Saturday, April 12, 2008

so when do you say something?

Today we went to Victoria Gardens. We were excited that it was hot enough to see if Cam would run around in the big fountain they have. Unfortunately the fountain wasn't working, but we still had a nice time.




Over in the play area, there was a smaller fountain that Cameron enjoyed playing in for a while. After he had finished and had moved on to something else, a 7 year old kid (that's my age guess) hopped on top of the fountain and proceeded to splash other kids, drink from the fountain, and generally make himself quite annoying to those kids around. Chris made the comment that if Cam had wanted to go back over and play in it, he would have said something to the mother of the kid. Something along the lines of, "Excuse me, but your son is splashing kids around the fountain and making it difficult for other kids to play. Would you mind asking him to stop?" I don't think there is anything wrong with that, but if it were me, I probably would have just avoided the whole thing and redirected Cam to something else.

So what would you have done? When is the line crossed, in your opinion, regarding the behavior of other kids?

3 comments:

Donna Stark said...

How could you tell which woman was his mother? Was she saying something to him? Hmmmm,I'd probably avoid it, but don't think it's wrong for someone to pursue it.

Team Harry said...

Y didn't you take a picture of the annoying kid splashing all the kids? : )
I don't think it's wrong to say something to the Mom, but depending on my mood...I might
1. tell my kids to do something else &/or ignore him or
2. I might be the protector of my kids and kindly say something to the lil terrorist : )
(it takes a village right?)

Anonymous said...

I'd avoid it. The world doesn't revolve around me. The fountain is not mine. And kids like to splash with water, and when you're near water, you almost somewhat expect your kid to get wet. And I don't really want strangers telling me how to parent, so I am pretty cautious about when I tell other parents what to do.

I DID interject at the mall a while back when a little boy kept chasing my Reagan and tugging on her beautiful locks of hair. now THAT made me mad. Don't touch my girl! How could the mother NOT step in?! I grabbed her child's hand, walked him over to his mother and tattled, 'Your son has pulled my daughter's hair 3 times. I thought you would like to know.' exit: storm out with a huff.