Today, I brought my 2 ½ year old son to a playground at Cornwall St. That playground is designed for kids aged 5 - 12 (says so on the sign). When we arrived, there was already a Chinese family with a boy and a girl there playing. Both kids are old enough to play on the structure, the parents weren’t too hands on, but would give a hand on the slide when the kids were doing something wild.
Later on, a mixed couple with 2 kids arrived. The dad was White and he would issue directions to his son like “say excuse me”, “let the baby go first”, “good boy!”. The mom was Asian, she helped their 1 year and some months old baby up the structure to play with the slide!
This got me thinking, at the playground, how should a parent act?
For me, I had been standing away from the structure, watching my son with pride and a big smile on my face. Only move in to spot him when he climbed high up but not touching him or distracting him. When the new family arrived, I could sense a little urge to get closer and direct my son a bit more to show to the other parents that I too, am paying attention to my child. This social pressure thing takes time to overcome but I’ve learned to deal with it.
I moved in when my son had finished sliding down the slide, then I held him and looked him in the eyes and said: “Hey look, there’s a new baby here now, so please be extra careful, OK?”, and then I backed off again to watch from the sideline.
I remember seeing someone described on Facebook a few days ago, that good intervention is like being a good coach. You let the players do their thing and only call a timeout to reset their expectations, bring new focus to the game, and then let them go again. I thought that was a good analogy of how we as parents should act on the playgrounds.