Hopefully it's OK for me to jump on the "scary moment" question thing. I know I have to ask a question, so I'll ask, do you ever let your kids play in the snow? I have to tell you about a news story I heard today, here in the Kansas City area. We have had A LOT of snow here in the past few days. A news crew here was interviewing a snow plow driver today. He said he was getting ready to plow a cul de sac, and an adult came running out of a house and got him to stop . In the MIDDLE OF THE CUL DE SAC about 6 or 7 kids came crawling out of a snow igloo that they had just built. OMG!!! What if that adult was not watching out of the window and saw the snow plow there? Anyway, I just wanted to pass that along, in case you let your kids play outside in the snow, as something to think about. The same is true when it is time to rake the leaves. A neighbor boy of mine used to lay in the gutter under all the leaves because he thought it was fun. He was never hurt but it is really scary to think about all the ways our kids can get hurt when they are just trying to have fun. Be safe!!
Sunshine, I totally agree with you. I'm not stupid enough to think that people don't let their kids play in the snow, nor that they don't get distracted. And kids do play hard enough, that they don't hear things all the time. I just wanted to bring it up because obviously the parents in this story didn't think it through all the way.
Do I "let" my kids play in the snow? We live in Minnesota.... I think my kids would be smart enough to come out of the snow igloo when they heard a snowplow, they're not quiet.
I live in south texas and the thought of snow is HELL YEA!!! (sorry)
I also love leaves which we actually get to play in piles of...not so much snow! How ever playing in the street is NEVER allowed.
What the hell were kids doing building an igloo in the MIDDLE OF THE ROAD?!?!?!?! That's sheer stupidity on the part of the parents.
Seriously. I live at the end of a cul-de-sac - we have gotten hit hard by snow storms and yeah - we let our kids build stuff...in our drive ways or at the open yard OFF THE STREET.
Why on earth would any responsible adult allow them to build an igloo in the middle of the street!! You go outside, you tell your kids that is not a safe place to build or play, and then you point them where it is safe!
Okay, exactly how do leaves hurt you? Are you talking the side of the road? Again, stupid, why didn't his parents tell him he was stupid?
Common sense folks!
Kids can play in the snow, but not on a road waiting to be plowed. That is like sending your kid out in traffic. Where has common sense gone?
Survival of the fittest, foiled by a cautious parent ;-)
Yes, kids do need to be careful. One of the first things we used to do after a big snowfall when we were kids was to find and mark the curb, and then made sure to build our forts a safe distance from the curb.
A really easy way is to mark the curb at the beginning of each winter. I've seen many people in my neighborhood put up those blaze orange, reflective plastic rods that indicate where the curb is. That helps the snow plow drivers judge the road, and would naturally help the kids as well.
Are you sure this happened? B/c a quick google comes up with lots of news stories that carry the following warning
"Parents are reminded to prevent kids from building a snow fort or igloo on a street or curb. While the snowplow drivers are as careful as can be, sometimes a fort or igloo can be difficult to distinguish from a pile of snow."
I would think if this were true, they'd finish off that paragraph by saying something about the actual close call.
http://fox4kc.com/2013/02/21/overland-park-to-begin-towin...
http://www.kctv5.com/story/21300587/kansas-city-will-susp...
http://www.kctv5.com/story/21301815/tow-truck-drivers-hou...
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also found a mention on snopes from 2008.
You have to let them go and hope you taught them well, including hearing a plow and moving out of the way. I live in NY and my kids played in the snow, rain and outside.
As a kid in Iowa (back in the 1970's) I played in the snow, a LOT.
I never built a snowman or a fort or anything else on a street or in the driveway. Was I taught this? No, I don't think so (there were never any adults around as far as I remember) it was just common sense, we built everything in a field or a yard, not in the street where the cars and the SNOWPLOWS go, DUH!!!
Playing. In. The. Street. Ridiculous. My kids play in snow, always, whenever we get it. All 3, alone only in the backyard, because my youngest is almost 2 so absolutely cannot play in front alone. The girls are 5 1/2 and 6 1/2 so I will let them play in the front alone. ON THE GRASS! Ay yay yay people.
from 'do you ever let your kids play in the snow?' to 'OMG THEY WILL DIE HORRIBLY!!!!'
yes, it really is scary to think of all the ways our kids can get hurt when they are just trying to have fun.
and it's even scarier how paranoid parents can make themselves, and then kids grow up without ever having fun or any idea how to make it beyond their narrow bubble-wrapped worlds.
geez.
khairete
S.
This seems to be a bit of a "duh" situation. Of course I let my children play in the snow...and we build our igloos in our back yard, not in the middle of the flipping street. This is not even about the adult watching...where were they when their children were playing IN THE STREET?
Actually we played in the middle of our cul de sac all the time, growing up. It was a quiet dead end and we could hear a snow plow coming. And yes, we used to play on the top of the giant snow mountain the plow made of the snow from the entire street. None of us were ever killed.
Oh, that story made my tummy do an unsettling flip. My kids play in the snow, but I'm not stupid enough to let them play in an unplowed road.
That story could have ended tragically for the families AND for the unsuspecting snow plow driver. As far as kids being smart enough to get out of a snow igloo when they hear a snowplow coming...... I don't think it has anything to do with "smart". Kids don't always hear danger coming because they are playing too hard. It's the parents responsibility to give them a safe place to play.
I think your question should be "Do you let your children play unsupervised in the middle of the street"...
Common sense people.
My kids play in the snow all the time. I live in MN. But they know the rules of how close to the street to be, and know where it is safe to play.
I could see this happening where we played in the city. The snow was pile about 8 feet high after one blizzard and it was all piled on the corner of my block, on the actual sidewalk but the top of the block where this was connected to a really busy avenue. Even though we were on a sidewalk i'm surpised a car didnt smash into it at one point. cars were always crashing there.
I let my kids play in the snow all the time, but I never let them play in the street, or on the snowbanks on the boulevard. Seems like common sense. They play in the yard, or the park, or the school yard.
My kids play in the show in our back yard, where I can supervise them - I can see the whole back yard from a variety of windows. If we are in the front yard, I am supervising them by standing outside freezing my butt off. If they are going out of the yard to sled or something, they are supervised. I'm not sure how old those kids were you were referring to, but my 4 and 7 year olds are always supervised outside.
