and the mother said nothing, I would say "It is not nice to kick other children. Lets go Jack and find nice children to play with" That should get the point across to the non-responsive parent.

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Yes, and I have. Sorry for busting in here.... but to answer your second question, ABSOLUTELY... especially if someone elses child has hurt my child. We were at Wood Kingdom a few weeks ago, on a school day, and there was this boy who was at LEAST 7 or 8 years old who was running around like a LUNATIC around all of the much smaller, MUCH younger children (the average age of all the other kids combined was maybe 3 or 4)... he was shoving them, jumping over them, and basically scaring the poop out of them. No one was saying anything to this kid. When he shoved my 3 year old off a slide, I went right up to him, asked him where his mother was, he pointed her out to me. She was sitting at one of the tables, chatting with her friend, completely ignoring what he was doing. I marched right up to her, with her sons hand in mine, and told her that he had shoved my son, and that he was jumping over all of the babies that were there. She gave me a look of death, told me to myob, and then left with her son telling her friend how RUDE I was....

whatever.... once he was gone, 3 other moms thanked me for saying something.

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I tell them right there & then.

Unfortunately there are alot of parents who don't pay attention. You will find this everywhere. Either they just don't care or they think their kids can do no wrong.

I have told a child who is not mine (nor did I know them) that they have to share, take turns whatever the case may be. If they are still rotten I take my kids out of the situation which really sux because they did nothing wrong. And they don't understand why we are leaving.

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If my children are acting inappropriately, I will absolutely say something to them. I would not sit by and watch them hurt another child.
I do not however think it is my place to discipline anybody else's child. I would not be happy if another person yelled at or touched my child. If there is a problem with my child, I think something should be said to me..not to them. I will handle it. I would actually appreciate it being brought to my attention if it is something I did not see. And from there I will decide how to discipline my kids.

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I totally say something to DD right in front of the other child if she is doing something wrong. I always try to be within sight distance of her.

To answer your question. If my DD is in harms way from the child whose mother is not doing anything then I will say something to the child ( sometimes loud enough so the other mother gets off her big butt) that that is not a nice thing to do

It actually happened to me . I was sitting with two other moms.. not friends just woman I had met at the park and there were a group of mothers not even ear shot away from thier kids sitting around gabbing and their Sons were throwing the wood chips at DD and the other two girls .. I finally went over to them and said to one of the boys that you are not supposed to throw these you can hurt someone.. Do you know that the mother did nothing....

So annoying

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Yes I would absolutely reprimand my child on the spot. Depending on the situation, I would most likely apoligize to the mother as well.
It depends on the age- its so difficult to teach a young child the concept of "sharing",my sons are under 2 yo,
so if I tell my child to share if he's taking a toy away from another child, its usually to appease the childs mom.

I wouldnt never reprimand another child-I dont feel like it's my place to do that-because I wouldnt tolerate another mother repirimanding my child (however I am very much on top of my children at the playground so if another mother yelled at my kids there would really be a problem!)

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I wouldnt reprimand another child unless they were directly hurting my child
I would go up to the parents and ask them to tell their child not to do whatever they are doing to my child