Anonymous wrote:I would be annoyed since the child’s parents didn’t make a move to engage their child in the playground either. Maybe the kid has issues. Let it go.

+1 No one is going to tell you that putting a 3 yo on screens for hours at a time when they should be playing at a park is a good thing. But it's not your kid, and absent some egregious abuse, there's nothing you can do about it.

OP, there are a lot of 2,5 year olds - especially only kids - who are not socialized with other kids. It always annoyed me when parents would compare their kid with mine of a similar age. It’s like if your kid was potty trained and their kid wasn’t. Or their kid wasn’t talking in complete sentences. These were my issues in 2000. But OP In 2025 you should know better.

When my kid was that age We didn’t have portable devices but at home and in the car he watched screens - baby Einstein and Leap Frog DVDs and Nick Jr and PBS. In that same situation he would insist on playing by himself not with the other kids, and by the time he was 6 he would have been sitting on a bench with a 700 page Harry Potter book AT THE PARK. At 10 he preferred to have conversations with the adults - and had lots of insight - than with kids. By middle school he found his intellectual tribe with his peers. He is now in his twenties, and is pretty well adjusted - reads extensively, speaks 2 foreign languages, does trivia night weekly, and is a consultant at a bank. All this to say, there is hope in your family’s kid.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our niece was like this. She’s a more or less well-adjusted 8 year old now.

I’m just annoyed, Why make us feel bad about wanting to do our own thing?

Maybe they didn’t realize that it would be so hard to get their child to engage. They may have thought that this one activity with the other kids - woukdxbecrnoughbtonoull him away from the device. It sounds like it’s their first/only child, and at just2.5 he’s prob only been able to hold the device for at most 6 months., I’d give the parents a break and a and the benefit of the doubt. Maybe this interaction will get them to admit personally or realize forget need to figure out how to parent differently. None of us gets a rule book and the devices are getting more and more addictive - which they may not have known.

Also your 3yo has older siblings. Who is to say that you weren’t criticized for they way you parented your oldest when they were 2.

Lots of typos. Sorry. The big jumble should have said “They may have thought that this one activity with the other kids - would have been enough to get him away from the device. “

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our niece was like this. She’s a more or less well-adjusted 8 year old now.

I’m just annoyed, Why make us feel bad about wanting to do our own thing?

Maybe they didn’t realize that it would be so hard to get their child to engage. They may have thought that this one activity with the other kids - woukdxbecrnoughbtonoull him away from the device. It sounds like it’s their first/only child, and at just2.5 he’s prob only been able to hold the device for at most 6 months., I’d give the parents a break and a and the benefit of the doubt. Maybe this interaction will get them to admit personally or realize forget need to figure out how to parent differently. None of us gets a rule book and the devices are getting more and more addictive - which they may not have known.

Also your 3yo has older siblings. Who is to say that you weren’t criticized for they way you parented your oldest when they were 2.

Who was really the instigator in wanting a get together? I am thinking it was the grandparents.

I would be miffed OP. It's a playground and the 2.5yo should be playing and am adult can assist / engage them if needed. This is just bad parenting otherwise. And yes to me 'spend time" means interact. I don't want to change my plans and forego other activities to see a kid on a phone.

We have done a mix of things, like have another family over, kids play, and later put on movie for all together so adults can talk. But what OP describes is biZarre.
"Your kids got to enjoy a new space" PPs are annoying. It may not even have been what kids the age of OP's older ones would have wanted to do.

Anonymous wrote:I don't know any 2-year olds who would be on the phone on playground as other kids play.
This kid is putting in effort to avoid other kids. They may have a bigger problem than a phone use.

This.
My 2.5 year old was so excited to hang with his cousins.

What time of day was it? If the plans made the kid skip nap then this could have been the only way to avoid a meltdown

Anonymous wrote:so they were fusing over a child for three hours who was watching a phonefoo those three hours? this story makes less and less sense …

*phone for

so they were fusing over a child for three hours who was watching a phonefoo those three hours? this story makes less and less sense …

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Were the parents socializing? Maybe they felt they couldn’t be available to socialize themselves unless the kid was distracted. I still think it’s excessive and ridiculous for a park, unless there’s developmental issues you don’t know about, but the desire to be able to socialize may be the reason.

+1. My DC was crazy at that age. I wouldn’t have been able to have a conversation while my kid was playing. A screen gives the parents time to talk. Did you talk with the parents while the kids were playing?

No they were fussing over the child. We said maybe 10 words to them. The whole thing was pointless

was your spouse annoyed to see his family or just you?

Report them to CPS for neglect.

Yes, it's annoying, of course. But I also can't imagine planning a two-day trip to NYC without calling up my family that lives there and saying, "Hey, we are going to be in town xx—xx dates. We have plans on XX day and XX time; outside of that, we'd love to see you guys."

I mean, was the whole thing a waste? Did you enjoy seeing your ILs? Did your kids have fun? I don't see why the 2.5-year-old would ruin the outing and make it pointless.