Find your diamond
Find your jewelry
shape
carat
color
clarity

Do have young kids and an unfenced back yard adjacent to woods?

My backyard is and was soon after we built the house. This was for privacy as well as safety. I live on over an acre of land so it was no small feat but well worth the peace of mind to me.
 
It’s a different world we live in, parenting wise.
I grew up with an unfenced backyard dropping away as a cliff face. I did fall down said cliff face as an 8 year in a neighbours yard. I was using his water pipe to “zip line down” and it broke and I fell, bouncing off the rocks every few feet all the way down to the bottom. I was more worried about being in trouble with my parents for doing such a dumb thing so wore long sleeved shirts and long pants (middle of summer) to hide the cuts and bruises.
Not sure how I survived my own childhood ha ha.
 
We’ve just returned from 3wks driving through Alabama / Tennessee / Indiana / Kentucky / Ohio / Illinois / Wisconsin. As Australians it was really strange / interesting / confusing to see established houses without any fencing between or behind them.

Even our 15 and 13 year old kids asked what about privacy / safety etc.

Over here fencing is normally done before you move into a newly built home - at a bare minimum at least side and back fences are always required.

We are a battleaxe block so built down a long drive behind / alongside 6 other properties - we have 9ft fences as well as an electric opening gate fully surrounding our lot (which is just under an acre although we are in a fully suburban neighborhood).
 
All along our side of the street as far as I can see there are no fences. Standing in the back yard and looking right and left, it's all open, like a long grassy park. It was like that when we moved here 29 years ago and we never felt the need to be the first to put up a fence.
 
Fully walled courtyard, in a gated compound of detached villas, with security on the gate, two large dogs, in one of the safest countries in the world - and still worry about kids safety! This article makes my heart stop.
 
@Ionysis thats another thing your comment made me think of - no fences means your dogs are not free to run around outside without supervision? We have a doggy door on our laundry and our two Labradoodles are free to run in and out all over our yard.

Then the whole “No pool fence” situation is perplexing for us as well. My husband’s cousin married an American and they’ve always had in ground pools, their kids are pretty much the same ages as ours. I’d never be able to let kids out of my sight without pool fencing. Cousin’s wife couldn’t believe how strict all our levels of governments are when it comes to pool fencing and it’s policing.
 
HGar said:
@Ionysis thats another thing your comment made me think of - no fences means your dogs are not free to run around outside without supervision? We have a doggy door on our laundry and our two Labradoodles are free to run in and out all over our yard.

Then the whole “No pool fence” situation is perplexing for us as well. My husband’s cousin married an American and they’ve always had in ground pools, their kids are pretty much the same ages as ours. I’d never be able to let kids out of my sight without pool fencing. Cousin’s wife couldn’t believe how strict all our levels of governments are when it comes to pool fencing and it’s policing.
Click to expand...

As they should be. Drowning is fast and silent unlike what most people think. My mother has an inground and was always hyper vigilant and is even more so with my young children. Hopefully my youngest will become an independent swimmer this summer. My oldest was by 4. Youngest is 2.5 but he's very brave so he needs to learn to swim properly ASAP.
 
We've never had a dog or a pool, but if we had, we would have had to have a fence.
 
Asscherhalo_lover said:
As they should be. Drowning is fast and silent unlike what most people think. My mother has an inground and was always hyper vigilant and is even more so with my young children. Hopefully my youngest will become an independent swimmer this summer. My oldest was by 4. Youngest is 2.5 but he's very brave so he needs to learn to swim properly ASAP.
Click to expand...
In coastal Australia especially most kids start swimming lessons fairly young. Ours were all taken from 6mths of age and could swim unaided by 3-4.

There was a worrying dropoff over Covid times due to a lack of staff but it is rebuilding - this was a bit of a policy for local governments as we are city surrounded by both beaches and lake. Our kids also did swimming lessons as part of their schooling for two weeks each years between 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 - kindy being classified as too risky and by year 6 (11-12 years old) the vast majority were proficient to not have lessons.

We have huge fines if a pool is located without fencing that complies with the regulations set down.
 
We had a pool in the garden too from when the kids were babies. We taught them to swim as soon as they could crawl. As they both climbed like monkeys I thought it was safer for them to learn to swim than use a fence. We did have a close shave when our two year old fell in though - thankfully the pool was located right by the French doors and we fished her out almost immediately. Was a terrifying incident though and you can see how a drowning could happen in seconds. With hindsight I would definitely recommend the fence As WELL AS teaching them to swim asap!
 
HGar said:
In coastal Australia especially most kids start swimming lessons fairly young. Ours were all taken from 6mths of age and could swim unaided by 3-4.

There was a worrying dropoff over Covid times due to a lack of staff but it is rebuilding - this was a bit of a policy for local governments as we are city surrounded by both beaches and lake. Our kids also did swimming lessons as part of their schooling for two weeks each years between 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 - kindy being classified as too risky and by year 6 (11-12 years old) the vast majority were proficient to not have lessons.

We have huge fines if a pool is located without fencing that complies with the regulations set down.
Click to expand...

the councils here hire helicopters to look for unfenced pools
school swimming was a big thing when i was a kid, and all country schools had pools
but they got too expensivre to maintaine and now we have increased drowning rates
 
image.png.f999fd1c6bf5b9d79c158bc2f93cd19d.png
 
Asscherhalo_lover said:
As they should be. Drowning is fast and silent unlike what most people think. My mother has an inground and was always hyper vigilant and is even more so with my young children. Hopefully my youngest will become an independent swimmer this summer. My oldest was by 4. Youngest is 2.5 but he's very brave so he needs to learn to swim properly ASAP.
Click to expand...

I remember as a 15 year old staying with my Aunt, we went over to a friend of hers house and they had a pool. I was allowed to go swimming while the two adult ladies had a coffee inside. I was just swimming laps and was down at the deep end resting holding onto the edge and I got that “ someone walking across your grave feeling” and turned around and couldn’t see anything but I still had that “sick feeling”. I then realised that there was something on the bottom of the pool near the steps at the shallow end. I swear I swam at Olympic speed and picked up a toddler from the bottom of the pool and got him out. My first reactions were to scream for help and hold him upside down by his feet and hit his back.
I didn’t even know there was a toddler in the house. He has been upstairs sleeping when we arrived. He had apparently woken up and come downstairs and gone out the unlocked back door without anyone noticing. He had come into the pool area and walked down the steps and just went under. No splashing, no nothing. An ambulance was called and he went off with his mother and my Aunt and I went home. Fortunately he was ok but literally, it took mere seconds and there was no splashing or anything.
 
Bron357 said:
I remember as a 15 year old staying with my Aunt, we went over to a friend of hers house and they had a pool. I was allowed to go swimming while the two adult ladies had a coffee inside. I was just swimming laps and was down at the deep end resting holding onto the edge and I got that “ someone walking across your grave feeling” and turned around and couldn’t see anything but I still had that “sick feeling”. I then realised that there was something on the bottom of the pool near the steps at the shallow end. I swear I swam at Olympic speed and picked up a toddler from the bottom of the pool and got him out. My first reactions were to scream for help and hold him upside down by his feet and hit his back.
I didn’t even know there was a toddler in the house. He has been upstairs sleeping when we arrived. He had apparently woken up and come downstairs and gone out the unlocked back door without anyone noticing. He had come into the pool area and walked down the steps and just went under. No splashing, no nothing. An ambulance was called and he went off with his mother and my Aunt and I went home. Fortunately he was ok but literally, it took mere seconds and there was no splashing or anything.
Click to expand...

Exactly, people don't realize it's a silent killer. That boy couldn't have been any luckier that you were there and realized what was happening.
 
When we lived in Massachusetts it was by the town forest, so only part of the property was fenced. Lots of times we'd have people walk through the back part of the property because they thought it was part of the forest. Also, the deer used our yard as a walk through to the other side to get to the lake behind the neighbors house.

Lucky was our only dog, she never left the cleared part of the property on her own. Only if I was with her. The only time I wanted it to be fenced in was when we had that proliferation of coyote in the neighborhood. Its one of the few times when she would big girl bark. She did NOT like coyote and pretty sure they avoided the property because of her.

Interestingly by the next year you saw maybe 1.
 
Our township requires pools to be fenced in so ours is, but our property is 8 acres and it is not fenced. We have woods to the side and the back as do my neighbors so would be really difficult for any person with bad intentions to arrive on foot. And it was fairly easy to teach our dog the property lines so she’s allowed outside by herself whenever she wants. Our previous dog wandered over to both neighbors and would go in their pools if the gate was open. Lol
 
The house I currently live in used to back up to woods when I was growing up in it. Now the whole town is developed and it looks as if the house backs up to woods, but it is considered a nature preserve and has a trail where people walk their dogs. As a child I and all the other neighborhood children ran wild in the streets, the hills, and the woods. We knew them backwards and forwards. By the time my daughter was growing up and visited her grandparents at the house, she had no interest in playing outside. She had a million after school activities and things to do indoors. I have always had to fence in my pool and my dogs on my properties. My daughter never wandered anywhere.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
GET 3 FREE HCA RESULTS JOIN THE FORUM. ASK FOR HELP
Jewelry Blog
PriceScope-Concierge-Ad
Find prime cuts.
Top