A gang of yobs has invaded our playground

You see... now you're getting it!

Maybe we should just get the whole website closed down because let's face it, 99% of what's written here is peoples opinions and impressions anyway.

But not 99% is libellous ;-)

It might be and it might not. That's just your interpretation. We really shouldn't take the risk of offending anyone. I'll send Ed Bob a PM now and petition him to shut this puppy down.

Ed Bob, I've sent you a PM.

Oh, you're soooo dramatic! I do love it when you are so dramatic! :-)

Sort of reminds me of someone who always tells me, "I have the impression that you mean" such and such. I can't change her impression and am too old for her to make me change my ways so that she doesn't get wrong impressions.

Oh see... I've been approaching this all wrong. I failed to see that actually it's all my fault. Silly me for wanting to take my small child out to swing on the little swingset and take a few pictures to send to her grandma and grandpa. I should have been more sensitive to the needs of the little shits sat there covering everything in ash and saliva. I should have gently taken them by the hand and helped them pick up their cigarette butts and walked them to the nearest bin to throw them away.

What a load of crap. Should I have wiped their fucking noses while I was at it?

Nobody is saying it is your fault dear, but I think it was rather a bit much posting on the Net with photos of them instead of confronting them... You were probably too scared to confront them being a woman on your own, and got yourself all worked up until you exploded and decided to try and solve the situation by posting here. If it was merely advice you needed, you could have posted without a pic. Or if posting with a pic, it should have been anonymised. What did you expect to achieve? People to go over there and beat them up for you?

Any normal person would try and confront them about their spitting. From your post it is also not clear that you are sure that they even littered. You just appeared to find litter there as well as the youths, and appears you assumed it was them. "Hogging the swing" - if they are of the appropriate age, they have a right to use the swing as much as your child. If they aren't, then they shouldn't be there and you should have told them so. You also claim it to be "your" swing, of which it is *not*... it is communal, and such possessive behaviour will only create more conflict.

Why did you not confront them?

Have you thought of anger management classes? ;-)
With so much anger, I am surprised you didn't slap them! :-)

Get a grip on reality - they didn't attack you or your child, didn't abuse or threaten you verbally, weren't vandalising the swings, weren't creating a dangerous environment for your child, weren't taking drugs... All this could have probably be easily sorted out by talking to them.

I'm thinking this situation calls for a super-soaker. End of story.

There's your solution. Get a bunch of Moms with toddlers to go together to the playground. Set the toddlers loose on the older kids, sit back and watch the older kids run away. Problem solved!

You can even "arm" the little ones with sticky lollipops to speed up the process. Repeat a few times at your favourite time of day, and the older kids will soon learn that at certain times of the day they shouldn't bother going there. Might not keep it clean since you don't know who hangs out there at night, but at least you'll have no trouble from the teens during playtime.

You are not the parent here, so you cannot know what she was feeling, having a gang of teenagers hanging out in the playground smoking an spitting on everything (kids touch everything and saliva and green gooby pleghem carries alot of bacteria).

It's not a point of whether the pic was clear or not, fact is, it shouldn't have been posted without being anonymised. If I lived in your area, I would probably be familiar with the groups of youths that frequently hang around there and could identify them from the pics. Fact is, you never even tried to confront them about it... just dealt with it here all guns blazing...

Didn't want to "waste the afternoon" talking to them? Seems you are really prone to exaggeration... It probably would have taken a few minutes tops. You are prepared, however, to waste an afternoon bitching about it here! :-)

Okay, it wasn't clear from your post that you actually *witnessed* them littering... But even so, for such a minor offence, does it give you the right to go posting up pictures of them like major criminals? FFS, they weren't trying to sell drugs to your child or kidnap her!

I think you will be surprised how much weight swings can hold. And if they *are* 15yo, and not 18 or older, they probably have as much right to be there as your child... technically they are still kids too! Take a reality check and a chill pill!

How do you know they were a gang? Why are you all ready to stamp labels on any group of kids you see hanging around somewhere?

No, I don't know what she was feeling, but if she was scared or felt in danger, she should maybe have asked someone else to have a word with them, or call the police. She had no right to post identifiable pictures of them publicly in the internet.

Actually, I think you'll find that we are surrounded by all sorts of bacteria every day, some which are worse than from saliva. Maybe she should also get her child a spacesuit to protect her instead? :-)

Please don't Keydeck. I haven't laughed this much for the entire day.

HydroSkater, your comments about this issue are pathetic. It's a mystery how someone can come up with so much rubbish discussing quite a simple problem.
Now go on and tell Jenny to enquire the teenagers whether they agree on being called yobs on TT and have them sign a statement, which will be posted on here (obviously encrypted, so that nobody can identify them by doing forensic document examination)

Excuse me, but are you mad? If everyone tried to solve their problems directly, on their own, rather than whinge / ask for help / rant on TT, there would be no TT. It would simply cease to be.

Toytown Germany
Powered by whinging since 2002

LOL

Yes, why didn't you run the pic through Facebook's sketch application first? Jeez JennyL.

Nuns?

Reverse! Reverse!

careful now...

Nuns have nothing on HydroSkater. I'm just itching to go smoke some ciggies and spit a few hockers on his playground now.

Trust me, unless you're willing to melt stryofoam peanuts into a bucket of gasoline and fill that supersoaker with homemade napalm, Mace is better. Watching those dingbats down on all fours gasping for breath is 10x more fun than anything you can possibly imagine. And they really don't ever come back 'cause they're pussies!

As much as I detest gratuitous violence, I would despatch every one of these Chavs with a neck shot, Browning 9mm never clogs up with blood and bone splinters, my weapon of choice when having any ad-hoc executions.

My advice: Take and post all the photos you want. Bananenrepublik Deutschland (much like previous German regiemes) requires that everyone walk around carrying their "papers" at all times. So, I'd up the ante and ask these yobs for their papers. If they can't produce them, they're f-ed.

If they persist, hit them with the good stuff. What are they going to do? Go to the Polizei and admidt that they didn't have their Ausweis with them? NFW. They'll be back in their Wohnsilo too busy trying to cry on their unmarried welfare queen single mom's shoulder ... assuming she's not on the job.

You don´t need to carry ID around, but you must produce it later at a cop shop when required!

I don't know German law for what you can/can't post in terms of photos. But I as a mom of a preschool-aged child can sympathize with JennyL's feeling on the matter and her frustration with the play area/equipment being used/treated the way that it was by those teenagers.

Spitting is just gross and unsanitary and I notice a lot of it in this part of the world. Even my husband and his friends who are natives of this region have said that they notice more of this sort of thing in the past few years. As for the cigarette butts, well, it's just not nice to litter (they could use an anti-litter/graffitti public service campaign in this part of the world) and if you're under 16, you're not supposed to be smoking cigarettes in the first place! Why do they feel it's necesary to decrease the quality of the space of little kids? I wouldn't, say, go to their skateboard park and start painting Teletubbies with my kid on their skate ramps just for something "fun" to do. As for smoking, smokers-- the world is not your ashtray! Why should cigarette butts be different than any other trash? Sometimes there isn't a trash can-- I'll give you that- so when I go out with my child, I take a plastic bag to gather up any trash we might accumulate (diapers, food wrappers, etc.)

I am _not_ saying that all teenagers are bad-- but there are a lot of them who don't seem to know how to behave in public and how to treat public spaces. Yes, there's speaking to them-- but when it's one mom and a group of, say, 8 young men, well, frankly I feel intimidated because I'm clearly outnumbered. In some situations I have asked people-- and not just teenagers-- to change their behavior-- and you might be shocked by how rude people cam be in return. For example, in our apartment building, there is a ban on pets in the first place-- a ban that was in place long before I ever showed up (it's not like it's just some personal preference of mine) which is posted in the house rules by the front door. Outside in the play area there is also a picture of a dog with a red "x" through it-- so even if you don't speak a word of German it wouldn't be impossible to figure out that animals aren't supposed to be there. So this couple upstairs is openly flouting the pets ban and they have been letting the dog pee right next to the sandbox and under the swings. I, as well as my native German-speaking husband, asked them to please take the dog elsewhere to relieve itself-- and they got really loud, physically close, etc. and refused to change their ways. (I don't care of they have a dog-- that's not my issue-- I just want them to have the dog relieve itself somewhere else as it's not hygenic to have that waste right where my child plays.) I have been at the playground with my son along with other moms and their kids where we have asked teenagers to please stop throwing cigarette butts in the play area, for example, and they flat-out refused.

It's not just teenagers, although I do think that the teenage population is a special issue-- schools here seem to get out early and there really doesn't seem to be supervision for a lot of them between the time they get out of school and the time parents would be home from work. Personally when I was a teenager I was too busy doing homework, being involved in school and community activities, working part-time a few hours a week, and doing more wholesome things with family and friends to have time to go out and cause trouble.

Sure teenagers need entertainment, a place to gather, etc.-- but frankly I think if they have found enough pocket money for cigarettes, booze, etc, they could find the pocket money to, say, go somewhere to get a cup of coffee or something with their friends, if money even has to be a part of the entertainment.

And in terms of who can and can't be at a playground, I have seen playgrounds in other countries where there are posted signs saying that the play areas are only for children and their adult accompaniment. For example, anyone can visit NY's Central Park-- but you're not supposed to be in the enclosed play area if you're not a kid or an adult with a specific kid (at least this is how it was 3 summers ago when I took my son to the playground.)

That was me who posted that.
There were 3 young children, 1 girl (my daughter) plus 2 brothers (the sons of the other mother). And 2 teenage boys (who remain unknown). These were the only children in the play area at the time.
The young children were been supervised by their mothers who were sitting on a park bench facing the play area.
This particular play area had a tunnel, and that is where the offense took place.
The mothers only found out something lewd happened when they were on their way to McDonalds and made a detour to the police station instead.

as was mentioned a few pages back before the MIMBY handbags came out:A lot of estates or communities are "ideal" for young kids but don't measure up when it comes to teens who are no longer children but not quite in the whole adult socal circuit. Rather than building or establishing areas where this issue is pre-programmed, maybe the idea is to create communities in which peple can live multi-generationally. A concept from the Greens for those who you who are EU Citizens and can vote on March 2nd.

I can sympathize with JennyL. There's no reason for anyone to sit on public benches with their feet on the seats. Theres no reason why the little bubblegummers should be smoking and leaving their butts all over a playground. And the spitting. Right.

Theres no reason for it, defense for it, excuse for it, or defending it. They shouldn't have been doing those things, where they were doing them, when they were doing them. The picture issue was laughable. The heresay and libel issue is also ridiculous. (Look up Libel before you use the word, Hydroskater)

Not calling the little yobs, Yobs is bullshit. There's more Yob in that picture then in the Employment office in Gothenburg. The fact that they need someplace to hang out it also immaterial. Munich has miles of parks that are not kids playgrounds. Miles of them. The idea they can't go down to the Isar is ludicrous.

And teenagers or even adults without kids have no place in kids playgrounds. Teens are mobil, they can take a tram or a bike or a subway and go somewhere, this isn't Paris where there really is no way out of the suburbs.

I say ask them to quit, and if they don't, it's ass whuppin' time. Or if you are a lover and not a fighter then call the cops. And that will be the end of it.

call the cops for a minor dispute between neighbours on jointly owned private property?
They are gonna love having to put down a Leberkässemmel to answer that emergency!

If they keep spittling, leaving cig butts, speak to them and tell them that it isn't good behaviour on SHARED property.
If that fails talk to their parents or teachers.
It is 99% likely that they are local.
Speak to the housmaster.
Write to the admin of the block of houses.

In that order IF there continues to be a problem.
But the young lass who wanted to go on the swings seemed to have sorted it without going off on a rant against teens.

JESUS IS THIS REALLY WORTH 9 PAGES OF DISCUSSION.
Some kids were smoking and sitting about on a swing and now because of the rantings of some mother with too much time on her hands they're yobs!!
SITTING ABOUT THE PLACE - THATS WHAT TEENAGERS DO!!! And for fuck sake if they got off the swing when your daughter kicked up a tantrum that hardly makes them look like extras from Boyz in the hood. In fact if anything it shows them as being considerate enough to do that!

Jenny my dear I think you have far too much time on your hands. And if you want to shelter your daughter from the horrors of bored kids leaving cigeratte butts on the ground may I suggest a log cabin in the Alps.

Its a city theres a lot of people here! Get over it!

And that is why they have ASBO laws in the UK. Too many apologists!

Wow... never heard of ASBO before 'till now... looked it up and found this wiki page. Some extremely strange applications of this law going on! Frankly I think it could be scrapped and nobody would really notice, except for perhaps those young lads in east Manchester who'd be able to start wearing one golf glove again, and the 17 year old would finally be able to start using his front door

I used to be a teenage rebel. In some things I was spot on, and "the Man" really did have his foot on our necks. And in other ways I was being a complete snot nosed little shit. I don't think this is a case of the mom having too much time on her hands. A kids playground isn"t an ashtray. Sitting on the benches and spitting all over the place like a cobra is not cool, and it isn't defendable. This isn't some French or British city where there is nothing for them to do. It's the jewel of central europe, with miles of space for them to hang out in. The mom is spot on. You folks who keep pounding on hoodlum's rights are well misguided.