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kids backpacking/climbing trip this summer


RuMR

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I have a suggestion; establish some basic guidelines for what is and is not acceptable behavior before you go out with people you do not know.

At Kid's ropeups in the past, my youngest daughter was subjected to a kid swinging a knife in her direction. Both of my daughters thought he was really trying to cut her. The father did nothing. Period. She was afraid to go play with the group for the rest of the weekend and was sad because of it.

The next year, two kids stole my daughters lunches. I pointed it out to the father (different father) and he did nothing. Period.

My daughters had no lunch that day.

Later that same day, one of these little theives threw a stick at the other little theif and hit my youngest daughter 1/4 inch below her eye. It took 4 stitches and an emergency visit ($483) plus her eye was purple and swollen for a few days.

 

Free-for-alls are great fun until it is your scared, lonely, hungry, kid hanging dejected in camp or in the emergency room.

My daughters have very little interest in the Kids ropeup anymore. They immediately point out the instances I just listed.

It angers me that parents are so un-caring about my children that they are willing to knowingly let their kids cause my kids to suffer. They take great care with a belay but are willing to let knives swing, lunches disappear, and violence to go unchecked.

Assholes.

 

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I have a suggestion; establish some basic guidelines for what is and is not acceptable behavior before you go out with people you do not know.

At Kid's ropeups in the past, my youngest daughter was subjected to a kid swinging a knife in her direction. Both of my daughters thought he was really trying to cut her. The father did nothing. Period. She was afraid to go play with the group for the rest of the weekend and was sad because of it.

The next year, two kids stole my daughters lunches. I pointed it out to the father (different father) and he did nothing. Period.

My daughters had no lunch that day.

Later that same day, one of these little theives threw a stick at the other little theif and hit my youngest daughter 1/4 inch below her eye. It took 4 stitches and an emergency visit ($483) plus her eye was purple and swollen for a few days.

 

Free-for-alls are great fun until it is your scared, lonely, hungry, kid hanging dejected in camp or in the emergency room.

My daughters have very little interest in the Kids ropeup anymore. They immediately point out the instances I just listed.

It angers me that parents are so un-caring about my children that they are willing to knowingly let their kids cause my kids to suffer. They take great care with a belay but are willing to let knives swing, lunches disappear, and violence to go unchecked.

Assholes.

 

Dude! WTF!?!?!?!??!?

 

That is the story from hell.

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As a former high school teacher and the spouse of a current elementary school teacher, those types of actions don't suprise me at all. And it suprises me even less that the parents didn't do anything about it...

 

I do think that creating ground rules for any type of activity with people you don't know is a good idea. It's an even better idea when those people's kids are involved.

 

Jason

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As a former high school teacher and the spouse of a current elementary school teacher, those types of actions don't suprise me at all. And it suprises me even less that the parents didn't do anything about it...

 

I do think that creating ground rules for any type of activity with people you don't know is a good idea. It's an even better idea when those people's kids are involved.

 

Jason

 

Set ground rules? You mean like "let's agree that our kids will not wave knives at eachother", or "let's agree that our kids will not give eachother stitches"? Give me a break. That should be 100% self-explanatory.

 

 

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I agree, it SHOULD be, but ‘should be’ and ‘is’ are two separate things.

 

Not to beat the drum to much, but Boy Scouts sets the ground rules for all of these. I could happen in Boys Scouts, but there will be consequences for these kinds of behavior.

 

It is quite rules heavy but once you know them and play with in the rules, then it can be a lot of fun.

 

I know some people hate it when I do this, but here I go again….. On the other hand, I used to organize a father and son camp out for the church I used to go to.

 

One of the Fathers wanted to turn it into a Boy Scouts Rule Heavy outing which ALL of the other Fathers wanted nothing to do with.

 

So as a compromise I just use a one somewhat obscure rule from the book of Ephesians 4:32 “Be kind and loving to one another”. It was a compromise. I told the boys that we are NOT going to make up a whole bunch of rules, but just use that is our one guiding rule. If they can not interpret that rule the same was as the Fathers then we will make up a whole bunch of individual rules. I can’t say it was the best, but it was an acceptable compromise.

 

But that was a Christian camp out where a commonly know set moray SHOULD (there we go again with that word) be well established.

 

Now that I have managed to contradict myself, forget everything I said and stick with this, you can’t go wrong with it…

 

Ephesians 4:32 Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.

 

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I agree, it SHOULD be, but ‘should be’ and ‘is’ are two separate things.

 

Not to beat the drum to much, but Boy Scouts sets the ground rules for all of these. I could happen in Boys Scouts, but there will be consequences for these kinds of behavior.

 

It is quite rules heavy but once you know them and play with in the rules, then it can be a lot of fun.

 

I know some people hate it when I do this, but here I go again….. On the other hand, I used to organize a father and son camp out for the church I used to go to.

 

One of the Fathers wanted to turn it into a Boy Scouts Rule Heavy outing which ALL of the other Fathers wanted nothing to do with.

 

So as a compromise I just use a one somewhat obscure rule from the book of Ephesians 4:32 “Be kind and loving to one another”. It was a compromise. I told the boys that we are NOT going to make up a whole bunch of rules, but just use that is our one guiding rule. If they can not interpret that rule the same was as the Fathers then we will make up a whole bunch of individual rules. I can’t say it was the best, but it was an acceptable compromise.

 

But that was a Christian camp out where a commonly know set moray SHOULD (there we go again with that word) be well established.

 

Now that I have managed to contradict myself, forget everything I said and stick with this, you can’t go wrong with it…

 

Ephesians 4:32 Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.

 

The only rule I see is to take my own car, so if some kids/parents are being jackasses, I can hightail it out of there.

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People, especially kids, just don't use common sense. If a kid is acting that way, it's not too surprising. What sucks is that parents, by not stopping or punishing the kids, are condoning it.

I have a hard time going to group events with my kids that are not church related for those reasons. Although, I have had problems with kids, and uncaring parents at those also.

You wouldn't have to establish rules exactly, just post for a kids get together and state clearly what sirwoofalot said. If we had enough people, like those who are responding to this post, were to come, and one kid and parent were acting up, we could all confront them. ask them to take care of the problem or leave. although i guess it would be hard to make them leave if it was a public area. could always be a large indoor gym which have rules already in place?

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That's so horrible, Bug. Kids do make stupid chooses sometimes, but given the lack of action on their fathers part, it's no wonder they're thugs. Still it boggles my mind that parents could ignore, thus condone, that type of behavior. Your poor girls.

 

We'd be interested in a trip. And I agree that ground rules should be clearly stated to avoid anything like this in the future. If parents don't agree with setting rules and expectations ahead of time, then they should go elsewhere.

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BTW I led a group of 30 or so scouts and parents up to Pilchuck a couple of years ago. No problems whatsoever. And we had no ground rules in advance.

 

If that was an official scouting event then there were a lot of rules in place that maybe you did not see. Being involved in Boy Scouts with my son I have learned what these rules are concerning everything from traveling to and from an event, the minimum number of adults, two deep leadership meaning never one on one adult and child, swimming, boating, canoeing, hiking, and use of knifes, hatches, fire, cooking, cleaning, and most importantly ropes. The in-depth and detail rules for just top roping at a Boy Scout camp are enough to make the head spin.

 

The front cover of the Boy Scout hand book (That is the nationally used Boy Scout Hand Book for the Boy Scouts of America) has a photograph of a scout climbing Rainier; however, it can not happen if you were to follow the entire Boy Scout rule to the letter of the rule. You are out side of Boy Scout rules as soon as you are in a harness with crampons on you.

 

Oh, there were a lot of rules, it is just everyone knows the rules, and more importantly why those rule exist.

 

Edited by sirwoofalot
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If that was an official scouting event then there were a lot of rules in place that maybe you did not see.

 

It was not the main branch of Scouting, but Plast (http://www.plastusa.org/).

 

Secondly, we are talking here about going backpacking with kids. There shouldn't need to be ground rules of the short like "no playing with knives". Period. I'm not gonna spell out a hundred things in advance with people that are common sense.

 

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If that was an official scouting event then there were a lot of rules in place that maybe you did not see.

 

It was not the main branch of Scouting, but Plast (http://www.plastusa.org/).

 

Secondly, we are talking here about going backpacking with kids. There shouldn't need to be ground rules of the short like "no playing with knives". Period. I'm not gonna spell out a hundred things in advance with people that are common sense.

 

As you should not have to.

 

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I think the difference between setting ground rules here and the Scouts is that at the cc.com kid events, common sense did not prevail and Bug's daughters suffered. Not once, but three times. We might all agree we'd never let our kids get away with that or say it wouldn't happen, but why leave it to chance when history has shown it's been a problem?

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I think the difference between setting ground rules here and the Scouts is that at the cc.com kid events, common sense did not prevail and Bug's daughters suffered. Not once, but three times. We might all agree we'd never let our kids get away with that or say it wouldn't happen, but why leave it to chance when history has shown it's been a problem?

 

That's a topic for when/if kids ropeup is announced for next year.

 

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