"Don't climb up the slide!"

It just drives me insane when I hear someone tell their child this.

Or worse: my child.

1.) Does it really matter!?
2.) Let them play - don't control their play if they're not being physically violent, in my opinion.
3.) MISS H IS NOT YOUR CHILD.

Maybe it's a horrid way of thinking, but if climbing up the slide is not a good thing to do (and really, who are we to say exactly how a child should play - it's playing for crying outloud!), she'll learn the hard way. Whether it be tumbling down it or having another kid plough into her while going down. I'll ignore the fact that she almost always immediately plops off the slide as soon as she sees another child wanting to use it "properly." But so what if she didn't? If you just stopped and took a step back and let kids be kids and let them handle the situation 1 of 5 things will happen.

1.) H will see that someone else wants to use it and move.
2.) The other child will ask H to move and she will.
3.) H will see that someone else wants to use it, not care, and the other child will play somewhere else.
4.) The other child will ask H to move and she won't, so the other child will go somewhere else to play.
5.) H won't move and said child will plough into her.
(And I'm sure there are soooo many more scenarios as well)

Sure, scenarios 3-5 may cause some tears. Heck, anything can cause tears in toddler world. But regardless of how the situation turns out, both children will learn from it. And surely we can all agree that that is a good thing.

Why as parents do we feel so compelled to fight all of our children's battles for them? If they cannot learn how to resolve the small playground conflicts on their own, then how can we expect them to properly handle the much bigger, and far more important conflicts later in life?

Of course I don't want to see H get hurt. But it's also a part of life. And allowing our children this part of life is actually good for them.

So when you see that crazy parent allowing their child to - gasp! - climb up the slide, or not forcing them to share (though encouraging is always good!), don't immediately judge and assume that they just don't care. We do care.

I do care.
But I just don't think it's my place to interfere.