BellaOnline Forums Relationships Married No Kids Accosted by overprotective parent.

Very true.

Besides, its highly recognised that the increasingly sterile environments that adults are bringing children up in is actually damaging them (hence increasing asthma and allergy rates). A healthy amount of germs aids a child to build a strong immune system, without which their immune system looks for other non-malicious things to target.

I grew up on a farm and to think of some of the things I did as a child- these overprotective parents would faint!!

LOL! I barged into the house one day when I was about 11 or 12, all dirt, sweat and noise, and my mother was having coffee with one of her friends ... she took one look at me, sighed, and said to her friend "So, have you met my eldest son???". I still smile when I remember that...

Let me preface this with saying that I have no problem with dogs or people bringing dogs to school as long as they are responsible.

I live next door to an elementary school, and my backyard (part of which has a wooden fence and part has a chainlink fence) looks into the playground. I've been having a lot of problems in the last few months with a group of 2nd graders terrorizing my larger dog when he's outside during school hours - they shake the fence and bark at him. I always went out right away and stopped the behavior, and I even was nice to the kids and explained why teasing a dog isn't a good idea, but it got so bad that I've had to call the school twice now about it, and finally it has stopped.

I spent a few weeks retraining my dog not to bark at the kids (before this he had never had a problem with him - once it's nice out he usually wants to stay outside all day.)

So I was really surprised when he started barking again during school hours.

You know what the parents are doing? They are bringing their dogs to school DURING school when the kindergarten is getting out and they sit with their dogs about 3 feet from my fence. My dog goes nuts! And they just sit and look at him (I know there is a group of moms who does stuff on purpose to aggravate me, and I think some of them are doing this.) By the way, dogs aren't supposed to be on school property during school hours.

But the point is, there are lots of kids running around playing when the dogs are in the playground. Parents also bring their dogs on the playground when they drop their kids off and pick them up, and I've seen several near-fights between dogs with kids near them.

So my neighbor, who is the crossing guard, witnessed these dogs barking at my dog and called the school. You know what they said? They said it was my fault for letting the dog out during school hours, and then they denied that there were even people with dogs on the playground.

WTF????

I think if you can walk your dog to school and be responsible, there is no problem. But it's when you're allowing stuff like this to happen that the problem arises.

Also, sometimes I'm outside with the dogs during recess and a kid will come up to the fence and start asking questions (BTW, when I went to that school we weren't allowed near the neighbors' fences.) I am always really nice and tell them the dogs' names and I say that they are good dogs so everyone should be nice and quiet around them so that they don't scare the dogs. I believe in education about animals, not yelling at kids for doing things that they were probably never taught was wrong.

Sorry, I didn't mean for this post to get so long.

Argh, this is so annoying. I'd be looking seriously at a 6ft solid wood fence, because that's the only way to put a stop to that sort of carry-on.

I have a solid fence down one side of my house, and I came home last week to discover my neighbour's 8 year old running up and down the fence with a stick, and sending my younger border collie mental. So I screamed at her to stop, and then explained why it wasn't a good idea, and how other people might not like to hear dogs barking. Then I came home again on Saturday to find her doing it again. The next time it happens, she's getting it both barrels, and her parents will as well (thankfully, they're good people and they know she's a brat, as she drives them crazy too.) Some of the residents on the cul-de-sac where I live are real bylaw-botherers, and I really don't need a run-in with animal control on this kid's behalf...

You get the prize greenblue for not losing it. I would have been tempted, and when that happens it is not pretty. That woman needs a serious reality check.

I definitely sympathize with you Ingilbert about those kids hassling your dog. So many kids are not to be trusted around animals. The tall wood fence idea is a good one, but still kids can cause problems.

We had a party once and some friends brought their toddler son who was not used to dogs. We had a puppy at the time. I kept catching him harrassing our puppy whenever I turned my back. It really affected our puppy's behavior for a long time, and I almost wondered sometimes if it didn't permanently change her.

I've heard so many stories about children who torture animals for fun. It's the kind of thing that makes you want to not have kids because you can't get rid of the bad ones.

I always wonder how much of it is due to bad parents?

The school owns the 6-foot privacy fence (the school is 3 feet from our property line.) It fell down last year BECAUSE of the kids. Because when kids walk between the school and the fence, they bang on the fence. They still do. I actually talked to the school board about that because they just put up a much nicer fence with steel reinforcements so that it can't get knocked down.

They throw rocks over the fence, they throw rocks at the fence. I've caught them doing it - one mom literally dragged her kid into my yard to have him apologize to me, I felt bad, but at the same time was impressed that she actually did something about it.

Now, when they built the addition to the school up to our property line, my mother asked for a privacy fence. They took town the chainlink on the east side of our house and put up a privacy fence. They then extended it around the south side of our house about 10 feet, leaving the existing chainlink up. Why they didn't extend the fence the other 30 feet is beyond me.

The back 3 feet of our yard (and everyone else on the block) is school property. If we want to put up a new fence, we need to clear it with the school board, and then we have to build the fence a foot away from the chainlink on OUR side. (This is all according to the neighbors, who just put one up.)

Problem is, we would have to cut down a tree and remove the blueberry bushes in order to do it, not to mention relocate the compost pile and possibly a lilac, so right now it isn't looking like a solution. Instead, we are planting more berry bushes along the fence, just close enough to block out the playground, but not so close that they can eat our berries!

I just can't WAIT to be able to afford moving! We live in a nice neighborhood, but this school is going to be the death of me.

I think a LOT of it is because of bad parents, considering half the time the kids are doing something, the parents are just a few feet away watching.

At least the group of kids who used to pull down tree branches from my trees in the front are now in junior high, so I don't have THAT problem anymore.

Also, I have a feeling that the pendulum is about to swing back to parents being more responsible. The parents of LITTLE kids that I see, where the oldest kid isn't more than 3, seem to be a lot more respectful than this current batch.

Well, as an ex-step parent (the kids don't acknowledge me), I can tell you that if you try to make a kid take responsibility for inappropriate behavior in public, you will probably have several other parents make excuses for the kid's behavior, if not take you to task for inappropriately throttling their creativity or something and/or telling the kid to ignore you. No point in trying to get good behavior when it will be de-enforced and your authority undercut.

Julie

Julie, While it's not at all the main reason I chose not to have kids, the prevalance of this sort of indulgent, entitled, obsessed parenting is one of the things that makes parenthood so unappealing to me. I don't think I could handle the social interactions in the playground, at school etc. without losing my mind. As a CF person I can just try to keep my distance from these obnoxious people, but as a parent I'd be forced to deal with them daily. Of course, I realize that there are parents who are doing an excellent job raising their kids. I'm amazed that they are able to raise normal children in this environment.

Ingilbert, I really hope that you're right, that "the pendulum is turning" towards people raising responsible kids. I mean, how much further could the pendulum go?

Well said greenblue. Dealing with other parents sounds like such a hassle. I'm just starting to think about that side of parenting more, and it doesn't appeal to me at all. Not to mention dealing with awful kids, which you'd have to do a lot more if you were a parent. Suddenly you're dealing with playdates, and kid parties, your kids' friends who you may not like, bullies, etc. The problems you bring on yourself by having kids is really endless.

I'm starting to feel like an idiot for ever being jealous of parents. Having a child say "I love you mommy," doesn't sound worth it to me at all! Maybe hearing that causes some sort of dopamine surge in parents that helps them forget all the hard times. Parents always seem like they're in denial about reality to me. It makes me feel like a pessimist sometimes that I can't ignore things that parents just gloss over.

I'd rather have my dog lean against me and look up at me adoringly. The happiness that brings me is enough.