Letting the just turned 8 year old mow the lawn? WTF

jellybeanmama0929 · July 2011

Am I the only one who sees a problem with the fact that my DH's ex let the just turned 8 year old mow the lawn by himself yesterday? I know my phone is broke and everything but don't think that my phone makes me hear things on the other end. Seriously, he is only 8!

Amanda&EricB · July 2011

I was never allowed to do it that early. And actually I never used a push mower. I think I was allowed to use the rider, but not until I was 13 or so. And my stepdad spent about an hour going over everything and watching me like a hawk til he was comfortable with me doing it.

mamastich · July 2011

I think I started using the push mower when I was 9ishh

JNKS2328 · July 2011

I think 8 is rather young but I guess it depends on the maturity of the child... and they must know the safety aspects of it 100%. That is a dangerous piece of equiptment.

beazbadazme2 · July 2011

We just started letting my youngest (11 yrs old) push mow. But he isn't unsupervised because my DH is out there on the rider while DS is given a patch to mow too.

alynjohn · July 2011

As long as he is supervised and knows just how dangerous mowers can be, I don't see a problem. I think it is good for kids to learn some responsibility. If he is doing this unsupervised then, yes, HUGE problem IMO.

linzica · July 2011

if my 8 yr old nephew was allowed to mow the lawn, he would try to run over his brothers with the mower, or at least purposefully destroy everything he found in his path.

KAK ;-> · July 2011

I think it depends on the kid...I was using the push mower and riding mower by about that age. Gasp, I was one of the last people in my class to learn to drive and I was 13.

I did grow up in the south where kids are driving tractors by 10 or 11 so maybe I'm a little skewed on these types of things...

laurynfaerie · July 2011

Maybe because I was born in the middle of nowhere, but I don't get what the big deal is. He's mowing the lawn.

I really don't see anything wrong with that.

jellybeanmama0929 · July 2011

I guess my whole issue with this is:

BM does not really supervise these kids at all. In fact, the youngest is being taking to a doctor tomorrow to have his arm put in a cast because the other day him and his brother's were outside playing (unsupervised) and the oldest pushed the youngest causing him to break his arm for the 2nd time in 2 years.

Not to mention that the boys have chore lists that they have to do here and at her house and the boys struggle with things like folding clothes and putting them away and dishes. We are still working on brushing our teeth and taking a proper shower and they are 10, 8 and 6. I know when I was 10 I was mowing the lawn but there is no way any of the boys are ready for that kind of unsupervised responsibility.

My husband's mom and step dad was watching them a couple weekends ago and the middle boy wanted to mow the lawn and so he allowed him to try it and said that there is no way that he would allow any of the boys to do that again because the kid, even while supervised, wasn't paying attention to anything around him and thought it was funny to try to run over things like a bird and a rabbit that was in the yard. He would try to take off running with the lawn mower to run over various things and this was after a safety talk.

Not to mention, it has been crazy hot outside! Yesterday was no exception. Why would you allow an 8 year old to mow the grass out in this heat. I am all for responsibility and think kids need to do daily and/or weekly chores to learn responsibility and to prepare them for adult hood but I think, at least with my SS's 8 is a little to young to allow them to mow the lawn by themselves. The oldest SS is in no way ready for that responsibility due to his asthma, allergies and his autism and adhd. The 6 year old has a bit of an anger problem (tried to rub two lincoln logs together to create a fire to burn his other two brother's lincoln log houses down because they wouldn't help him build something, which it wouldn't have worked anyways, but it scares me that he even thought of that) and he would probably try to run someone over with the mower. The 8 year old is the most responsible but not to do things like that unsupervised.

And, yes, if the boys were farm kids and had experience living out in the country then it may be a different situation but these kids hate being outside for any longer than 20 minutes before they are screaming to come back in. We took a trip to the zoo the last weekend they were here and a half hour in they were ready to go home because it was too hot for them and they were "bored"....that was until we go to the water park...lol

My DH is not very happy with the situation and was going to have a discussion with her when he got off of work.

jellybeanmama0929 · July 2011

Also, I have read through all the posts on this subject and am taking everything in. I do agree every child and every situation is different and maybe after we have a talk with BM we can come to a conclusion on what made her feel that he was responsible enough to do this by himself, unsupervised because DH and I just can't imagine letting him do this by himself at this point in time.

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