I really wonder about how people parent sometimes. I was @ a Mickey D’s playplace the other evening with thetallone, theblondeone (my 5 yr old daughter), theminione (my 1 yr old daughter) and my Brother’s family. Our 3 oldest girls (minus theminione) were trying to play on the play equipment and there were about 8 other kids there, 3 of whom were a few years older and only one of whom was younger than the youngest playing from our family. These other children were just sitting in the enclosed/tunnel slide, blocking it so that no other kids could go down! A couple of them were also sitting on top of the very end, kicking their feet. Where were their parents??! There was no adult who was there making sure the children were playing well together. No adult who was monitoring these children. We finally got so frustrated with these other children not playing well w/ our girls, that my SIL got up and sternly, but politely, asked those other children to move out of the way to let our girls through. Now, my SIL’s oldest was able to get through the boys sitting in the slide (she’s not above a bit of roughness), but theblondeone is NOT a rough player, except for occasionally, with our 3 year old Siberian Husky (Kaleb the dog). So theblondeone was stuck! Poor thing! Luckily my SIL has that “Black Momma Kat” kinda bearing (especially when the dear children need the help of a Momma Kat!), so the kids did let theblondeone through. We then proceed to leave & go to the park near our house before, as my SIL told her eldest “So, Momma doesn’t have to be in jail because of being violent!”
My pondering of this is, why do some parents NOT think their parenting methods through? I understand how it takes brain time to do so, but why not take the time to think how you are going to prepare your child for their adulthood? Don’t you want your child(ren) to be happy, healthy contributing members of society? Yes, it does require thought & life does not work out exactly as you plan. Aren’t our children worth a little thinking on our part? There will always be lines to stand in, other people who are first (or better for jobs, etc), and sharing is definitely a “real life” requirement! It is difficult to be consistent (some days, anyway) but it is worth the time & effort!
I used to work at a Burger King in high school. We had one of those play areas. We often had parents drop six to ten year old kids off to play by themselves for hours. The kids would come up and get a water glass (for free) fill it with soda and play for hours till mom and dad came back. I started calling Phoenix PD when I saw this and we had several ‘abandoned kids’ picked up. Some people’s parents. Sheesh.