Playground Observations

Maybe it's the fa ct that I'm a teacher, or maybe my psychology background but seriously people - What are you teaching your kids?!?!
I feel as though I could write a novel based on my local playground observations and interactions...here's just a few:

* A little girl is hysterical crying - she must have been about 3 or 4 years old...seriously hysterical and LOUD.  Noone is with her...I look around - noone is running toward her....I go up to her and I swear she comes in for a hug and won't let go of my hand...I ask her where her mommy or babysitter is - her response??? "I don't know!" Really?? Adults - hey here's an idea how about staying close to your kids while they're playing in a public park...Finally this lady comes over (it was a few minutes which I think is a really long time for a kid to be alone, crying and wondering where her babysitter is) and picks her up....Not a thank you to me or anything....

* Now I get it - Jenna is one of the smaller kids in the playground who's walking around, but it's a public playground and it's for everyone.  Jenna walks over to climb up the stairs to go down a slide and a little boy (around 7 years old) is sitting on the stairs and starts growling at her.  I ask him nicely to please move so she can climb the stairs. He tells me he is a dinosaur.  Okay, I can play along.  Can the dinosaur please share the stairs with the little girl.  He looks at me and says "No - I don't feel like sharing." Ummm...ok - and fyi - his dad is standing right there and can here the interaction.  Doesn't say a word...so I decide to move Jenna away and this little boy follows us growling.  I keep walking and ignore him and he eventually finds someone else to growl at (and I'm not kidding I saw him procede to follow other kids around).  All while his dad watched him, talking on his cell phone the whole time, but you know you don't really need to pay attention to your kid anyway.

I have so many more stories like this where I really start to wonder...what are parents teaching their kids?!? I don't know when I was a kid you respected adults whether you knew them or not....but I guess how can we expect our children to respect us when we're not showing each other respect.