Am I anti children please help!

[S-MaxJon]

Lord - We have been caravanning for 4 years and 10 years with our parents.

Mandy - I strongly resent your pre-concieved judgement on my family.I am a Civil Engineer and my wife is a Chartered Accountant

 

[Parksy]

Can we continue this debate in a civilised manner Ladies and Gentlemen please. Lets not allow it to degenerate into a series of personal comments which will attract unwelcome attention from either my fellow Moderators or myself

 

[Lord Braykewynde]

Jonathan read your post above ... I quote ...

"Frisbee and hide and seek - blimey what is the world coming too!Here is a hint - dont't go away during school holidays or stick to your adult sites.You can all moan together then".

How I read that, and obviously others did to, is that you condone that kind of behaviour and it should be expected of children to behave in that way. Children only behave that way from using their parents as role models and I would think that is what Mandy meant in her reply to you, after all, at no time have you condemned anti-social behaviour from children OR adults.

 

[Dustydog]

Jonathan

Without upsetting Parksy , I sense you are not an all the year caravanner.

Quite frankly I cannot accept that decent people like Mandy and Ian , Swift's friends, have to suffer damage to their hard earned caravans. If I had been on the receiving end of such careless selfish abuse, I may have ofered the offenders a knuckle sandwich.

In fact Jonathan, again at the risk of upsetting Parksy let us all know when and where you will be with caravan and I , for one will make sure I am miles away!!!

I hope for the sake of decency some Mr R. Sole damages your caravan with their frisbee, ball or stones and then you too can be a misery and complain on this forum.

Cheers

Alan

 

[Meister]

I am in 100% agreement with LB and Alan.

Also .......... it does not matter if a parent is a Civil Engineer, Chartered Accountant, Dustbin Man or even Prime Minister ...... accademic (or other similar) ability has nothing at all to do with parenting.

Steve

 

[Meister]

Perhaps I should clarify my above posting by saying that (in my opinion) a persons prfessional qualifications bear no relationship to them being good parents or not.

Steve

 

[Lord Braykewynde]

That was my thoughts exactly Meister, I couln't see the point that Jonathan was trying to make. Does the study of Civil Engineering contain Parenting Skills as part of the curriculum I wonder?

 

[Countrylass]

Lord B

I have consulted my husband (a retired Chartered Civil Engineer) and he says that the study did not include anything on parenting skills although it did help with answering some of the endless "Why?" questions.

 

[WendyCambs]

Im not anti children but its the road we are going down these days. The parents will do anything for a quiet life, and that means ignoring their childrens bad behaviour.

Thats why we pick child free sites!

 

[patey]

Its not anti children its just asking for some respect, we have 2 children and I would be embarassed if they behaved in the way some children do, we were away the other week and a van accross from us were actually allowing their children to kick a casey ball against their van, if parents allow this we chance do we have getting them to respect our property - none at all!!!! We have got to the stage of dreading getting near vans with children as you just don't know what is going to happen to your van etc. Our children love going in the van but know what is expected of them and at the end of the day a child is only what the parent makes it!!!!!!! My husband asked a man to put his dog on a lead as it was running free round the play area and the children were frightened of it, he asked my husband what his problem was and was he the warden, when my husband said no he wasn't the gentleman kindly told my husband what to do!!!! Children have no chance have they??

 

[STEVE_5041381]

Agree with you wholeheartedly - we do not go away on kids hols or if we do its to adults only sites. And if pitching we see kids bikes/balls etc in the next pitch we dont pitch next to them - as you say cant tar them all with the same brush its just the few that spoil it for the rest .

 

[Dave_374330759]

We have been camping and caravanning and boating for over thirty years with our kids, other peoples kids and now our grandchildren. It's not hard to make sure that they respect other people and go to play in the play areas. We get really frustrated when our children are behaving themselves and some others on the site are rampaging around like lunatics totally out of control. Most people don't object to children playing it's just irresponsible parents who let them run riot.

A couple of years ago we were on the CC site near Hythe which was nice and peaceful and during the week all the kids had access to a games room with TV and films, a play area and a field to fly kites and play football, however when the weekend rabble arrived all hell broke loose, footballs, cricket and frisbbees around the caravans, the TV/games room was so badly trashed on the Saturday that it had to be closed and life just became miserable for everone else until they eventually went home on the Sunday afternoon.

As always it's the few that spoil it for the majority

Perhaps the wardens/sitemanagers should exert a bit more authority and remind these people of the rules and if ignored send the unruly ones away.

 

[mandy_5114266]

Lord - We have been caravanning for 4 years and 10 years with our parents.

Mandy - I strongly resent your pre-concieved judgement on my family.I am a Civil Engineer and my wife is a Chartered Accountant

Jonathan

I am not interested in what you or your wife do for a living and I didn't pre - conceive judgement on your family you took it that way. Just because you have good jobs doesn't make any difference as to parental skills. What I would like to ask is if some children were playing cricket near your brand new caravan would you be worried about damage? If this happened would you complain? Then would you write on a forum like this one to get other peoples opinions and experiences. I am not a moaner and believe in live and let live but if everyone done exactly what they wanted when they wanted with out a care for anyone elses property what a horrible world it would be. Also if you don't like hearing other peoples opinions maybe you should keep yours to yourself! Mandy

 

[Lord Braykewynde]

Lord B

I have consulted my husband (a retired Chartered Civil Engineer) and he says that the study did not include anything on parenting skills although it did help with answering some of the endless "Why?" questions.

Heh! heh! heh! ;O)

 

[Lord Braykewynde]

The people I truly feel sorry for are those parents who try to bring up their kids decently and teach them to respect others property. These people have to go away when schools break up so don't have the choice of going in school time or to adult sites.

It is a sad sign of our times when people like patey, who has children herself is "dreading getting near vans with children" just to protect her own children.

 

[Alex_374312290]

Does anyone think that there are different degrees of behaviour ?

What I'm trying to say is that I think most people would agree that throwing a metal toy / stones at someone's van is well out of order.

But a child riding their bike around the sites roads, keeping away from people's vans ? I think there's nothing wrong with that.

Or even a young child cutting between two vans on the odds occasion ?

I'll bet that we would get fairly mixed responses. Is that then not down to eveyone's opinions and how they think things should be on site and therefore, " can't please all of the people all of the time ". In which case there is always someone unhappy, all of the time, about something.

 

[Lord Braykewynde]

Nothing wrong with them riding their bikes along the site roads provided they have been instructed not to speed and adhere to the one way system if in force.

Would it be acceptable for your child to take a short cut through someones garden on the odd occasion? It would be acting far more responsibily as a parent if you taught your child that it was wrong.

 

[Alex_374312290]

Does anyone think that there are different degrees of behaviour ?

What I'm trying to say is that I think most people would agree that throwing a metal toy / stones at someone's van is well out of order.

But a child riding their bike around the sites roads, keeping away from people's vans ? I think there's nothing wrong with that.

Or even a young child cutting between two vans on the odds occasion ?

I'll bet that we would get fairly mixed responses. Is that then not down to eveyone's opinions and how they think things should be on site and therefore, " can't please all of the people all of the time ". In which case there is always someone unhappy, all of the time, about something.

Sorry to post twice in row, but I was just thinking that, again generally speaking, caravan sites tend to be quiet, peaceful, relaxing places. So the odd example of bad behaviour, whether it be adult late night drinking / noise, badly behaved kids or dogs barking in the early hours, will stand out more. No ?

Just a thought. Well, another one.

 

[Alex_374312290]

Nothing wrong with them riding their bikes along the site roads provided they have been instructed not to speed and adhere to the one way system if in force.

Would it be acceptable for your child to take a short cut through someones garden on the odd occasion? It would be acting far more responsibily as a parent if you taught your child that it was wrong.

Yeh, I know what you're saying Lord and have taught them not to do this, but to be fair there aren't many playareas / toilet blocks ( remember when you were young, always left it to the last minute. ) behind people's gardens are there ? So what harm does the odd occasion do ? Kids get excited, kids need to be taught and reminded, but sometimes they forget, that's why they are kids and we don't allow them to drive cars. LOL !

On the bike thing, someone else had a differing opinion from you and thought it was very annoying, because the youngster had stabilisers on.

But that's my point, we all have differing views and tolerances. Except when it's extreme behaviour that we're talking about. Unfortunately as a caravan site is communal, there will always be something to upset somebody.

 

[Lord Braykewynde]

Again I will try to answer your post above under comments Alex :O)

Loud mouthed drunks or barking dogs wont damage my caravan but ....... well you can guess the rest. Heh! heh! heh!

 

[Alex_374312290]

I know sorry about the " comments " thing, hopefully get it right this time.

Kids taking a short cut between your van and the next on the odd occasion or riding their bike down the road the wrong way won't hurt your van either.

But you're entitled to be annoyed about it.

 

[Lord Braykewynde]

Quote Alex ... "Kids taking a short cut between your van and the next on the odd occasion or riding their bike down the road the wrong way won't hurt your van either".

Alex if they ride their bikes the wrong way it will be themselves that they hurt, also the mental torture of the driver knowing that he had killed a child although through no fault of his/her own.

This happened to me at Low Park Wood as I was leaving the site. A kid came around the corner, wrong way, and if it hadn't been for the fact that I was barely moving, which gave him the chance to swerve, his head would have done battle with my windscreen and I know which would have won. This kid never even slowed up and was wobbling all over the place. He either never knew how to stop or he had no brakes. Imagine the torment I would have had if I'd killed him. I would have been a victim but the thought wouldn't have been for my welfare, the sympathies would have lay with the childs negligent parents.

 

[Alex_374312290]

To be honest Lord, I think you're over-egging the pudding there, if that's the right expression.

You stopped from 5 - 10 mph and it was near miss, therefore no need to go into " what if's ".

I'll say it again, we will all have differing opinions and tolerances. That's obviously something that annoys you and doesn't annoy me. Neither does the odd kid wandering through my pitch.

That's only point I was trying to make, we're all different, except when it comes to extreme behaviour. But just because I get annoyed by something, it doesn't give me the right to say that the other person is wrong.

We all love caravanning and whilst I've come across many situations and events that have annoyed me, it's never been anything that bad that has spoiled my break. Except the wind, East coast up the A1 in February !

Nice chatting to you on this subject.

 

[LMH]

A lot of children have NO concept of the speed of vehicles and a lot of kids have no road sense, even on a small campsite.

My brother when he was about five, saw two fire engines pull up at the house across the road to deal with a house fire. Before my mother could do anything, he simply ran out of the front door towards the house and was knocked over by a car. The woman driver was traumatised, so was my brother and mother, the ff's gave him first aid and he went off in an ambulance with my mother and the car driver.

When I was 12 I was in Rye near the harbour and I just crossed the road in fornt of an oncoming car. The driver slammed on his brakes and I ended up with my hands on the bonnet of his car. He was traumatised, I was stupid but alive.

A few years ago I was driving and dropped a friend off at his house, as I pulled away, a child came 'from nowhere' and ran straight in front of my car, how I managed to avoid him, I'll never know.

If anyone can tell me how to stop some kids from running in front of vehicles, then please do as I will then campaign using your recommendations and do everything I can to publicise 'the cure'.

Lisa

 

[Gumbo]

Perhaps the wardens/sitemanagers should exert a bit more authority and remind these people of the rules and if ignored send the unruly ones away.

The Wardens and Site Managers are like you and me, Afraid to intervene, unless they are the site owners,they are temps and on the minimum wage.

One of our nicest local sites has started to remove Touring Pitches and replacing them with Statics. I was told by the owner "we then have total control of who we allow on our site " !!!!!!!!!!!