Unsupervised kids at campgrounds

[Camping Coxes]

I went camping last weekend with my daughter's Girl Scout troop. While there I couldn't believe the lax supervision I saw of small children, especially in light of the fact that here in California we recently had a 9YO boy disappear from a Crestline campground when he was simply getting something out of his car.
 
The first two kids, a boy and a girl between 8-9 years of age, were on a nature walk with a docent that we also were on.  They were too young IMHO to be by themselves, but I guess some people figure if there's a ranger or volunteer there, they don't need to supervise their kids.  They kind of latched on to our group, as we had a little brother with us about the boy's age and the little girl hung with our girls.  When it came time to part ways, they wanted to come to our site with us.  We had to tell them to go back to their campsite.  Later that night at the campfire, here they came again, all by themselves.
 
The second was a little boy about 6 who was riding his bike in an area that was not a bike trail.  I could hear his bike really making noise, and when he emerged, I found out why -- this boy was still using training wheels.  In my opinion, if he's still using training wheels, he has no business riding his bike all by himself.  He set out to go on the trail we had just come out of, which was marked "no bikes," and one of the parents stopped him.  He said he knew no bikes were allowed, and proceeded on.  She stopped him and helped him turn his bike back around the way it came in.  The scariest part of this is that this child was alone on an unfamiliar trail, and the trail had at least two spots that had so much erosion that I used it as an example to my troop of dangers to look for when hiking.  We had to walk off the trail a foot or two to keep from being so close to the cliff edge.  Had he gone on that trail, I'm sure his training wheel would have been off that ledge and he might have tumbled down about 15 feet.        
 
There's three kids someone could have easily abducted.  They were alone in secluded areas, no parent in sight.  I'm not a paranoid parent generally, and I've let my kids go places in campgrounds without me, but always with someone -- a friend or a sibling, for example.  I think people get a false sense of security at campgrounds and think everyone is as nice as they are.  Unfortunately, we can't assume that.
 
Sorry.  I had to vent about this.  :swear:

[Starcraft Dad]

I agree with no supervision at campgrounds or the lack of it.  Last weekend while we were camping at a private campground (our first), we decided to take a ride around to the full hook up area that was right on the waters of Lake Huron.  As the parents were sitting around in thier little groups, little kids and I mean around 4, 5 and 6 yo were just up and running everywhere.  The speed limit is 5 mph but some do drive fast through there.  We ourselves almost hit 3 tikes as they darted from behind bushes, cars and campers.  The parents were oblivious of what they were doing.  Because of this reason we most likely will not go back there and just stick to state parks which there seems to be much less of a problem.......so far.

[tlhdoc]

I have seen the same thing in both private and public parks.  It is a wonder that more of these kids don't get hurt.  I am guessing they run the neighbor hood at home too. :eyecrazy:

[Wild Wild Qwest]

For the most part, it's just kids being kids. However, obviously there are other campers out there who feel they are getting away from it all and they just let the kids wander the grounds. There needs to be a happy medium where kids are not on a leash, but not left unsupervised and up everyoine elses butt, either.

[Acts 2:38 girl]

Camping with kids is definately hard!  Your not on your home turf, so they re-test all the rules for about 2 days!  It's very frusturating!  :banghead:    When the boys were smaller it was harder because they didn't think there was anything wrong with leaving the campsite (they knew where they were, right?!)  Sometimes you leave the trip thinking, "This definately could have gone better!"