UKH

OK. So I'm at Brimham Rocks today with some friends and our kids. It was a hot sunny day and the place was heaving. We found a quiet corner and set up a bottom rope on something appropriate for the kids. The gear was about 2-3m back from the edge. The kids were enjoying the climbing, but being young the spent a lot of time resting on the rope. My friend was belaying his daughter and I look up to see some kids playing pretty roughly at the top. I go up to make sure that the gear is fine and find a small girl (9 year old? at a guess) lifting the cordelette right next to a rock I'd placed in a vertical crack -i.e. pretty much lifting out of placement. Now I had 3 or 4 good pieces of gear, so it wasn't super-critical but I really didn't want to loose the gear whilst my friends daughter was on the rope. I didn't shout. I said very firmly - "move away from the rope please". No response. I repeated myself more firmly. Again not shouting. The kid slunk away. I then saw that she was at the top of the crag with a large family group including a few adults. I explained to the group (again firmly but politely) that removing the gear could be life-threatening. One adult told me that it wasn-t the childs fault as they didn't know better. I apologised to the child for shouting (although I didn't) and we moved on to find another slab.

Did I do the right thing? Would shouting at the small child have been justified? Was talking very firmly justified? Was my apology appropriate? Is it reasonable to expect kids not to remove your gear? Is it reasonable to expect adults to know better? Is bottom roping safe on crags with very large numbers of public and kids around?

It was all fine really. The belay was never unsafe. The child didn't cry. Nobody really got aggressive or fell out. I'd just like to know whether I could have handled it better.

In reply to Pbob:

I would suggest that "move away from the rope please" is not ideal, being an instruction without any explanation. Saying instead something like: "we need that left as it is to keep us safe" is likely to get a better response and treats the kid -- who may have simply been curious -- more respectfully. All humans react better given proper explanations.

In reply to Pbob:

I once strongly suggested to some children that they shouldn't climb up some steep, fragile and damaged sand dunes (more of an eroded almost sheer sand cliff), both for the longevity of the dunes and for their own safety (Children sometimes get buried when they trigger dune collapses.) Their parents had a right go at me, and then started suggested that I shouldn't be on the beach with such a big camera and lens around children. Because nonces walk around busy beaches with big telephoto lenses apparently. So if the parents didn't have a go at you, you're probably better at handling these things than me.


So - this is the miscommunication - the adult seems to think you're having a go and blaming, where as what you want to do is inform them for the future. There's a knack to rapidly noticing and explicitly correcting this sort of talking at cross purposes; I suck at it.

The other thing to consider is the child's safety - if the system was shock loaded, would the part they were touching be pulled taught against rocks? If so it holds the capability to do serious damage to their fingers. With somewhere as popular with non-climbing families as Brimham I can see parents worried by this taking action with the landowners that risks climbing access. I've only climbed at Brimham with the belayer up top and suitably anchored, so your situation couldn't then arise; probably not a bad approach to managing things where possible.

As for shouting at the child - better than having them loose a finger or damage a belay, but if it's not urgent there's probably a less-likely-to-go-wrong approach as Coel says. I've no idea what the best way to command someone else's poorly supervised small child is...

In reply to Pbob:

I think asking the child to stop, and talking to the family was necessary.
Well done you, many people would try to avoid any conflict possible at the risk of an accident. I would hope that if it was my child involved and I hadn't noticed someone would speak to my child and myself. I am impressed that you apologised to the child even though you sound like it wasn't needed.
If in doubt how would you feel if you hadn't and an accident did happen?

In reply to Pbob:
Years ago you could have given the child a clip around the ear.
No words of explanation needed.
If the dad had complained you could have given him a belt as well.
Given today's less tolerant attitude towards gratuitous violence I think you handled it reasonably well.

In reply to Pbob:
You can't always rely on other people's children acting in an appropriate manner regardless of what they know. I was at a local castle with my 3 year old grandson going down some steep steps. A girl of about 8 or 9 started walking down behind us and was so close she was almost stepping on my grandsons heels. Her family were completely oblivious to what she was doing and were so far away they never heard me tell her to f**k off.
Yes I made that last bit up. I said " Can you stop that and don't be so rude" I got a right look.

In reply to Pbob:

I might have said "don't touch that (please)". And then explained why.

I saw a kid lobbing stones off the cliff at Durlston once, very close to the ab stakes. I asked him to stop, and explained that there might be people below, or climbing, that he couldn't see (you cannot see over the cliff edge there). I made the general point about not doing things like throwing stones if you cant see what the outcome might be.

Like his parents ought to have done some time ago...

In reply to captain paranoia:

In reply to XXXX:

Maybe they should have done it better, then. This kid wasn't a toddler; easily old enough to reason and understand cause and effect.

But I suspect the parents simply hadn't engaged their brains as to the possible consequences of such actions.

In reply to Pbob:

A sad sign of the times that this alleged parent didn't reinforce your stance, ie don't mess with what isn't yours, but instead chose to defend their kid.

In reply to Pbob:

This does make me nervous (and prefer to belay from the top when it's busy because at least I'd see something like that happen - with a bottom rope you might never notice until too late).

Neil

In reply to Pbob:


Here's the other lesson from your day out, personally I always prefer quieter crags, especially with kids in tow.

In reply to Pbob:

When I used to climb I would always set up top rope systems by belaying topside; much easier to wazz annoying children off the top.

In reply to Pbob:


Option 1- possible temporarily slightly upset child you'll never see again.

Option 2 - possible permanently dead/disabled member of your close family.

In reply to baron:


Years ago the dad might have hit back too? What a lovely life...

In reply to Pbob:
In your situation I might have started off with 'It's only because I don't want your child to get hurt', and then gone onto explain why it was a bad idea. I've noticed in the kind of random and sudden encounter with strangers like you had, people can be less logical and more emotional, possibly like the adult you spoke to was, and saying that kind of thing at the start can help.

Even if what you start off with isn't quite true (in this case it could have been), people can often still absorb the well meaning impression, which colours how they respond to everything else and not come back at you in such a defensive or agitated way.

In reply to Pbob:

Me and my mate were in hodge close the other week just started walking out from under the arch and whizzzzzzz! Splush! Down came a rock then another we shouted stop throwing f*cking rocks theres people down here.
When we looked up there was a family two adults and kids.
Sorry we didnt realise there was any one down there! Then splush! Missing the side my mate bu about 4 feet.
Well we let it rip told the parents they were f*cking irresponsible bellends.
It probably worked as they the parents would then have to explain to their kids the reason for the abuse.
But oh no it did not stop there we had to verbally abuse some teenagers for the same thing! I did explain to them after infact I think hodge needs some signs up!

In reply to Pbob:

I don't really know why you are asking? You did what you felt right at the time.

In reply to Pbob:

If the parents had the remotest common sense then they would have been alert to their offspring being near to a cliff edge which could well have been fatal if they'd fallen.
Unfortunately as they didn't know what their child was doing they are evidently bell-ends who weren't looking after their children responsibly.
That's why they were annoyed.
You could have suggested that social services ought to be informed about the way they were risking the child's life - that might have woken them up.

In reply to Pbob:

My instinct took over when, walking out of Kynance Cove I heard stones coming down, I could tell they were being thrown so ran up and bellowed 'stop throwing stones' as loud as I possibly could at an 11ish year old boy. He was about 50 yards away.
My only aim was to make it stop immediately as people (including my kids) were in the firing line. It worked.

In reply to Pbob:

Well you got the outcome you needed without shouting so why would shouting be better?

In reply to fred99:
My Dad was always saying 'Don't go close to the edge'.

Edit: He probably still would.

In reply to Pbob:

You did nothing wrong. Shouting at a child is nothing compared to the potential damage they could have done. you shouldn't have apologized imo.

In reply to Pbob:


The adult shouldn't be allowing his small child to f*ck about with other people's property.