Can I share a pet peeve with you?

[conuly]

Of course I can, it's my journal :)

Lemme just share one thing people do with their kids that pisses me off.

I see this with some of Ana's friends, and every time it scares me, too, which is why it upsets me at all. People who let their kids just wander off wherever.

I'm not talking about people who try to stop their kids from wandering/running off, but it still happens. Or about people who have one very young child, and they follow the kid rather than trying to keep him/her contained.

I'm talking about people whose kids don't even understand that they shouldn't wander, and who never get told otherwise. One of Ana's friends, she and her younger sister wander and run off from their mom all the time. I'm at the museum, and I'm constantly seeing one of these kids sans mom, and their mother and sister don't show up for another minute because either the kid had run off, and mom had to pack up everything and follow, or the *other* kid had run off and mom was chasing her, or, occasionally, *both* kids had wandered, in different directions.

And I can see the two-year-old doing this... but at four? And a half? That's gotta stop. And I know the kid understands about not wandering, because when I've been roped into watching her so her younger sister could be rounded up, and she's started to go from one area to another without asking first, and I tell her not to - she stays put!

So, on Thursday ("today"), the inevitable happened and they lost the younger child. Not, y'know, permanently - but she was down in the basement and we were up on the third floor and while I was watching the older one... turns out mom didn't even realize the girl was in my care. She thought another friend of hers was watching the kid, but they didn't know they were supposed to be. I mean, they certainly didn't go up to me and say "Oh, by the way, we'll be taking her now for you". And while the younger one is wandering up and down the museum, I had to chase her sister down all over the third floor and finally threaten her with a time-out to make her stay where I could see her. (Not that I had the authority, but, eh, circumstances were odd.) (And after that, she stayed beautifully where I could see her, though she wasn't happy about it, kept giving me deathglares. Soon as her mom came back, she gave me one last glare and ran in the opposite direction, because her mom would let her do it.)

I like these kids, too, and I like their mom... but man, it scares me. It's bad enough they both of them like to go wherever, some kids are just like that - but it occurs to me that it didn't take long to (mostly) cure Ana of this affliction, and it just seems like a safety issue to me (and that even if it took longer to cure these kids of it, the effort should still be put in). Maybe I'm wrong, I don't know. I certainly don't know everything going on with everybody, but... *shrugs*

Comments

[ser-kai.livejournal.com]

Yeah but it's so dangerous! When Brad was little(& pre-verbal), as soon as I was doing anything but directly watching him, he used to be able to undo both front door locks and turn the handle(despite the childproof thingy I had on it- you know how good auties can be at things like that). He'd run out in the middle of the road (thank Gods it wasn't a busy one at all)and I'd be chasing him. It used to scare me silly. Eventually, I trained him out of it. I can't understand a parent just letting a kid do it at all. It just takes one car or one perverted stranger and you could have a tragedy.

Shit happens.

[conuly]

Yeah but it's so dangerous!

Of course it is, that's why it pisses me off when I see people who let their kids do this.