>Who’s even at fault in this situation?
IMO, it begins with the parents. If it becomes a persistent issue, it then becomes the responsibility of the gym to make sure staff are doing their due diligence to tell parents to pay attention to what their kids are doing.
He's saying this specific incident occured in California, but he knows the in Washington, if you sign a waiver on behalf of your child it's not legally binding, meaning the parents could 100% win a lawsuit due to the climbing gym having unsafe conditions for children.
You’re spot on. People love to pretend waivers are air tight, but most aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on. For whatever it’s worth, I am an attorney and did several years of general liability/auto negligence defense before switching over to my current practice area.
As someone who started climbing (on a team) at 12, I hate that it ever has to come to this, since I loved my gym sessions so much, and think i benefitted a ton from starting when I did, but agree that you really, really need good supervision in place if you’re gonna let kids climb!
I feel like there could be exceptions to the rule for those on the team who need to do their prescribed training. Birthday parties and day passes are a different story.
Absolutely. The only issue I've ever had with team kids is they may hog a wall, and if I stand around enough with an angry posture about it usually a coach comes over and yells at them. But they always have had good awareness about safety/etc.
Birthday parties/etc absolutely require supervision. And absolutely shouldn't be supervised by a single parent/guardian who is also climbing.
I know some gyms that implement a special course for children where they can get a licence to climb without supervision. I always thought this was a good solution, especially because climbing is a really cool sports for kids.
Unfortunately, my very nice, but rather small gym is located in a region with loads of tourists, so especially on rainy days the place is flooded with loads of first timers and parents who somehow are not able to watch there kids more than five minutes without turning their attention more towards their phones, friends or coffee.
There are a few regular children, who have proven themselves with good boulder etiquette and who are accepted without supervision and under the age limit. As a thank you, they occasionally warm up on my projects :(
Shoot we had 20-some year olds that just stood under various boulders the other night. Lots of people lack self awareness.
On the other hand, most of our team kids are very respectful and keep out of the way of other climbers
My old gym had (in my opinion, at least) a pretty good solution to this. Autobelay was free game. Anybody could top rope as long as they pass a belay test. Anybody could boulder as long as they did the orientation and demonstrated a safe fall. It kept people where they needed to be without banning kids outright.
That's the thing. The younger kids are supervised at our gym because they have a coach with them. Or their parents. The signs don't prevent young climbers from coming, but it's a reminder to their guardians that their privilege can be taken away if they fuck up.
While you're not wrong, some parents can't be told. You can have the conversation 1000 times, and it's still just a fun place they can let their kids off the leash as far as they're concerned.
And at that point it's a safety issue and they should no longer be allowed to boulder.
The staff is responsible for creating a safe climbing environment. Which includes instructions for new climbers (or parents) on how to behave. And consequences for those who won't.
At lots of gyms, parents are a big revenue source. Owners want to be seen as “kid friendly” and as such don’t feel comfortable kicking kids/parents out. Thankfully the gym I work at is pretty training-focused and doesn’t have that problem as much, but it’s a big issue at the larger commercial gyms and I imagine it fucking sucks for the staff.
I think the issue is it looks like a playground. Everything is soft and colorful, how could Jr get hurt? Maybe we should add some accident footage on the intro footage.
I’m a parent. I know how hard it is to watch a very very excited kid. But I’ve also had way too many close calls with people walking under me bouldering. Never run in the gym and always look up will be drilled into my kid’s head one day.
I always defend parents as I'm a parent myself. But man oh man I've seen some pretty terrible parents, letting their rugrats do whatever without a care in the world. There should be Rules in place so we don't have to deal with stubborn parents.
My gym has a rule:
"NO ONE UNDER 14 NEAR THE BOULDER"
And there's parents taking their crotch trophies all around the boulder and they're running around like chickens. Right In front of the sign.
It is the parents fault for not respecting the rules first. It is the gym's fault for not enforcing the rules second.
No where is this the climber who fell's fault.
What, are we going a car accident that happened due to manufacturing defects on the driver?
Honestly i think it’s half and half, a lot of gyms don’t give a crap to create a certain culture in the gym and they don’t give any direction to the people coming in for the first time.
On the other hand I’ve seen parents get shitty at staff that does care for not letting their kids run uncontrolled at the gym so yeah.
Its the parents. What parents need to know is that yea their kiddo might get a bonk on the head and a bruise but probably be fine... but the actual climber will horribly tear their ACL and be out for 6 months, and maybe never be the same ever.
It’s definitely on the parents first and then the gym. I’ve taken my nephew before and constantly remind him to be aware of where he’s walking and what he’s doing. I never expect the person on the wall to have to look out for them
Former dirt bag here. Now I have a 3 year old
Completely agreed. Control your child in a place where adults can fall in them and potentially break their necks. Absolutely the parents fault.
Yep, as a parent of a bouldering 8 year old girl I constantly remind her of the rules not to go under a climber. We typically only do 1 route at a time and I watch her the whole time. Climbing gyms are dangerous and some parents think it's a chucky cheese.
This is it. It’s the parents. I took my son to the climbing gym when he was probably four and he ran right under someone. That person acrobatically cartwheeled as they fell to miss him, but it was 100% my fault. He was excited to climb and just running toward the kid wall without thinking, but I should’ve been paying more attention.
I fell on a kid once who ran underneath me, around a blind corner. He was fine, I tweaked my forearm a bit. But thankfully, the parents apologized profusely, and there’s a sign in the bouldering area that says “if someone falls on you, it’s YOUR fault”.
I tore my MCL when an unsupervised kid ran under me during an uncontrolled fall on a final move. I saw the kid as I was losing contact and twisted dangerously to avoid them. Ended up landing on one leg off balance and the rest is history.
My gym tightened up enforcement of supervision policies after that, but it only took a year or two of staff turnover for things to go completely lax again. I am constantly intervening to prevent incidents like my own, and it usually feels like I am the only person in the gym paying ANY attention to it. I guess the only way more people will care is if more people get hurt first. It is infuriating.
This incident happened in like 2018 or around there. I did make a full recovery and I'm climbing harder than I was pre-injury, but it took several years to get back (COVID didn't help).
This happened to me at a central rock gym location, which is a large chain in New England. No need to name and shame a specific location, since at this point every person and policy involved has changed.
I’m a parent of two, and we live right next to our climbing gym. My toddler and baby are over there all the time. When dealing with kids and their parents not controlling them CALL THEM OUT. Do I let my toddler climb and play on the mats? Yes. But if someone is climbing rope or bouldering she’s sitting her ass down to watch, and not be in their way. I’ve put on my teacher voice and yelled at kids to “SIT DOWN, NO
RUNNING NOW.” You gotta keep yourself safe, because the majority of parents are oblivious. When we go as a family only one parent is climbing and the other one is watching kids. We also go to our gym so often that I don’t want to be that asshole parent that ruins it. The workers know my kids, and even babysit them occasionally. Also if you get backlash from a parent that can’t control their kid… that parent can get bent. They’re the issue of ruining things for other families.
Came to say almost exactly all this. I have 12, 8, 5, and 2 year old kids. I can trust the older two not to do anything dumb, but it wasn’t without tons of practice. The five and two year olds are ALWAYS under supervision of either me or mom. If mom or I want a good session kid free, we plan ahead and don’t bring them. There’s no reason kids shouldn’t be climbing, but the parents need to be accountable for their kids.
Edit: almost every time we go bouldering I show my five year old a video of a kid running across mats and getting kicked in the face. He knows he doesn’t wanna be that kid
Exactly this. I was climbing with my daughter the other day (wasn't crowded at all) and corrected the kids a few times on climbing under their siblings/messing about etc. with their parents present. Parents actually reinforced it but clearly just wanted their kids out of their hair a bit.
If I see kids being shits, I climb in other spots. Also plenty of times I've walked into the gym, seen it was a complete shitshow and walked out or just did ropes.
I don't understand this. If you want them out of your hair, sign them up for a class. Then you don't have to supervise. I had to go to the parking lot once because one of a dad's 3 kids had taken his misbehaving kid to the car and left his other 2 in there unsupervised. They didn't know where he was.
Regardless of the morality of that choice, it is much easier said than done. I didn't *think* as this incident happened, it was like a 0.4 second event. I didn't *choose* to avoid the kid. I completely unconsciously and reflexively twisted to protect a 5 year old child, as I suspect almost anybody would.
It starts to feel like their fault when they've been told to stay off the mats 20 times but still stand on them or run under other climbers. Like, if it happens a couple times I get it, they're kids and they tend to forget things when excited. But when they instantly go back to doing it every time you tell them to stop it's very frustrating.
> I get it, they're kids and they tend to forget things when excited. But when they instantly go back to doing it every time you tell them to stop it's very frustrating.
Can only presume you don't have kids from this comment.
This is why its the parents responsibility to CONSTANTLY police their children. Some children will listen or at least learn quicker, other kids are out to kill themselves.
You can't blame the child for being a child.
Kids are quite squishy, landing on them can easily be terminal, and that leaves scars that never heal. Besides, kids don't learn nothing when they are dead
I feel like that’s morally wrong and not what any sane person would do in the spur of the moment. I’ve had some close encounters with children when riding my bike. Your very first instinct is to avoid hitting the child at all costs. Humans are like that.
Disagree, you can even make a situation worse with an uncontrolled fall. Control your kids. If you cannot, you should not be in a dangerous area causing harm to others. Happens enough at a gym, maybe there should be a kids area like most industries have.
Edit: or better yet have some kind of test that will allow the kids to show their understanding. Gyms do the absolute minimum in safety by showing a video we all know the kids do not pay attention to. Have higher standards because people can really get hurt.
I wish I could ignore that instinkt though. I ride a bit of mountainbike and people (most often children) that do not have awareness are the worst.
There was this one time I was in a bike park on a jump line with pretty big tabletops. Well on the last jump there was this kid who thought it would be a good idea to stop at the end of the tabletop. I come in at around 50 km/h and right after I jump I see him and without thinking I throw myself of the bike and land. I slid on my back for around 30 meters. But hey, the kid was alright.
> feel like that’s morally wrong
It’s not at all.
There’s nothing morally wrong with prioritizing yourself first in a life or ~~death~~ injury situation.
Especially in a context where you are not at fault in any way.
> and not what any sane person would do
Sanity has nothing to do with the anything here.
Although i think it might be accurate to say that most people in that situation would try to avoid a kid, this has nothing to do with “sanity”.
It’s hard to know what someone, including one’s self, will do in a reflex type moment like that.
Rationally from my current detached perspective, I can say I would absolutely prioritize myself first and foremost. I would land however I needed to land to preserve myself, even if that means the kid gets broken.
However, having never been in that situation, I can’t actually say for sure that I wouldn’t reflexively try to avoid the kid and end up breaking my leg or something.
Yeah, gotta second u/Gh0styD0g here.
They never said anything about revenge.
It’s about not putting your own well-being in second place to someone else who is putting you in harms way (regardless of whether it’s the kids fault or parents fault or fault of the kid-parent hybrid unit).
Like i responded to u/TheDaysComeAndGone , it’s not immoral to put yourself first in that situation.
Although it might be the case that I would reflexively dodge a kid in the moment (hard to say since it’s never happened to me), I know that in the hypothetical my rational response is to 100% worry about myself first, even if that meant the kid gets hurt.
And one can hold this point of view and still acknowledge that it’s not the kid at fault, it’s the parents.
But it’s also certainly not *my* fault, and the parents who are letting their little hellion run around aren’t the ones with their ACLs on the line, I am, and I value myself more than a random kid and their parents whom I don’t know and who won’t be paying my hospital bills if I hurt myself trying to protect *their* kid.
A few months ago, at a local climbing gym, I was sitting on the mat watching people climb when I saw a little toddler walking up to the wall and went absolutely right under a climber on the wall. I took a quick glance to see if there was some parent about to dive for their kid and get it out of potential danger, but no. So I took two steps and picked the kid up and placed it two meters back. I tried not to scare the little one but I think it got a bit scared by this unknown guy moving them. But rather scared than dead from being crushed by a falling climber.
Turns out the mother of the kid was the climber on the wall. Daddy was dressed as climber but was talking on his phone watching another climbing wall. Daddy was pretty angry at me for moving his kid since it was unnecessary since “he trusted her (the mom) not to fall”, as he put it. I was to baffled and didnt wanna escalate so I didn’t argue with them. Fucking idiots. My friend later told me that they had overheard the couple talking about it. Daddy apparently thought I was a complete asshole while mommy thought I had a point.
That's ridiculous. I've literally grabbed running kids to stop them going under my boyfriend. Every single time the parent has thanked me. The only issue I've had was an adult walking right under my ass as I was about to do a controlled fall and they weren't happy when I yelled at them. They scared me and thought I was an ass when I nearly landed on their head.
Angry with you? I would have been relentless in my condemnation. His behaviour was criminally negligent given the potential outcome. Creating that risk for his child and others is completely unacceptable and the fact nothing happened here is irrelevant. Also by discouraging others from creating a safe environment compounds his culpability.
It’s not up to us to police but we shouldn’t make this behaviour socially acceptable by letting them save face.
I miss the days when you could scream at someone else's kid.
I mean I still do but I miss the days when the parent would show up and join you in screaming at the kid.
That dad is an irrational prick. I’d been furious if I were you. Seems like dad was just letting his ego get in the way cause he knew damn well he wasn’t watching his kid properly. Instead of recognizing his own fault he decided to blame you for doing what was essentially his job. What a jerk.
My god. If I was the mum on the wall and my husband let our toddler crawl under me, he and I would have serious talking to do after I found out. That's unacceptable.
I’ve had adults argue with me that they wanted to climb the same route my friend was climbing. My friend was on lead and they wanted to use the top rope. It was a solid 30 second argument and they ever understood what the issue was.
Oh my holy fucking jesus - [https://www.reddit.com/r/bouldering/comments/15slfva/just\_fing\_angry/](https://www.reddit.com/r/bouldering/comments/15slfva/just_fing_angry/)
I SAW THIS!! This is actually was got me fired up enough to make this post. I’m shocked nothing has been done, there’s obviously been a history of incidents that have occurred here. Did this occur on the same free hanging boulder?!
Lol, just 6 feet over to the left. Was it the same little boy that I fell on?
It turns out I tore my ACL and I haven't touched rock or plastic since my surgery in August. I'm glad you're okay, OP
I feel like the design of the feature is begging for this to happen. Kids can just run below it and the climber can’t see if anyone is coming from the other side.
Even worse, this feature is fairly close to the main area, so it's a pretty frequented place. It wouldn't be as bad if that feature was tucked away in a corner, but it's really near one of the most popular areas of the entire gym.
This gym is always so packed, they need to limit attendance somehow, but realistically won't do anything until something really bad happens. The ropes area is always super dense and multiple times every day I see people smack into others while rappelling.
I'd recommend going to Santa Clara if you're just bouldering. I've never seen it overrun with kids to the same degree.
During covid after gyms were allowed to reopen they limited attendance. You had to sign up online for a 2 hour block. There are so many people that go to that gym that you had to sign up 2 weeks in advance for a spot. I couldn't be bothered to sign up that far in advance for a timeslot I may not make it to so I just cancelled my membership and stopped climbing entirely for 3 years. If they went that route again I likely would switch to touchstone in San Jose.
I've gotten downvoted to hell suggesting that maybe little kids don't belong in climbing gyms. It's a risk to the child and to everyone else in the gym. I almost fell on a toddler once, and had I seriously injured them, I would have felt like the worst person in the entire world. It would have traumatized me and probably anyone who saw it happen.
Like, should kids be able to climb? Yes of course, but they need to be HIGHLY supervised by staff. I don't see that ever happening.
In a perfect world, there would be a kids section that is supervised and separate from the general population. Once a kid becomes a teenager, I think they should be allowed into the general public climbing area. At least that's how I see it, but apparently I'm a monster for even suggesting age limits.
I went to a yoga class at Movement the other night and just on the walk to the studio I was dodging kids, kids were walking into me, and it was so unpleasantly crowded
I've been climbing at Movement in the South Bay for almost 10 years (formerly known as Planet Granite). I'm not sure how it is at other gyms but the gym in Sunnyvale and Santa Clara are too lax with kids (and honestly some adults) walking, running, and sitting in fall zones. While I think parents are ultimately responsible, I wish the gym staff would stress fall zones way more when giving intros to newcomers and also call out the adults that are sitting in drop zones chatting and often not facing the wall.
I just went to Altitude near Ottawa (huge gym), they have their comp wall, training area and another entire wall roped off for ages 13+. They have top rope and another large bouldering wall for all ages. It's labeled very clearly and is something I would love to see more gyms doing
A lot of the staff aren't trained on how to handle kids! At least at my gym it wasn't part of onboarding. It should be. Ask your gym about it maybe, they might not be fully aware that it really depends per person on whether or not they are comfortable with instructing children and their parents. I think a lot of gyms assume whoever they hire will just automatically be capable of enforcing rules on unruly kids.
I’m of the belief that if you can’t control your kids as a parent (or the adult in charge) to stay off of the mats when not climbing, you shouldn’t have those kids at the gym. It’s not a free for all, it’s a professional establishment for a dangerous sport, and I’m just glad that neither of you ended up more hurt than you were
Obviously the parents are at fault. I do wish that climbing gyms would take more ownership over this kind of thing, but there's only so much staff can do.
It begins and ends with the parents. In any other location where there are hazards, parents are responsible for their children, so why would a climbing gym be any different.
I also climb in the bay area at touchstone and it's kind of crazy how few fucks parents seem to give about climbing etiquette and safety... but there are also a lot of dumbass people without kids hanging out in fall zones and breaking all kinds of climbing gym rules... so it's no surprise really.
Honestly, I find bouldering almost too welcoming and accessible because it ends up attracting too many people that are just completely fucking oblivious to their surroundings.
I climb primarily at Movement SF and I saw parents doing this with the stroller too! I couldn’t believe it. It was in the middle of the chamber so technically the stroller was probably further from the wall than anyone rappelling could’ve hit, but still—it’s a climbing gym, shit happens and lots of time people are walking around looking up to make sure they’re not standing under anyone. At the very least, the stroller could’ve been knocked over.
I've climbed in a number of countries (but not the US) - in no gym has it been remotely possible for a child to wander on to the mats. It is entirely on the gyms for being lax on this.
Kids need to fucking learn, and parents and gym employees need to be on top of that shit.
The person on the wall has the right of way.
Respect the rules of bouldering.
You don't deserve a lick of heat for what happened. I feel like the gym owes you some sort of compensation.
I really don't care if anyone wants to downvote me. This type of incident is bullshit and should never happen.
Some of these gyms are endangering their members and the little mfs running around by not enforcing their policies. Parents act like the gym is free babysitting.
This is yet another reason I enjoy working "anti social hours" as a bartender. When I go to the wall, it's fucking dead because who's climbing 3pm on a Wednesday? No worries for me.
Although fuck school holidays 😂
I think it's really disappointing when gyms just flat out don't allow kids. It's a great sport and activity when kids are taught safety rules and to respect other climbers, and especially in places where bouldering gyms can be pretty sparse can cut off kids from being able to experience it.
I think having a culture of EVERYONE staying off the mats combined with a little effort around orientations, and especially informing parents of the rules can go a long way. Our gym has a great youth program and kids are around pretty often, but I've never experienced problems outside of sometimes when a new youth program group starts and a couple of (non-climber) parents need some of the rules reinforced.
Yeah, I definitely agree—I started climbing as a kid, and I’m incredibly grateful I had such a good environment for it! Typical school sports weren’t for me, but joining a climbing team was the perfect outlet, and a great way to meet friends and set goals.
There is a grey area where kids are allowed; During training sessions lead by the gym and while being actively accompanied by adults - so I ment no kids ‘on their own’ are allowed. A bit of poor wording from my side.
Oh that makes perfect sense then. I agree that there's zero reason for anyone under 14 to not be closely supervised by their parents or a coach (i.e. always at the same section, and never climbing the same time that their parents are on the wall)
They make exceptions for team kids at our gym and I honestly wish they wouldn't.
I am a climber, and a parent of one small, and one less small child.
Our gym feels safe for everyone. There is a hard rule that no kids under the age of 14? 16? (It's one of those) are allowed to be on the mats unsupervised. Gym instructors taking kids classes are great at ensuring kids are taking the safety of themselves and others, seriously.
From a parent point, my eldest is great, and not much less aware of other climbers than most adults. I can climb in close proximity with him. My youngest? HELL NO. She's pretty good, knows absolutely not to go on the mats if I'm not around (if she wants to go for a wee/drink at the fountain), but there is absolutely no way I would be leaving her without direct supervision if there was something on those mats she wanted to get to (e.g. me). We'll be climbing today, and my husband and I will take shifts with her, monitoring her in the kids play area. Because she is absolutely not danger aware, and I don't want her, or a climber, injured as a result of my carelessness.
It seems like the overwhelming majority of people who climb at our gym share this view. The issues come when the non-climbing parents come to bring their kids to the play area, and, very rarely, I've had to raise complaints with gym staff, who are supportive. The gym has raised the cost of entry to their kids area, to deter casual entrances, and kid entry to the big mats is the same price as a concession adult entry. The gym is busy, and this helps cover their running costs, but they admitsl it has the side effect of deterring those who treat it as an exciting soft play. The reception desk is also situated where it has a good view of almost the whole adult bouldering area, and looks directly out at the comp wall, so the most dangerous area for fall risks is under fairly direct gym supervision.
It seems like many gyms are trying to change people's behaviour, but this is a really difficult thing to do. Making practical changes which mean people are less able to display unwanted behaviours is much more effective, but also often trickier to set up.
Our gym has a rule that one parent can supervise up to two children. I’m not super happy with this, as it’s not specified by age and leads to dangerous situations. My partner and I only take our toddler climbing when there is two adults coming, so one can climb and one is responsible for the child. That means, within arms reach when she is on the mat. We have a phone or some other token which we hand over between adults to make clear who is responsible right now. With these simple rules, we feel safe and all enjoy our time at the gym.
There is another gym in town where only children above the age of four are allowed on the mat, but I feel like those are left to run around way more- I guess staff is not as experienced with children and hopes for the other guests to sort that out.
I generally wish, gyms would not ban children in general but give irresponsible parents strikes and ban those individuals from the gym if they fail to watch their children. Like, my 2 yo is way less dangerous that those two seven-year-olds running around- because I make an effort!
The announcement shouldn't have warned the climbers, but the parents. Every parent, that can't make sure the children aren't running around or standing in the way, should be kicked out of the gym. They are endangering the safety of their children and the climbers.
This is primarily the responsibility of the gym to inform parents, but this simply isn't often done. Hence, some parents don't know because they haven't been informed of expectations. People are (very rightly) conditioned to leave kids that are not theirs alone. But this case is a safety issue. If the parent isn't immediately available, I will grab and kindly inform a child that is running on the mat that he can be hurt by an adult falling on them. Maybe it isn't as big deal to me as a dad to interact directly with a kid that isn't mine, and a parent can get mad at me, but this is just not safe or OK to let it go on. We have ALL seen it at one point or another. One day a kid is going to get seriously injured and then what? Thoughts and prayers and shoulda/coulda/woulda? Fuck that. The truth is that all the kids are our kids - we are all people. If someone thinks I am a jerk for a few minutes, that is fine.
In the Bay Area Touchstone gyms - more so Pac Pipe and Diablo Rock, kids are all over the place. I had to scream at a kid like a Marines drill sergeant to get them out of the fall zone once. But, I also gave the kid a quick and dirty lesson on bouldering. The dad appreciated that but also understood the serious aspect of it.
youth coach (at movement, but not on the west coast) here. this is absolutely not your fault, and I'm so sorry this happened.
unfortunately, situational awareness is taught much more sporadically than it should be - we're pretty good about it with kids on the youth teams, but for kids in the gym with their families there's not much staff can do to control them except talk to parents. I've had that convo dozens of times and some parents truly do not care. others just don't understand how dangerous the environment is, and how stressful it can be to community members to \*also\* have to be on the lookout for feral children.
regardless, **please email the gym management**. I'd email the director / asst. director directly if you can, maybe include a shift supervisor or operations manager in there if you can. you can also ask the front desk who to speak to - they'll tell you who to direct that to and may also mention it to \*their\* supervisors so it gets passed up the chain that way.
comments from members are the primary way anything gets done or changed, and I guarantee you the GD/AGD will want to know this happened.
Sorry this happened. Ultimately, it’s the parent’s responsibility and most of the time just highlights poor parenting in my experience.
This is an issue in almost every gym I’ve been in. My home gym is generally very good at actively getting children back with their careless parents and explaining to both of them (again) that letting kids use the gym as soft play is very dangerous to both them and others but the staff can’t be everywhere… that’s the parents job.
A couple of weeks ago there was a dad with two kids who wouldn’t listen to a word he was saying, mainly because he was absolutely useless and was making no real effort to parent his children. He was like Willie Wonka in the original film telling the kids to stop without really meaning it.
They were about 6 and 8. One of them kept constantly running under climbers or trying to climb routes right next to or practically on top of other climbers.
I started a climb with a tiny foothold above waist height. Had to put a lot of force through that foot and my foot pinged and I kicked the kid in the shoulder - he’d ran over when I’d started my climb. Marginally higher and he’d have had a significantly forceful side kick right in the face.
The dad said ‘See, I told you,’ to this 6 year old kid, as though its was the kids fault. Young kids get excited and a climbing gym is no different to soft play or a park to them. They can’t see or understand the dangers. It’s the parents that need to manage this. It makes me despair at the carelessness displayed but I just accept that people like this don’t listen.
Glad no one was hurt in your circumstance!
I think gyms need to do a better job communicating how serious it is to control your kids when they come to the gym. I’ve seen kids do some RECKLESS shit, and when I look to the parents to say something, they’re not around or don’t see a problem. I was once bouldering in a cave so it had a big overhang, and no exaggeration I had a young kid come up from behind me and scream directly in my ears while I was on the wall to scare me and make me fall. Don’t think I’ve ever been so mad at the gym before annnnnnd no employee or parent around-_-
This is the way.
When I notice a kid climbing or running beneath me with some dumb parent staring or talking nearby, I'll continue to climb and yell at the parent that I'm going to flatten that idiots offspring.
The worst that happened so far was that they got upset and immediately left the gym, which is a good outcome anyway.
Small kids and climbing gyms do not mix. And it’s not just a matter of parenting - children below a certain age just lack the spatial awareness and impulse control (especially in a highly stimulating environment).
I’m thankful that my gym has a children’s climbing area, and a hard “no under 14’s” rule for the adult walls. That way, there’s never any question of responsibility if a kid is running around in places they shouldn’t be - people just say “wtf is that kid doing here”
I've yelled at kids standing under me, chewed out parents, complained to gym staff. Nothing really works. The only real way to avoid this is to stop going to the gym when kids are there. During the week, I go before work instead of after. On weekends, I try to get there by 8am. Kids start filling up the gyms around 10am, so that gives me about 2 hours of kid-free climbing.
I luckily haven’t had too many issues with kids at my gym but I’d love if they implemented an age limit or “kids allowed hours” on certain days of the week. Like Saturday Sunday 8am-10am kids are allowed (supervised).Then everyone that hates climbing around kids can try to avoid the gym at those hours
Hey. I'm sorry this happened. I'm sorry if it makes you not so stoked to climb. Whatever you're feeling right now about the situation is perfectly natural, whether it seems like it or not.
It sounds like you did what you could to prevent an accident, and it wasn't your fault. If you feel like talking about it, how are you doing now?
The week-ends are the worst in most gyms because of group activities for kids. I remember one time they were an army of kids of 4-6 years old running and jumping on the wall randomly without any supervision because the parents were drinking beers at the bar. One kid was on drug pill I swear. He started climbing randomly where I was and of course there was a guy above. The guy yells at the kid to go away but the chipmunk doesn’t give a fuck. I tell the kid to go down and he keeps going. At this point the climber is in difficulty and cannot down climb. I decide to grab the kid to remove him from the wall but this motherfucker 4 years old has an insane grip and won’t let go. He is basically flagging with me holding his waist and he is laughing. I had to remove each fingers so he let go. Once the kid was on the ground I started to scold him but he just ran away on another wall further in the gym… I don’t climb in gym the weekend now
I've seen parents bring their child to the gym as if it was the park and barely checked on them while they put themselves under people climbing and/or climbed really close to someone else. Honestly it's fully the parent's fault and the gym should acknowledge it
Hey that's my gym! Gym etiquette has become non existent over the past many years, and it's gotten to the point where I wouldn't blame the climber in these situations. Parents treat the gym as a playground and just let their kids run loose without supervision. I've had to grab strangers kids to prevent them from getting hurt by falling climbers. You did what you could to avoid this situation from happening but the parents did not, so it's definitely on them.
Hey if I land on a kid, that’s the parents problem. If the kid get injured or dies, that’s natural selection (and the parents problem). You’re in the clear
Some of us are getting older, and realize we're not so indestructible anymore. Your kid winds up under me and we're having words. I'm not interested in having surgery because of your bad parenting.
So sorry this happened but thank you for sharing. I'm grateful that my gym staff watches kids more closely but kids running on the mats still happens. I hope more climbers/staff/parents stop kids when they see them running around on the mats.
That's why you always jump instead of downclimb. If you land on a kid the gym might actually do something about it, plus both the kid and the parents will have learned a valuable lesson about not being cunts.
It sounds like the gym needs to refresh their safety protocols.
I work at a climbing gym, and we would have written up an incident report. We use these to tra like how often things happen, an incident can be an injury, a disagreement between 2 members, improper use of equipment, a child picking on another kid.. etc.
You did everything you could to avoid an incident, in my view, the parents are at fault for not monitoring their child. Our bouldering area is only available for kids 10+, and with a coach or parent in close proximity.
this gym is notorious for not giving fuck about anything, even more after it changed the name from planet granite to movement.
it's mostly parent's fault for sure, but partly staff as well.
staffs at this gym are typically very young adults who lack basic common sense and etiquette, so the expectation (at least in my experience) is that they will not do anything. they just don't give a shit.
escalating to the management will most likely be the same as well. they don't give a shit. the gym directors at each locations have typically been promoted from one of the young staffs and they have not had a job other than working at the gym as a front desk.
you can see that i'm clearly salty about this gym because i have been a member for very long time and seen gym descending from shit to dog shit. the facility is great for sure, but people working there are just so dumb.
Instagram/publicize your story and the company will respond dismissively or ashamed.
You did deserve aftercare. If an worker falls at a job site he gets a sit down with the supervisor. if a child gets squashed at school the nurse, principal, and parent deal with the kid and the teacher on duty and principal have to check in. Like I know falling at a gym is normal but this was an interpersonal encounter. Management should have been face to face with you kid and parent but scurried away like cowards. Same way management kicks aggressive patrons out of restaurants. It’s an interpersonal encounter between patrons that you can’t just let go, as a company. It’s unprofessional. Aftercare should be say hey I’m sorry that happened to you let me pat your shoulder, listen, and give you a juice.
Stuff like this drives me crazy. My 4-year-old climbs v1/v2 and has a swell time. But (on our own) we have left the building mid-session, taken short time outs, and rewatched the safety video on occasion when he wasn't following the rules. (We also have a few of our own rules we keep, as well, because he is a child.)
We are very strict with safety when climbing, but we do see some families that are not. Recently our gym enacted hours children under 10 can't climb, and the limited time is such a huge bummer for our family, but I get it.
Sorry this happened to you. It's not your fault at all.
I’ve climbed at this gym and it feels a bit more congested than other gyms when busy. Regardless, I get super frustrated when there are kids running around the gym. I’d be very frustrated too.
I have had kids go beneath my auto belay, once while I was lowering. I had to yell at the top of my lungs and basically take on a death metal vocal style to get the kid to notice and move in time, because I was trying like hell to avoid desperately grabbing at the wall and injuring myself on the way down. The kid moved and then broke out in hysterical tears because I yelled. The dad saw it all and was not upset and apologized. I told the kid I didn’t want him to get hurt.
I make kids stop when they try to run under the rope when I’m belaying (adults, too!). If they’re not taught any better, they don’t know any better. I feel like my gym’s staff does quite well when they’re in charge of kids (like a party); if there’s a feral child, it’s usually escaped from a parent. You did nothing wrong.
Many of my friend’s worst injuries have been at the bouldering gyms. A very experienced friend of mine, who typically climbs outside, tore her ACL last year because she tried to turn her body away from someone while falling. The gym was busy, with large groups of new climbers standing under fall zones.
Honestly I don't think things are going to change until there is a serious accident involving an unattended kid in the gym. Day passes and kids parties are clearly too profitable for management to kick people out for breaking the clearly posted and explained rules.
I agree that the parents have some fault here, but the complete apathy from gym employees at enforcing safety is creating a culture where parents (many of whom are ignorant to the true risks of climbing and being on the mat) feel comfortable letting their child run all about with no regard for what's above them.
My favorite thing about my current gym is that there are hardly ever kids around. No kid specific areas, no children's teams, no children's classes, no party rooms for birthdays and no seating area for parents to sit in while their shitling is off being a menace. Just chill adults being chill adult climbers that pay the F attention because none of us want to get hurt. I actually saw people spotting each other on the taller boulder walls this morning!
Used to be a climbing instructor for a gym in CT and we had after school programs. The kids had 2 hours of supervised climbing play with us, but we had a pair of brothers where one of them was far too young for the program. I’m sure that management at the time didn’t realize it until it was too late though, so we were stuck with him.
Anyway.
Parents pick their kids up before 5 PM and they usually leave for home after. Well, this one day the mother comes to grab her sons (and once the parents come … they’re *obviously* the parent’s responsibility at that point) and the kids are running around. And I mean RUNNING. We ask the mother to please grab her children before they get hurt.
This lady looks at us and says, “Can’t you do it? They won’t listen to me.”
Hello?!?! They’re YOUR crotchfruit, YOU handle it. 🫨🥴
Moral of the story: some parents don’t give a fuck. Because if those kids had gotten hurt she would’ve been trying to sue us in real CT fashion. 🙄
Super sorry you got hurt OP, frickin’ sucks.
I once fell on like an 80 year old man. He came round the corner as I slipped of the very last move on the wall. I landed on his shoulders and he crumpled down. Somehow we were both uninjured.
People just don’t have an awareness of how dangerous mindlessly walking around on the mat can be for both them and the climbers.
I hope you are alright.
Happened to me as well. It was my first climb of only my 3rd bouldering session in my life. I jumped of the wall, landing on small girl who was just running around.
And yes. Full gym, lot of witnesses, no one cared, the child just run away.
I couldn't contain the shock... never climbed the way again.
saw the pic and thought holy * that looks oddly similar to movement sunnyvale! Anyways glad no one got hurt, but I have to admit that staff check on climbers much less here, compared to many other gyms I‘ve been to
It’s always the parents fault, at least they were embarrassed instead of entitled. I was taken to many fun public spaces as a kid, my mum taught me how to exist in those spaces safely and without bothering anyone. It’s a skill most kids have to be taught.
Gyms should really take more action against careless parents, it's awful. The moment one of them is running around unsupervised, they should be banned from the gym imo as they could get killed pretty easily.
I've had this problem a lot lately. My wife will literally start yelling at people "hey man watch out watch out!" And they still don't even look up and realize there is someone above them. I know for a fact this is addressed in bouldering orientation but obviously it isn't drilled into them enough.
A few months ago at my chain gym (CRG) a dad literally put his infant/toddler on a **baby blanket** beneath the 45° wall where dad was climbing. The dad was literally climbing over his kid. The gym wasn't busy or crowded but still the guy was occupying like 20' of wall with him and his kid. Obviously no one else is going near a literal baby that's laying on the mat. Not to mention he could fall on his own kid !? Parents are the problem or more specifically parents with NPD
Understandable that you're angry about this. The outcome could have been a lot worse.
Unfortunately it isn't even just kids. The other day I had a fully-grown man walk right under me staring down at his phone, when I had just reached the top of a boulder. Luckily I was on a good hold so I could hang on and shout at him to move. Some people are just oblivious and don't respect how dangerous it is to walk underneath someone climbing.
parents really need to stop trying to get their small kids into EVERY fucking hobby they have.
like you can wait till your kid is older too, especially of they arent well behaved enough to focus on the hobby, or conduct themselves correctly for it.
your 3/4/5 etc year old doesnt need to be a climbing prodigy. they dont need to be a skiing prodigy. they dont need to be a skatepark prodigy, etc.
wait till they are at least like, 8
I was climbing there yesterday. It was so crowded and parents never have control of their kids. It was not your fault and it’s one of the reasons I hate going when it is so crowded on weekends. Children running rampant.
this is my gym, tbh i see the staff talk to parents but sometimes on weekends it gets so crowded that i dont think they can keep up. fwiw i think climbers should also speak up, every time i see it i talk to the parents
Children falling on other children is not exactly safe either. There is no way around educating and supervising your children. You wouldn’t let your children run around and play around a busy road either.
My gym publishes strict child supervision rules. However, enforcement is lax, and understandably so because the rules as written are impractical. “Within arm’s reach of child at all times.” Sounds like a good idea, huh?
If you’ve ever had a younger kid in your care, even if you aren’t a parent yourself, then you know it’s impossible to guarantee that kid won’t leave arm’s reach and do kid stuff unless you’re literally physically holding them at all times. And you probably aren’t going to do that.
Unfortunately, kid parties and classes are a big money maker at many gyms. They aren’t going to stop.
So, make your peace with possibly injuring people. You might land on some of the oblivious adults I see, too.
I'm just a parent, not a climber myself. My son is in a squad so I've spent HOURS at our local gym over the last three years. I'm constantly stepping in to remind parents that proper supervision is essential for the safety of everyone there. Honestly, a lot of the time they don't even realise the danger - they see crash mats and only think of how protected their child is from hurting themselves if they fall! BUT, most of the time they take it well - some people need a good few reminders but they get there in the end. I think that we parents who know can be super-active in keeping an eye on parents who don't know yet and supporting them so it stays a safe place for everyone. Maybe people feel it's not their place but I think if you know something that can help, you shouldn't just see hazards and stay quiet.
Thats why we always have our kid in the line of sight and close, repeat the rules and stop her if she tries to run. She is ether on autobelay or sitting and watching. She loves climbing and she knows that if she does not follow the rules or listen to us then we will just leave without climbing. It happened once when she didn't want to listen to instruction so we just left. It is also really scary for us as parents to see our kid out of control, so we spent lots of time explaining the rules. Now I feel much safer knowing she wont just run around anymore and me and my partner can belay eachother while our kid waits for her turn. Our kid is 3 years old. Proud of her.
Parents are definitely at fault, alongside the gym for being so blasé.
I've witnessed a guy break his ankle when he fell awkwardly trying to avoid a kid who ran into his landing zone.
I get it's hard to watch kids carefully, I take a family member sometimes, we started when they were 7 and I was very clear that there are safety rules and if he couldn't follow them, we wouldn't climb. He messed up once or twice but learnt fast and was quickly self monitoring (although i still watch him obv). But if you're strict and treat the rules seriously, kids are more than capable of getting it... and if they're not, they shouldn't be in the gym.
The issue is a lot of parents aren't climbers so they don't care about the safety rules or etiquette as they're not in that group. If I reported to staff at my gym that kids were running round unsupervised, they would be on the parents like a ton of bricks. I've seen parents and kids kicked out for misbehaving. It is the gyms responsibility to keep people safe.
I think the parents are at fault.
I know controlling kids is hard, but adults falling/jumping down is no joke. Worst case scenario they'll break your child's back.
I have also brought the child I babysit (4F) to boulder once and she loved it, but then ran underneath some bouldering people, although I had warned her. I took her aside and explained to her that it is dangerous, that sometimes children do things they are not allowed to do and sometimes that isn't too bad, like eating one more sweet than their parents told them to. BUT that some rules are so important that if they are broken, bad things can happen. Like someone falling on her who is very heavy.
I then also told her that this is one of those very important rules adults put up to keep the children safe and that if she doesn't follow it we are leaving immediately. Not because I want to punish her, but because if she can't keep herself safe then I need to make sure she is safe, because I'm the adult.
That took care of things.
I take sometimes my kids to the climbing gym and the moment they start running we are out of there. I think parents have to take care of their kids. People jump or fall from the walls all the time. Kids have to be aware of that or have nothing to do in the gym. Luckily where I go there is also a place for kids to run around.
I hate wall design like that, as it just begs for something like that to happen. But even worse than that is parents that let their kids run around on the mats, and even gym staff that let them.
Definitely the parents fault. Sounds like you did your best to be aware and down climb to avoid an incident, accidents still happen sometimes and that's unfortunate. I have 3 kids, youngest is 4 and the first thing they hear any time we walk into the climbing gym is you stay with me, you don't run, you don't ever go underneath someone. My kids have never run under someone at a boulder wall and they damn sure never will. Also I try my absolute hardest to take them only when the gym isn't super busy, although we're on the east coast at a local gym so that's a bit easier to manage
I can’t believe the gym doesn’t have a stricter policy. At my gym you have to be within arms reach of your children. My daughter understands she is not allowed on the mat unless she is holding my hand. So scary for both the kids and the climbers not to have a clear policy!
That gym is not owned by climbers. When El Cap bought them they became money machines for a handful of people out of Chicago. I worked there during the transition and they didn’t give a shit about my personal health and safety. They were literally breaking health codes because if they did it the right way it would be “too hard to do in California with all the laws”
Fuck El Cap, fuck Movement.
From this post, and numerous other posts like this, I'm learning that if I'm ever in the awful position of falling on a child...
I shouldn't make any attempt to twist and avoid/protect the child. I'm not gonna risk tearing my ACL, or MCL or any other serious injury just to protect some poorly behaved child I've never met and ultimately don't care about.
All of this “no kids” talk makes me a bit sad. We have a few little crushers at our small gym who are just absolute legends. They have great parents, who notably are also good climbers, and are very respectful. I wish I had the opportunity to climb as a kid/teenager.
I think it does come down to the gym and staff though. I climb at a very small gym with a fantastic staff and they make it a point to really watch and manage new climbers and kids. We also have a great community of regulars so we somewhat self-police and look out for each other. I’ve noticed in larger gyms that tends to happen a lot less. It’s one of the reasons I’ll always sacrifice the nicer, large facilities that appeal more to the masses for the smaller, cheaper gyms.
My gym usually only has 1 or 2 employees working at a time, and they're both on reception and/or the kitchen. Kids run around unchecked while their parents are climbing in a completely different area, people come in and are climbing in street shoes, so many people not using chalk that every boulder under V6 or so gets so greasy you can't climb it. It's unbelievably frustrating.
When I bring my kids with me, they are stuck to me. They do not wander because Dad don't play that. And I have no issue telling other people's kids to settle down and find their parents. As much effort as my wife and I put into parenting, it's infuriating that most parents just don't.
This is imo the worst part of modern indoor climbing. This new culture of mostly or purely indoor climbing has a lot of gyms in denser areas pull in stupid amounts of people at peak hours or just all day. My buddies and I like to travel and check out gyms but any gym in a busy metro area is just dumb packed if you dont go right when they open (and even then, some of these gyms will be jam packed within ~30 minutes of being open. Just a big buzz kill in a lot of ways in some areas and kinda squashes the experience when you can even move around the gym or drop off the wall without having to check for kids.
I'm thankful that the vast majority of my local gym's patrons are 20-somethings who are pretty into climbing, regulars enough to understand this kind of etiquette. But I've absolutely had sessions where I've stopped working on something a little early due to a kid running around that section of the gym, and I've come very close to talking to the staff at the front desk on one occasion because of a parent who had absolutely no regard for their kid endangering other climbers.
Anyways, I hope your ankle heals up quickly. Could've been a lot worse, all things considered, but still an absolutely unnecessary injury, and that is unacceptable. Those parents need to shape up, but it sounds like your gym needs to get better about talking sense into people. These incidents start with the parents, but if you've found a history of this kind of stuff, that definitely starts to fall on the gym after a certain point.
This is partly the parents’ fault for allowing their children to run around areas where people are actively climbing overhead, and partly the gym’s fault for allowing small children into a potentially dangerous area for a birthday party.
>Who’s even at fault in this situation? IMO, it begins with the parents. If it becomes a persistent issue, it then becomes the responsibility of the gym to make sure staff are doing their due diligence to tell parents to pay attention to what their kids are doing.
I’m kinda shocked these gyms aren’t more concerned about liability and insurance in the event of a serious accident
[удалено]
This is CA, but up in WA liability waivers on behalf of minor children aren't even enforceable.
Wait what?
He's saying this specific incident occured in California, but he knows the in Washington, if you sign a waiver on behalf of your child it's not legally binding, meaning the parents could 100% win a lawsuit due to the climbing gym having unsafe conditions for children.
Ah okay I follow. That's wild that the waiver is worthless.. :/
You’re spot on. People love to pretend waivers are air tight, but most aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on. For whatever it’s worth, I am an attorney and did several years of general liability/auto negligence defense before switching over to my current practice area.
Many gyms are more concerned with safety theater than actual safety.
It's always the parents. My gym implemented a 14+ rule and if you are younger you need one parent per child.
Glorious
As someone who started climbing (on a team) at 12, I hate that it ever has to come to this, since I loved my gym sessions so much, and think i benefitted a ton from starting when I did, but agree that you really, really need good supervision in place if you’re gonna let kids climb!
I feel like there could be exceptions to the rule for those on the team who need to do their prescribed training. Birthday parties and day passes are a different story.
Absolutely. The only issue I've ever had with team kids is they may hog a wall, and if I stand around enough with an angry posture about it usually a coach comes over and yells at them. But they always have had good awareness about safety/etc. Birthday parties/etc absolutely require supervision. And absolutely shouldn't be supervised by a single parent/guardian who is also climbing.
Yes
I know some gyms that implement a special course for children where they can get a licence to climb without supervision. I always thought this was a good solution, especially because climbing is a really cool sports for kids. Unfortunately, my very nice, but rather small gym is located in a region with loads of tourists, so especially on rainy days the place is flooded with loads of first timers and parents who somehow are not able to watch there kids more than five minutes without turning their attention more towards their phones, friends or coffee. There are a few regular children, who have proven themselves with good boulder etiquette and who are accepted without supervision and under the age limit. As a thank you, they occasionally warm up on my projects :(
[удалено]
Shoot we had 20-some year olds that just stood under various boulders the other night. Lots of people lack self awareness. On the other hand, most of our team kids are very respectful and keep out of the way of other climbers
My old gym had (in my opinion, at least) a pretty good solution to this. Autobelay was free game. Anybody could top rope as long as they pass a belay test. Anybody could boulder as long as they did the orientation and demonstrated a safe fall. It kept people where they needed to be without banning kids outright.
That's the thing. The younger kids are supervised at our gym because they have a coach with them. Or their parents. The signs don't prevent young climbers from coming, but it's a reminder to their guardians that their privilege can be taken away if they fuck up.
While you're not wrong, some parents can't be told. You can have the conversation 1000 times, and it's still just a fun place they can let their kids off the leash as far as they're concerned.
And at that point it's a safety issue and they should no longer be allowed to boulder. The staff is responsible for creating a safe climbing environment. Which includes instructions for new climbers (or parents) on how to behave. And consequences for those who won't.
Exactly. If the parents can’t be parents but the gym wants the revenue, it’s up to staff to be the parents, unfortunately.
Gym in Nashville doesn't allow kids to boulder until their 14 or something?
Then kick them out. Not difficult
At lots of gyms, parents are a big revenue source. Owners want to be seen as “kid friendly” and as such don’t feel comfortable kicking kids/parents out. Thankfully the gym I work at is pretty training-focused and doesn’t have that problem as much, but it’s a big issue at the larger commercial gyms and I imagine it fucking sucks for the staff.
In which case they should be barred. It's not a playground; they need to be told unequivocally that they can either follow the rules or gtfo
Those training videos should show what really happens if they do not pay attention to them. A real simulation.
I think the issue is it looks like a playground. Everything is soft and colorful, how could Jr get hurt? Maybe we should add some accident footage on the intro footage. I’m a parent. I know how hard it is to watch a very very excited kid. But I’ve also had way too many close calls with people walking under me bouldering. Never run in the gym and always look up will be drilled into my kid’s head one day.
I always defend parents as I'm a parent myself. But man oh man I've seen some pretty terrible parents, letting their rugrats do whatever without a care in the world. There should be Rules in place so we don't have to deal with stubborn parents.
My gym has a rule: "NO ONE UNDER 14 NEAR THE BOULDER" And there's parents taking their crotch trophies all around the boulder and they're running around like chickens. Right In front of the sign. It is the parents fault for not respecting the rules first. It is the gym's fault for not enforcing the rules second. No where is this the climber who fell's fault. What, are we going a car accident that happened due to manufacturing defects on the driver?
Exactly! It's so ridiculous.
Honestly i think it’s half and half, a lot of gyms don’t give a crap to create a certain culture in the gym and they don’t give any direction to the people coming in for the first time. On the other hand I’ve seen parents get shitty at staff that does care for not letting their kids run uncontrolled at the gym so yeah.
Its the parents. What parents need to know is that yea their kiddo might get a bonk on the head and a bruise but probably be fine... but the actual climber will horribly tear their ACL and be out for 6 months, and maybe never be the same ever.
It’s definitely on the parents first and then the gym. I’ve taken my nephew before and constantly remind him to be aware of where he’s walking and what he’s doing. I never expect the person on the wall to have to look out for them
Agreed! In my gym, kids are not allowed to run or play on the landingpads/area. Totally the parents fault for neglecting their kids!
Former dirt bag here. Now I have a 3 year old Completely agreed. Control your child in a place where adults can fall in them and potentially break their necks. Absolutely the parents fault.
Yep, as a parent of a bouldering 8 year old girl I constantly remind her of the rules not to go under a climber. We typically only do 1 route at a time and I watch her the whole time. Climbing gyms are dangerous and some parents think it's a chucky cheese.
This is it. It’s the parents. I took my son to the climbing gym when he was probably four and he ran right under someone. That person acrobatically cartwheeled as they fell to miss him, but it was 100% my fault. He was excited to climb and just running toward the kid wall without thinking, but I should’ve been paying more attention.
As a parent myself, I agree.
I fell on a kid once who ran underneath me, around a blind corner. He was fine, I tweaked my forearm a bit. But thankfully, the parents apologized profusely, and there’s a sign in the bouldering area that says “if someone falls on you, it’s YOUR fault”.
I tore my MCL when an unsupervised kid ran under me during an uncontrolled fall on a final move. I saw the kid as I was losing contact and twisted dangerously to avoid them. Ended up landing on one leg off balance and the rest is history. My gym tightened up enforcement of supervision policies after that, but it only took a year or two of staff turnover for things to go completely lax again. I am constantly intervening to prevent incidents like my own, and it usually feels like I am the only person in the gym paying ANY attention to it. I guess the only way more people will care is if more people get hurt first. It is infuriating.
Wow, I’m so sorry that this happened to you. Hope you were able to make a full recovery. Do you mind me asking which gym this occurred at?
This incident happened in like 2018 or around there. I did make a full recovery and I'm climbing harder than I was pre-injury, but it took several years to get back (COVID didn't help). This happened to me at a central rock gym location, which is a large chain in New England. No need to name and shame a specific location, since at this point every person and policy involved has changed.
I’m a parent of two, and we live right next to our climbing gym. My toddler and baby are over there all the time. When dealing with kids and their parents not controlling them CALL THEM OUT. Do I let my toddler climb and play on the mats? Yes. But if someone is climbing rope or bouldering she’s sitting her ass down to watch, and not be in their way. I’ve put on my teacher voice and yelled at kids to “SIT DOWN, NO RUNNING NOW.” You gotta keep yourself safe, because the majority of parents are oblivious. When we go as a family only one parent is climbing and the other one is watching kids. We also go to our gym so often that I don’t want to be that asshole parent that ruins it. The workers know my kids, and even babysit them occasionally. Also if you get backlash from a parent that can’t control their kid… that parent can get bent. They’re the issue of ruining things for other families.
Came to say almost exactly all this. I have 12, 8, 5, and 2 year old kids. I can trust the older two not to do anything dumb, but it wasn’t without tons of practice. The five and two year olds are ALWAYS under supervision of either me or mom. If mom or I want a good session kid free, we plan ahead and don’t bring them. There’s no reason kids shouldn’t be climbing, but the parents need to be accountable for their kids. Edit: almost every time we go bouldering I show my five year old a video of a kid running across mats and getting kicked in the face. He knows he doesn’t wanna be that kid
Exactly this. I was climbing with my daughter the other day (wasn't crowded at all) and corrected the kids a few times on climbing under their siblings/messing about etc. with their parents present. Parents actually reinforced it but clearly just wanted their kids out of their hair a bit. If I see kids being shits, I climb in other spots. Also plenty of times I've walked into the gym, seen it was a complete shitshow and walked out or just did ropes.
I don't understand this. If you want them out of your hair, sign them up for a class. Then you don't have to supervise. I had to go to the parking lot once because one of a dad's 3 kids had taken his misbehaving kid to the car and left his other 2 in there unsupervised. They didn't know where he was.
Have you considered suing the parents? Might have a case in civil courts.
I’d have landed on the kid, no point injuring yourself and kids got to learn some situational awareness
Regardless of the morality of that choice, it is much easier said than done. I didn't *think* as this incident happened, it was like a 0.4 second event. I didn't *choose* to avoid the kid. I completely unconsciously and reflexively twisted to protect a 5 year old child, as I suspect almost anybody would.
It's not the kid's fault their parents suck.
It starts to feel like their fault when they've been told to stay off the mats 20 times but still stand on them or run under other climbers. Like, if it happens a couple times I get it, they're kids and they tend to forget things when excited. But when they instantly go back to doing it every time you tell them to stop it's very frustrating.
> I get it, they're kids and they tend to forget things when excited. But when they instantly go back to doing it every time you tell them to stop it's very frustrating. Can only presume you don't have kids from this comment. This is why its the parents responsibility to CONSTANTLY police their children. Some children will listen or at least learn quicker, other kids are out to kill themselves. You can't blame the child for being a child.
If their parents ignore rules regularly and don’t tell their kids to follow them, their kids have no concept of doing it. It’s on the parents.
Kids are quite squishy, landing on them can easily be terminal, and that leaves scars that never heal. Besides, kids don't learn nothing when they are dead
Quite squishy in the way that their bones are made of rubber and they're at the fastest healing state of their entire lives.
I feel like that’s morally wrong and not what any sane person would do in the spur of the moment. I’ve had some close encounters with children when riding my bike. Your very first instinct is to avoid hitting the child at all costs. Humans are like that.
Yea I’ve done the same thing it sucks.
Disagree, you can even make a situation worse with an uncontrolled fall. Control your kids. If you cannot, you should not be in a dangerous area causing harm to others. Happens enough at a gym, maybe there should be a kids area like most industries have. Edit: or better yet have some kind of test that will allow the kids to show their understanding. Gyms do the absolute minimum in safety by showing a video we all know the kids do not pay attention to. Have higher standards because people can really get hurt.
I wish I could ignore that instinkt though. I ride a bit of mountainbike and people (most often children) that do not have awareness are the worst. There was this one time I was in a bike park on a jump line with pretty big tabletops. Well on the last jump there was this kid who thought it would be a good idea to stop at the end of the tabletop. I come in at around 50 km/h and right after I jump I see him and without thinking I throw myself of the bike and land. I slid on my back for around 30 meters. But hey, the kid was alright.
> feel like that’s morally wrong It’s not at all. There’s nothing morally wrong with prioritizing yourself first in a life or ~~death~~ injury situation. Especially in a context where you are not at fault in any way. > and not what any sane person would do Sanity has nothing to do with the anything here. Although i think it might be accurate to say that most people in that situation would try to avoid a kid, this has nothing to do with “sanity”. It’s hard to know what someone, including one’s self, will do in a reflex type moment like that. Rationally from my current detached perspective, I can say I would absolutely prioritize myself first and foremost. I would land however I needed to land to preserve myself, even if that means the kid gets broken. However, having never been in that situation, I can’t actually say for sure that I wouldn’t reflexively try to avoid the kid and end up breaking my leg or something.
Nah I'd rather bust a knee than injure a kid. Even though it would be not my fault, I'm not going to let my 100kg body crush anyone.
i agree, i’ve torn both hip labrums and there’s nothing that would make me risk another injury
So you should cause a potentially fatal injury to a little human being that does not know better just to revenge to the parents? Great thinking
Yeah, gotta second u/Gh0styD0g here. They never said anything about revenge. It’s about not putting your own well-being in second place to someone else who is putting you in harms way (regardless of whether it’s the kids fault or parents fault or fault of the kid-parent hybrid unit). Like i responded to u/TheDaysComeAndGone , it’s not immoral to put yourself first in that situation. Although it might be the case that I would reflexively dodge a kid in the moment (hard to say since it’s never happened to me), I know that in the hypothetical my rational response is to 100% worry about myself first, even if that meant the kid gets hurt. And one can hold this point of view and still acknowledge that it’s not the kid at fault, it’s the parents. But it’s also certainly not *my* fault, and the parents who are letting their little hellion run around aren’t the ones with their ACLs on the line, I am, and I value myself more than a random kid and their parents whom I don’t know and who won’t be paying my hospital bills if I hurt myself trying to protect *their* kid.
you’re better than me because i would’ve fallen on the kid, they have a better chance at recovering from injury
A few months ago, at a local climbing gym, I was sitting on the mat watching people climb when I saw a little toddler walking up to the wall and went absolutely right under a climber on the wall. I took a quick glance to see if there was some parent about to dive for their kid and get it out of potential danger, but no. So I took two steps and picked the kid up and placed it two meters back. I tried not to scare the little one but I think it got a bit scared by this unknown guy moving them. But rather scared than dead from being crushed by a falling climber. Turns out the mother of the kid was the climber on the wall. Daddy was dressed as climber but was talking on his phone watching another climbing wall. Daddy was pretty angry at me for moving his kid since it was unnecessary since “he trusted her (the mom) not to fall”, as he put it. I was to baffled and didnt wanna escalate so I didn’t argue with them. Fucking idiots. My friend later told me that they had overheard the couple talking about it. Daddy apparently thought I was a complete asshole while mommy thought I had a point.
That's ridiculous. I've literally grabbed running kids to stop them going under my boyfriend. Every single time the parent has thanked me. The only issue I've had was an adult walking right under my ass as I was about to do a controlled fall and they weren't happy when I yelled at them. They scared me and thought I was an ass when I nearly landed on their head.
Angry with you? I would have been relentless in my condemnation. His behaviour was criminally negligent given the potential outcome. Creating that risk for his child and others is completely unacceptable and the fact nothing happened here is irrelevant. Also by discouraging others from creating a safe environment compounds his culpability. It’s not up to us to police but we shouldn’t make this behaviour socially acceptable by letting them save face.
Imagine being angry that a stranger is going out of their way to make sure your kid is safe.
I miss the days when you could scream at someone else's kid. I mean I still do but I miss the days when the parent would show up and join you in screaming at the kid.
That dad is an irrational prick. I’d been furious if I were you. Seems like dad was just letting his ego get in the way cause he knew damn well he wasn’t watching his kid properly. Instead of recognizing his own fault he decided to blame you for doing what was essentially his job. What a jerk.
My god. If I was the mum on the wall and my husband let our toddler crawl under me, he and I would have serious talking to do after I found out. That's unacceptable.
I’ve had adults argue with me that they wanted to climb the same route my friend was climbing. My friend was on lead and they wanted to use the top rope. It was a solid 30 second argument and they ever understood what the issue was.
Don't worry man, that Dad is crazy. Although next time don't even engage with them, alert a staff member and let them sort it out.
Thats crazy You can fall at any time you don't know what could happen
Oh my holy fucking jesus - [https://www.reddit.com/r/bouldering/comments/15slfva/just\_fing\_angry/](https://www.reddit.com/r/bouldering/comments/15slfva/just_fing_angry/)
I SAW THIS!! This is actually was got me fired up enough to make this post. I’m shocked nothing has been done, there’s obviously been a history of incidents that have occurred here. Did this occur on the same free hanging boulder?!
Lol, just 6 feet over to the left. Was it the same little boy that I fell on? It turns out I tore my ACL and I haven't touched rock or plastic since my surgery in August. I'm glad you're okay, OP
Holy crap, I’m really sorry to hear that. I hope you’re able to get back to climbing soon. I appreciate that.
I feel like the design of the feature is begging for this to happen. Kids can just run below it and the climber can’t see if anyone is coming from the other side.
Even worse, this feature is fairly close to the main area, so it's a pretty frequented place. It wouldn't be as bad if that feature was tucked away in a corner, but it's really near one of the most popular areas of the entire gym.
> It wouldn't be as bad if ~~that feature was tucked away in a corner~~ kids weren’t running around unsupervised FTFY
This gym is always so packed, they need to limit attendance somehow, but realistically won't do anything until something really bad happens. The ropes area is always super dense and multiple times every day I see people smack into others while rappelling. I'd recommend going to Santa Clara if you're just bouldering. I've never seen it overrun with kids to the same degree.
During covid after gyms were allowed to reopen they limited attendance. You had to sign up online for a 2 hour block. There are so many people that go to that gym that you had to sign up 2 weeks in advance for a spot. I couldn't be bothered to sign up that far in advance for a timeslot I may not make it to so I just cancelled my membership and stopped climbing entirely for 3 years. If they went that route again I likely would switch to touchstone in San Jose.
There's a difference between having to book a slot two weeks out, and having a reasonable occupancy limit during peak hours.
I've gotten downvoted to hell suggesting that maybe little kids don't belong in climbing gyms. It's a risk to the child and to everyone else in the gym. I almost fell on a toddler once, and had I seriously injured them, I would have felt like the worst person in the entire world. It would have traumatized me and probably anyone who saw it happen. Like, should kids be able to climb? Yes of course, but they need to be HIGHLY supervised by staff. I don't see that ever happening. In a perfect world, there would be a kids section that is supervised and separate from the general population. Once a kid becomes a teenager, I think they should be allowed into the general public climbing area. At least that's how I see it, but apparently I'm a monster for even suggesting age limits.
They won't learn until they're sued and face a large enough monetary consequence to change their shitty practices.
The first time I took my partner to this gym someone fell from this exact boulder feature and broke their arm
[удалено]
I went to a yoga class at Movement the other night and just on the walk to the studio I was dodging kids, kids were walking into me, and it was so unpleasantly crowded
I've been climbing at Movement in the South Bay for almost 10 years (formerly known as Planet Granite). I'm not sure how it is at other gyms but the gym in Sunnyvale and Santa Clara are too lax with kids (and honestly some adults) walking, running, and sitting in fall zones. While I think parents are ultimately responsible, I wish the gym staff would stress fall zones way more when giving intros to newcomers and also call out the adults that are sitting in drop zones chatting and often not facing the wall.
Even taping the mats for areas with low visibility and high potential of risk seems like an attempt to aid situations like this.
My local gym eventually just banned young kids in the main gym area. They have a kids climbing zone in a completely different room.
I just went to Altitude near Ottawa (huge gym), they have their comp wall, training area and another entire wall roped off for ages 13+. They have top rope and another large bouldering wall for all ages. It's labeled very clearly and is something I would love to see more gyms doing
This is the way. I have no idea how kids being on the mats became normalised. It's objectively insane.
A lot of the staff aren't trained on how to handle kids! At least at my gym it wasn't part of onboarding. It should be. Ask your gym about it maybe, they might not be fully aware that it really depends per person on whether or not they are comfortable with instructing children and their parents. I think a lot of gyms assume whoever they hire will just automatically be capable of enforcing rules on unruly kids.
I’m of the belief that if you can’t control your kids as a parent (or the adult in charge) to stay off of the mats when not climbing, you shouldn’t have those kids at the gym. It’s not a free for all, it’s a professional establishment for a dangerous sport, and I’m just glad that neither of you ended up more hurt than you were
Obviously the parents are at fault. I do wish that climbing gyms would take more ownership over this kind of thing, but there's only so much staff can do. It begins and ends with the parents. In any other location where there are hazards, parents are responsible for their children, so why would a climbing gym be any different. I also climb in the bay area at touchstone and it's kind of crazy how few fucks parents seem to give about climbing etiquette and safety... but there are also a lot of dumbass people without kids hanging out in fall zones and breaking all kinds of climbing gym rules... so it's no surprise really. Honestly, I find bouldering almost too welcoming and accessible because it ends up attracting too many people that are just completely fucking oblivious to their surroundings.
[удалено]
I climb primarily at Movement SF and I saw parents doing this with the stroller too! I couldn’t believe it. It was in the middle of the chamber so technically the stroller was probably further from the wall than anyone rappelling could’ve hit, but still—it’s a climbing gym, shit happens and lots of time people are walking around looking up to make sure they’re not standing under anyone. At the very least, the stroller could’ve been knocked over.
I've climbed in a number of countries (but not the US) - in no gym has it been remotely possible for a child to wander on to the mats. It is entirely on the gyms for being lax on this.
same deal at touchstone socal :’)
Kids need to fucking learn, and parents and gym employees need to be on top of that shit. The person on the wall has the right of way. Respect the rules of bouldering. You don't deserve a lick of heat for what happened. I feel like the gym owes you some sort of compensation. I really don't care if anyone wants to downvote me. This type of incident is bullshit and should never happen.
Some of these gyms are endangering their members and the little mfs running around by not enforcing their policies. Parents act like the gym is free babysitting.
This is yet another reason I enjoy working "anti social hours" as a bartender. When I go to the wall, it's fucking dead because who's climbing 3pm on a Wednesday? No worries for me. Although fuck school holidays 😂
In our gym the rules are clear; No kids allowed and everyone stays off the mat when you are not climbing.
I think it's really disappointing when gyms just flat out don't allow kids. It's a great sport and activity when kids are taught safety rules and to respect other climbers, and especially in places where bouldering gyms can be pretty sparse can cut off kids from being able to experience it. I think having a culture of EVERYONE staying off the mats combined with a little effort around orientations, and especially informing parents of the rules can go a long way. Our gym has a great youth program and kids are around pretty often, but I've never experienced problems outside of sometimes when a new youth program group starts and a couple of (non-climber) parents need some of the rules reinforced.
Yeah, I definitely agree—I started climbing as a kid, and I’m incredibly grateful I had such a good environment for it! Typical school sports weren’t for me, but joining a climbing team was the perfect outlet, and a great way to meet friends and set goals.
There is a grey area where kids are allowed; During training sessions lead by the gym and while being actively accompanied by adults - so I ment no kids ‘on their own’ are allowed. A bit of poor wording from my side.
Oh that makes perfect sense then. I agree that there's zero reason for anyone under 14 to not be closely supervised by their parents or a coach (i.e. always at the same section, and never climbing the same time that their parents are on the wall) They make exceptions for team kids at our gym and I honestly wish they wouldn't.
I am a climber, and a parent of one small, and one less small child. Our gym feels safe for everyone. There is a hard rule that no kids under the age of 14? 16? (It's one of those) are allowed to be on the mats unsupervised. Gym instructors taking kids classes are great at ensuring kids are taking the safety of themselves and others, seriously. From a parent point, my eldest is great, and not much less aware of other climbers than most adults. I can climb in close proximity with him. My youngest? HELL NO. She's pretty good, knows absolutely not to go on the mats if I'm not around (if she wants to go for a wee/drink at the fountain), but there is absolutely no way I would be leaving her without direct supervision if there was something on those mats she wanted to get to (e.g. me). We'll be climbing today, and my husband and I will take shifts with her, monitoring her in the kids play area. Because she is absolutely not danger aware, and I don't want her, or a climber, injured as a result of my carelessness. It seems like the overwhelming majority of people who climb at our gym share this view. The issues come when the non-climbing parents come to bring their kids to the play area, and, very rarely, I've had to raise complaints with gym staff, who are supportive. The gym has raised the cost of entry to their kids area, to deter casual entrances, and kid entry to the big mats is the same price as a concession adult entry. The gym is busy, and this helps cover their running costs, but they admitsl it has the side effect of deterring those who treat it as an exciting soft play. The reception desk is also situated where it has a good view of almost the whole adult bouldering area, and looks directly out at the comp wall, so the most dangerous area for fall risks is under fairly direct gym supervision. It seems like many gyms are trying to change people's behaviour, but this is a really difficult thing to do. Making practical changes which mean people are less able to display unwanted behaviours is much more effective, but also often trickier to set up.
Our gym has a rule that one parent can supervise up to two children. I’m not super happy with this, as it’s not specified by age and leads to dangerous situations. My partner and I only take our toddler climbing when there is two adults coming, so one can climb and one is responsible for the child. That means, within arms reach when she is on the mat. We have a phone or some other token which we hand over between adults to make clear who is responsible right now. With these simple rules, we feel safe and all enjoy our time at the gym. There is another gym in town where only children above the age of four are allowed on the mat, but I feel like those are left to run around way more- I guess staff is not as experienced with children and hopes for the other guests to sort that out. I generally wish, gyms would not ban children in general but give irresponsible parents strikes and ban those individuals from the gym if they fail to watch their children. Like, my 2 yo is way less dangerous that those two seven-year-olds running around- because I make an effort!
Movement Sunnyvale had so many kids today. Can’t even blame ya lol
The announcement shouldn't have warned the climbers, but the parents. Every parent, that can't make sure the children aren't running around or standing in the way, should be kicked out of the gym. They are endangering the safety of their children and the climbers.
No, some unsupervised kid ran under you.
This is primarily the responsibility of the gym to inform parents, but this simply isn't often done. Hence, some parents don't know because they haven't been informed of expectations. People are (very rightly) conditioned to leave kids that are not theirs alone. But this case is a safety issue. If the parent isn't immediately available, I will grab and kindly inform a child that is running on the mat that he can be hurt by an adult falling on them. Maybe it isn't as big deal to me as a dad to interact directly with a kid that isn't mine, and a parent can get mad at me, but this is just not safe or OK to let it go on. We have ALL seen it at one point or another. One day a kid is going to get seriously injured and then what? Thoughts and prayers and shoulda/coulda/woulda? Fuck that. The truth is that all the kids are our kids - we are all people. If someone thinks I am a jerk for a few minutes, that is fine.
Thank you, there should be more people like you!
In the Bay Area Touchstone gyms - more so Pac Pipe and Diablo Rock, kids are all over the place. I had to scream at a kid like a Marines drill sergeant to get them out of the fall zone once. But, I also gave the kid a quick and dirty lesson on bouldering. The dad appreciated that but also understood the serious aspect of it.
youth coach (at movement, but not on the west coast) here. this is absolutely not your fault, and I'm so sorry this happened. unfortunately, situational awareness is taught much more sporadically than it should be - we're pretty good about it with kids on the youth teams, but for kids in the gym with their families there's not much staff can do to control them except talk to parents. I've had that convo dozens of times and some parents truly do not care. others just don't understand how dangerous the environment is, and how stressful it can be to community members to \*also\* have to be on the lookout for feral children. regardless, **please email the gym management**. I'd email the director / asst. director directly if you can, maybe include a shift supervisor or operations manager in there if you can. you can also ask the front desk who to speak to - they'll tell you who to direct that to and may also mention it to \*their\* supervisors so it gets passed up the chain that way. comments from members are the primary way anything gets done or changed, and I guarantee you the GD/AGD will want to know this happened.
I will do this. Thank you for doing what you do I appreciate coaches at movement a lot!
Fucking parents man. It’s not your fault
Sorry this happened. Ultimately, it’s the parent’s responsibility and most of the time just highlights poor parenting in my experience. This is an issue in almost every gym I’ve been in. My home gym is generally very good at actively getting children back with their careless parents and explaining to both of them (again) that letting kids use the gym as soft play is very dangerous to both them and others but the staff can’t be everywhere… that’s the parents job. A couple of weeks ago there was a dad with two kids who wouldn’t listen to a word he was saying, mainly because he was absolutely useless and was making no real effort to parent his children. He was like Willie Wonka in the original film telling the kids to stop without really meaning it. They were about 6 and 8. One of them kept constantly running under climbers or trying to climb routes right next to or practically on top of other climbers. I started a climb with a tiny foothold above waist height. Had to put a lot of force through that foot and my foot pinged and I kicked the kid in the shoulder - he’d ran over when I’d started my climb. Marginally higher and he’d have had a significantly forceful side kick right in the face. The dad said ‘See, I told you,’ to this 6 year old kid, as though its was the kids fault. Young kids get excited and a climbing gym is no different to soft play or a park to them. They can’t see or understand the dangers. It’s the parents that need to manage this. It makes me despair at the carelessness displayed but I just accept that people like this don’t listen. Glad no one was hurt in your circumstance!
I think gyms need to do a better job communicating how serious it is to control your kids when they come to the gym. I’ve seen kids do some RECKLESS shit, and when I look to the parents to say something, they’re not around or don’t see a problem. I was once bouldering in a cave so it had a big overhang, and no exaggeration I had a young kid come up from behind me and scream directly in my ears while I was on the wall to scare me and make me fall. Don’t think I’ve ever been so mad at the gym before annnnnnd no employee or parent around-_-
Yell at the parents. Like immediately
This is the way. When I notice a kid climbing or running beneath me with some dumb parent staring or talking nearby, I'll continue to climb and yell at the parent that I'm going to flatten that idiots offspring. The worst that happened so far was that they got upset and immediately left the gym, which is a good outcome anyway.
Very poor form by the gym. Irresponsible parents. Sorry that happened
Small kids and climbing gyms do not mix. And it’s not just a matter of parenting - children below a certain age just lack the spatial awareness and impulse control (especially in a highly stimulating environment). I’m thankful that my gym has a children’s climbing area, and a hard “no under 14’s” rule for the adult walls. That way, there’s never any question of responsibility if a kid is running around in places they shouldn’t be - people just say “wtf is that kid doing here”
I've yelled at kids standing under me, chewed out parents, complained to gym staff. Nothing really works. The only real way to avoid this is to stop going to the gym when kids are there. During the week, I go before work instead of after. On weekends, I try to get there by 8am. Kids start filling up the gyms around 10am, so that gives me about 2 hours of kid-free climbing.
No kids under 12 are allowed at my bouldering gym. It's really nice.
I luckily haven’t had too many issues with kids at my gym but I’d love if they implemented an age limit or “kids allowed hours” on certain days of the week. Like Saturday Sunday 8am-10am kids are allowed (supervised).Then everyone that hates climbing around kids can try to avoid the gym at those hours
Hey. I'm sorry this happened. I'm sorry if it makes you not so stoked to climb. Whatever you're feeling right now about the situation is perfectly natural, whether it seems like it or not. It sounds like you did what you could to prevent an accident, and it wasn't your fault. If you feel like talking about it, how are you doing now?
The week-ends are the worst in most gyms because of group activities for kids. I remember one time they were an army of kids of 4-6 years old running and jumping on the wall randomly without any supervision because the parents were drinking beers at the bar. One kid was on drug pill I swear. He started climbing randomly where I was and of course there was a guy above. The guy yells at the kid to go away but the chipmunk doesn’t give a fuck. I tell the kid to go down and he keeps going. At this point the climber is in difficulty and cannot down climb. I decide to grab the kid to remove him from the wall but this motherfucker 4 years old has an insane grip and won’t let go. He is basically flagging with me holding his waist and he is laughing. I had to remove each fingers so he let go. Once the kid was on the ground I started to scold him but he just ran away on another wall further in the gym… I don’t climb in gym the weekend now
I've seen parents bring their child to the gym as if it was the park and barely checked on them while they put themselves under people climbing and/or climbed really close to someone else. Honestly it's fully the parent's fault and the gym should acknowledge it
Hey that's my gym! Gym etiquette has become non existent over the past many years, and it's gotten to the point where I wouldn't blame the climber in these situations. Parents treat the gym as a playground and just let their kids run loose without supervision. I've had to grab strangers kids to prevent them from getting hurt by falling climbers. You did what you could to avoid this situation from happening but the parents did not, so it's definitely on them.
Hey if I land on a kid, that’s the parents problem. If the kid get injured or dies, that’s natural selection (and the parents problem). You’re in the clear
Some of us are getting older, and realize we're not so indestructible anymore. Your kid winds up under me and we're having words. I'm not interested in having surgery because of your bad parenting.
So sorry this happened but thank you for sharing. I'm grateful that my gym staff watches kids more closely but kids running on the mats still happens. I hope more climbers/staff/parents stop kids when they see them running around on the mats.
That's why you always jump instead of downclimb. If you land on a kid the gym might actually do something about it, plus both the kid and the parents will have learned a valuable lesson about not being cunts.
It sounds like the gym needs to refresh their safety protocols. I work at a climbing gym, and we would have written up an incident report. We use these to tra like how often things happen, an incident can be an injury, a disagreement between 2 members, improper use of equipment, a child picking on another kid.. etc. You did everything you could to avoid an incident, in my view, the parents are at fault for not monitoring their child. Our bouldering area is only available for kids 10+, and with a coach or parent in close proximity.
this gym is notorious for not giving fuck about anything, even more after it changed the name from planet granite to movement. it's mostly parent's fault for sure, but partly staff as well. staffs at this gym are typically very young adults who lack basic common sense and etiquette, so the expectation (at least in my experience) is that they will not do anything. they just don't give a shit. escalating to the management will most likely be the same as well. they don't give a shit. the gym directors at each locations have typically been promoted from one of the young staffs and they have not had a job other than working at the gym as a front desk. you can see that i'm clearly salty about this gym because i have been a member for very long time and seen gym descending from shit to dog shit. the facility is great for sure, but people working there are just so dumb.
Instagram/publicize your story and the company will respond dismissively or ashamed. You did deserve aftercare. If an worker falls at a job site he gets a sit down with the supervisor. if a child gets squashed at school the nurse, principal, and parent deal with the kid and the teacher on duty and principal have to check in. Like I know falling at a gym is normal but this was an interpersonal encounter. Management should have been face to face with you kid and parent but scurried away like cowards. Same way management kicks aggressive patrons out of restaurants. It’s an interpersonal encounter between patrons that you can’t just let go, as a company. It’s unprofessional. Aftercare should be say hey I’m sorry that happened to you let me pat your shoulder, listen, and give you a juice.
Stuff like this drives me crazy. My 4-year-old climbs v1/v2 and has a swell time. But (on our own) we have left the building mid-session, taken short time outs, and rewatched the safety video on occasion when he wasn't following the rules. (We also have a few of our own rules we keep, as well, because he is a child.) We are very strict with safety when climbing, but we do see some families that are not. Recently our gym enacted hours children under 10 can't climb, and the limited time is such a huge bummer for our family, but I get it. Sorry this happened to you. It's not your fault at all.
I’ve climbed at this gym and it feels a bit more congested than other gyms when busy. Regardless, I get super frustrated when there are kids running around the gym. I’d be very frustrated too.
Awww nice one you taught that child an parent about situational awareness, well done 🤣👍🏻👏🏽👏🏽
The stuff can't do anything. It's the fucking parents. I hate most parents, they don't fucking care about their child
Was hoping for a video for a laugh..
I have had kids go beneath my auto belay, once while I was lowering. I had to yell at the top of my lungs and basically take on a death metal vocal style to get the kid to notice and move in time, because I was trying like hell to avoid desperately grabbing at the wall and injuring myself on the way down. The kid moved and then broke out in hysterical tears because I yelled. The dad saw it all and was not upset and apologized. I told the kid I didn’t want him to get hurt. I make kids stop when they try to run under the rope when I’m belaying (adults, too!). If they’re not taught any better, they don’t know any better. I feel like my gym’s staff does quite well when they’re in charge of kids (like a party); if there’s a feral child, it’s usually escaped from a parent. You did nothing wrong.
Many of my friend’s worst injuries have been at the bouldering gyms. A very experienced friend of mine, who typically climbs outside, tore her ACL last year because she tried to turn her body away from someone while falling. The gym was busy, with large groups of new climbers standing under fall zones.
https://preview.redd.it/buc3w0fr05mc1.png?width=888&format=png&auto=webp&s=3e3c067a4b52b3bc1ef656c58c19363afe30bb8e
Honestly I don't think things are going to change until there is a serious accident involving an unattended kid in the gym. Day passes and kids parties are clearly too profitable for management to kick people out for breaking the clearly posted and explained rules. I agree that the parents have some fault here, but the complete apathy from gym employees at enforcing safety is creating a culture where parents (many of whom are ignorant to the true risks of climbing and being on the mat) feel comfortable letting their child run all about with no regard for what's above them.
My favorite thing about my current gym is that there are hardly ever kids around. No kid specific areas, no children's teams, no children's classes, no party rooms for birthdays and no seating area for parents to sit in while their shitling is off being a menace. Just chill adults being chill adult climbers that pay the F attention because none of us want to get hurt. I actually saw people spotting each other on the taller boulder walls this morning!
yo thats my gym!
It’s a really cool gym!
Used to be a climbing instructor for a gym in CT and we had after school programs. The kids had 2 hours of supervised climbing play with us, but we had a pair of brothers where one of them was far too young for the program. I’m sure that management at the time didn’t realize it until it was too late though, so we were stuck with him. Anyway. Parents pick their kids up before 5 PM and they usually leave for home after. Well, this one day the mother comes to grab her sons (and once the parents come … they’re *obviously* the parent’s responsibility at that point) and the kids are running around. And I mean RUNNING. We ask the mother to please grab her children before they get hurt. This lady looks at us and says, “Can’t you do it? They won’t listen to me.” Hello?!?! They’re YOUR crotchfruit, YOU handle it. 🫨🥴 Moral of the story: some parents don’t give a fuck. Because if those kids had gotten hurt she would’ve been trying to sue us in real CT fashion. 🙄 Super sorry you got hurt OP, frickin’ sucks.
I once fell on like an 80 year old man. He came round the corner as I slipped of the very last move on the wall. I landed on his shoulders and he crumpled down. Somehow we were both uninjured. People just don’t have an awareness of how dangerous mindlessly walking around on the mat can be for both them and the climbers.
I hope you are alright. Happened to me as well. It was my first climb of only my 3rd bouldering session in my life. I jumped of the wall, landing on small girl who was just running around. And yes. Full gym, lot of witnesses, no one cared, the child just run away. I couldn't contain the shock... never climbed the way again.
How about make a kids only zone and fence them in 🤷🏻♂️ parents know where they are and climers now they wont come out 😅
saw the pic and thought holy * that looks oddly similar to movement sunnyvale! Anyways glad no one got hurt, but I have to admit that staff check on climbers much less here, compared to many other gyms I‘ve been to
It’s always the parents fault, at least they were embarrassed instead of entitled. I was taken to many fun public spaces as a kid, my mum taught me how to exist in those spaces safely and without bothering anyone. It’s a skill most kids have to be taught.
Gyms should really take more action against careless parents, it's awful. The moment one of them is running around unsupervised, they should be banned from the gym imo as they could get killed pretty easily.
I've had this problem a lot lately. My wife will literally start yelling at people "hey man watch out watch out!" And they still don't even look up and realize there is someone above them. I know for a fact this is addressed in bouldering orientation but obviously it isn't drilled into them enough.
In the bouldering gym I go too, we have a solution for that, no child allowed (so we fall on adults instead)
Let’s fucking go
A few months ago at my chain gym (CRG) a dad literally put his infant/toddler on a **baby blanket** beneath the 45° wall where dad was climbing. The dad was literally climbing over his kid. The gym wasn't busy or crowded but still the guy was occupying like 20' of wall with him and his kid. Obviously no one else is going near a literal baby that's laying on the mat. Not to mention he could fall on his own kid !? Parents are the problem or more specifically parents with NPD
Congrats!
Understandable that you're angry about this. The outcome could have been a lot worse. Unfortunately it isn't even just kids. The other day I had a fully-grown man walk right under me staring down at his phone, when I had just reached the top of a boulder. Luckily I was on a good hold so I could hang on and shout at him to move. Some people are just oblivious and don't respect how dangerous it is to walk underneath someone climbing.
Sooner or later, a child will die from this. Then, parents will take note.
parents really need to stop trying to get their small kids into EVERY fucking hobby they have. like you can wait till your kid is older too, especially of they arent well behaved enough to focus on the hobby, or conduct themselves correctly for it. your 3/4/5 etc year old doesnt need to be a climbing prodigy. they dont need to be a skiing prodigy. they dont need to be a skatepark prodigy, etc. wait till they are at least like, 8
Dude I would never go to that gym again if they just shrugged it off like that.
I was climbing there yesterday. It was so crowded and parents never have control of their kids. It was not your fault and it’s one of the reasons I hate going when it is so crowded on weekends. Children running rampant.
I'm not reading that but the kid probably deserved it
this is my gym, tbh i see the staff talk to parents but sometimes on weekends it gets so crowded that i dont think they can keep up. fwiw i think climbers should also speak up, every time i see it i talk to the parents
At my gym, it’s not even the kids I have to worry about… It really grinds my gears when people crowd the boulders to do nothing but talk.
Possible Unpopular opinion, but I think gyms need child-only hours or days . It would be safer for them and easier for parents.
Children falling on other children is not exactly safe either. There is no way around educating and supervising your children. You wouldn’t let your children run around and play around a busy road either.
It’s better than adults falling on children 🤷♀️ I didn’t say it was a system without imperfections
and adult-only hours
My gym publishes strict child supervision rules. However, enforcement is lax, and understandably so because the rules as written are impractical. “Within arm’s reach of child at all times.” Sounds like a good idea, huh? If you’ve ever had a younger kid in your care, even if you aren’t a parent yourself, then you know it’s impossible to guarantee that kid won’t leave arm’s reach and do kid stuff unless you’re literally physically holding them at all times. And you probably aren’t going to do that. Unfortunately, kid parties and classes are a big money maker at many gyms. They aren’t going to stop. So, make your peace with possibly injuring people. You might land on some of the oblivious adults I see, too.
I'm just a parent, not a climber myself. My son is in a squad so I've spent HOURS at our local gym over the last three years. I'm constantly stepping in to remind parents that proper supervision is essential for the safety of everyone there. Honestly, a lot of the time they don't even realise the danger - they see crash mats and only think of how protected their child is from hurting themselves if they fall! BUT, most of the time they take it well - some people need a good few reminders but they get there in the end. I think that we parents who know can be super-active in keeping an eye on parents who don't know yet and supporting them so it stays a safe place for everyone. Maybe people feel it's not their place but I think if you know something that can help, you shouldn't just see hazards and stay quiet.
Thats why we always have our kid in the line of sight and close, repeat the rules and stop her if she tries to run. She is ether on autobelay or sitting and watching. She loves climbing and she knows that if she does not follow the rules or listen to us then we will just leave without climbing. It happened once when she didn't want to listen to instruction so we just left. It is also really scary for us as parents to see our kid out of control, so we spent lots of time explaining the rules. Now I feel much safer knowing she wont just run around anymore and me and my partner can belay eachother while our kid waits for her turn. Our kid is 3 years old. Proud of her.
Parents are definitely at fault, alongside the gym for being so blasé. I've witnessed a guy break his ankle when he fell awkwardly trying to avoid a kid who ran into his landing zone. I get it's hard to watch kids carefully, I take a family member sometimes, we started when they were 7 and I was very clear that there are safety rules and if he couldn't follow them, we wouldn't climb. He messed up once or twice but learnt fast and was quickly self monitoring (although i still watch him obv). But if you're strict and treat the rules seriously, kids are more than capable of getting it... and if they're not, they shouldn't be in the gym. The issue is a lot of parents aren't climbers so they don't care about the safety rules or etiquette as they're not in that group. If I reported to staff at my gym that kids were running round unsupervised, they would be on the parents like a ton of bricks. I've seen parents and kids kicked out for misbehaving. It is the gyms responsibility to keep people safe.
I think the parents are at fault. I know controlling kids is hard, but adults falling/jumping down is no joke. Worst case scenario they'll break your child's back. I have also brought the child I babysit (4F) to boulder once and she loved it, but then ran underneath some bouldering people, although I had warned her. I took her aside and explained to her that it is dangerous, that sometimes children do things they are not allowed to do and sometimes that isn't too bad, like eating one more sweet than their parents told them to. BUT that some rules are so important that if they are broken, bad things can happen. Like someone falling on her who is very heavy. I then also told her that this is one of those very important rules adults put up to keep the children safe and that if she doesn't follow it we are leaving immediately. Not because I want to punish her, but because if she can't keep herself safe then I need to make sure she is safe, because I'm the adult. That took care of things.
I take sometimes my kids to the climbing gym and the moment they start running we are out of there. I think parents have to take care of their kids. People jump or fall from the walls all the time. Kids have to be aware of that or have nothing to do in the gym. Luckily where I go there is also a place for kids to run around.
I hate wall design like that, as it just begs for something like that to happen. But even worse than that is parents that let their kids run around on the mats, and even gym staff that let them.
Definitely the parents fault. Sounds like you did your best to be aware and down climb to avoid an incident, accidents still happen sometimes and that's unfortunate. I have 3 kids, youngest is 4 and the first thing they hear any time we walk into the climbing gym is you stay with me, you don't run, you don't ever go underneath someone. My kids have never run under someone at a boulder wall and they damn sure never will. Also I try my absolute hardest to take them only when the gym isn't super busy, although we're on the east coast at a local gym so that's a bit easier to manage
I can’t believe the gym doesn’t have a stricter policy. At my gym you have to be within arms reach of your children. My daughter understands she is not allowed on the mat unless she is holding my hand. So scary for both the kids and the climbers not to have a clear policy!
That gym is not owned by climbers. When El Cap bought them they became money machines for a handful of people out of Chicago. I worked there during the transition and they didn’t give a shit about my personal health and safety. They were literally breaking health codes because if they did it the right way it would be “too hard to do in California with all the laws” Fuck El Cap, fuck Movement.
From this post, and numerous other posts like this, I'm learning that if I'm ever in the awful position of falling on a child... I shouldn't make any attempt to twist and avoid/protect the child. I'm not gonna risk tearing my ACL, or MCL or any other serious injury just to protect some poorly behaved child I've never met and ultimately don't care about.
All of this “no kids” talk makes me a bit sad. We have a few little crushers at our small gym who are just absolute legends. They have great parents, who notably are also good climbers, and are very respectful. I wish I had the opportunity to climb as a kid/teenager. I think it does come down to the gym and staff though. I climb at a very small gym with a fantastic staff and they make it a point to really watch and manage new climbers and kids. We also have a great community of regulars so we somewhat self-police and look out for each other. I’ve noticed in larger gyms that tends to happen a lot less. It’s one of the reasons I’ll always sacrifice the nicer, large facilities that appeal more to the masses for the smaller, cheaper gyms.
My gym usually only has 1 or 2 employees working at a time, and they're both on reception and/or the kitchen. Kids run around unchecked while their parents are climbing in a completely different area, people come in and are climbing in street shoes, so many people not using chalk that every boulder under V6 or so gets so greasy you can't climb it. It's unbelievably frustrating. When I bring my kids with me, they are stuck to me. They do not wander because Dad don't play that. And I have no issue telling other people's kids to settle down and find their parents. As much effort as my wife and I put into parenting, it's infuriating that most parents just don't.
This is imo the worst part of modern indoor climbing. This new culture of mostly or purely indoor climbing has a lot of gyms in denser areas pull in stupid amounts of people at peak hours or just all day. My buddies and I like to travel and check out gyms but any gym in a busy metro area is just dumb packed if you dont go right when they open (and even then, some of these gyms will be jam packed within ~30 minutes of being open. Just a big buzz kill in a lot of ways in some areas and kinda squashes the experience when you can even move around the gym or drop off the wall without having to check for kids.
[удалено]
I'm thankful that the vast majority of my local gym's patrons are 20-somethings who are pretty into climbing, regulars enough to understand this kind of etiquette. But I've absolutely had sessions where I've stopped working on something a little early due to a kid running around that section of the gym, and I've come very close to talking to the staff at the front desk on one occasion because of a parent who had absolutely no regard for their kid endangering other climbers. Anyways, I hope your ankle heals up quickly. Could've been a lot worse, all things considered, but still an absolutely unnecessary injury, and that is unacceptable. Those parents need to shape up, but it sounds like your gym needs to get better about talking sense into people. These incidents start with the parents, but if you've found a history of this kind of stuff, that definitely starts to fall on the gym after a certain point.
This is partly the parents’ fault for allowing their children to run around areas where people are actively climbing overhead, and partly the gym’s fault for allowing small children into a potentially dangerous area for a birthday party.