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I wanted to come back to this thread and say that yesterday there was a boy at our local park that was being annoying to all the other kids around him--and his mom was sitting and chatting with another mom, and frequently would glance over at him and did nothing.
But he didn't climb up the slide. No....Instead, he went up the steps, and sat at the slide. And sat. And sat. And sat. When other kids tried to go around him to slide down, he swatted them away and continued to sit. And sit. When another mom asked him to go on down the slide, he shouted NO! and refused to go down.
My point is that, there's a lot of ways to teach a kid respect and they don't necessarily involve the simplicity of "don't go up the slide". And then, call me a helicopter parent if you please, but that's why I shadow my kid playing. She can do or play where she wants, but I'm nearby, so I can make sure she's not being annoying to other people.
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@Anagram: I do this type of "reverse helicopter" parenting too! Its not about making sure your kid is alright, its making sure they don't annoy other kids haha!
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No, I don't.
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I haven't read through this whole thread so this may have been mentioned earlier but...
The question reminds me of a parenting book that's on my Amazon wishlist, "It's Okay to Go Up the Slide."It hasn't been released yet so I can't summarize the author's reasoning right now, but I will report back on March 8th!
In the meantime, I'm a believer that my kid should know when it's okay and when it's not okay to go up the slide. If the playground is busy and lots of kids are using the slide, don't go up it. If there are a handful of kids in the playground and no one is using the slide, sure, climb up it. I think it's good for him to learn to assess a situation and make a smart decision. He'll be 3 in a few weeks and I think he's completely capable of this type of reasoning.
In practice, it hasn't actually come up. He's never tried to go up the slide in the playground when I'm around!
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