I work at a theme park. I see literal hundreds if not thousands of children a day at work. Today I went to a mall, and I noticed similar issues there.
Issue one: kids have no spatial awareness
At the mall today, I had two young kids just walk directly into my way. One I very nearly plowed over because he walked so immediately into my path. Worth note I’m disabled and use forearm crutches, so mobility is already difficult. It’s hard for me to change trajectory, so having two kids just get in my path is dangerous for everybody involved. I’ve seen kids run through heavy foot traffic at work, walk straight in the way of a game and get hit with something, walk behind the scenes into a genuinely dangerous place just because that’s where they want to be for some god forsaken reason. This is also a big reason families get split up. Kids go missing constantly, and while a lot of it is older tweens with no phone, a lot of them are younger kids who’s parents turned their back for too long, and when they turned around and BOOM kid is missing. We have to shut down the whole park if a kid goes missing. Full respect to leash parents, they are NECESSARY
Issue two: kids get in bad/dangerous spots, and parents do nothing
I’ve seen kids be about to fall into a literal ravine with several fences they crawled under, and their parents are just standing there, on their phone vaping. I’ve always gotta go “please don’t do that, it’s dangerous!” And THEN the parents realize their kid is one wrong step from a broken limb. Why weren’t you looking?! Why am I responsible for making sure your kids don’t get injured when you are RIGHT THERE?!
Issue three: spoiled, bratty, greedy kids
I run games in this theme park, and each game costs $7.86. Some games cost $15.72. For 7 games, it’s $40. I see SO many kids beg for more and more, up to $100 worth of games. It genuinely pisses me off to see kids pleading with their parents. Tickets to the park are like $100 per person. Food is $30 a meal for two people. Your parents are dropping SOOOOOO much money to take you here and you’re freaking out because they won’t spend even more money. It makes me so mad. Conversely, I’ve seen beyond enabled kids. I’ve seen 13 year olds with their own “spending cards”, I’ve seen parents get talked into spending literal hundreds, I’ve seen kids get mildly upset and their parents run to go get a new prize or more tickets just to prevent the slightest emotional disregulation.
It’s worth note that I see PLENTY of very sweet and kind kids at work. I am thoroughly impressed with a lot of them, excellent social skills, kind and considerate, it’s very clear that some parents are absolutely stepping tf up- but these things still drive me crazy 😅