Sally the Curmudgeon with respect to kids

For those who know me well, this may come as a surprise, but lately kids have really gotten on my nerves, and as I examine what is going on, it is really the caretakers that are the culprit. I don't mean infants. I will still hold any infant, any time of the day which in fact at Star Island this year I did, when the hovering grandmothers were looking the other way.

Two incidents have caused me to reflect on my attitude of being a curmudgeon. The first one was at our health club, where a teen class was occurring. The weights are set up in a circuit, and the intent is to start at one machine and follow the direction of the circuit so that you can flow through your use of the machines. The posted instructions even say that, "Start with the leg extension machine and end with the shoulder press". The instructor for this class was not following this rule and was in fact instructing her class participants to jump around. The way the class was working, I only had three machines left and it would have been 10 minutes before they were done with those three, since all three were rotating between those three and not continuing on the circuit. . . .
t
OK Sally, Too many details, hard to follow here, so the bottom line is the instructor was not teaching them to be good citizens and follow the posted rules. When I pointed this out to her she was pretty miffed, and the teens were embarrassed. Embarrassing them was not my intent, I just wanted to finish my circuit, and I would have loved for the instructor to be teaching them etiquette as well as machine use.

The second incident occurred last week on the bike path. There was an introductory roller blade class, and they were strung out across the entire path. I knew they were beginners and I also knew when I said "On your left", that half would go left and half would go right. It was a good thing I was prepared for their movements. One of those fast bike racers would have flattened one of them. I stopped to say "You guys were taking up the entire path!" to which the teacher said "Oh, that is OK you guys." NO IT IS NOT OK. You should be teaching them bike path etiquette as well as roller blading.

I think we have swung too far away from "Children are to be seen and not heard." To "Children run the world!" I don't want to go back to "seen and not heard" but I would love them to be taught some etiquette.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad