More to the point, if one of those children had drowned or been injured - who/which body would have been held legally liable. Yes security people take a "beating" in the GCC - but even moreso if someone's child is found floating face down in the pool, even if it was closed.
That said, the OP (and hubby) did the right thing - whether the parents of the children involved care is another story. You have to have a license (and insurance) to drive a car - anyone can breed (if you're married to each other here).
I would have approached them and reminded them that the pool is closed and they should probably get going. If my kids (ie. yours) weren't allowed to swim there why should anyone else. Although teenagers, they can hardly argue with logic but if not I would have said "No problem if you want to argue about it, but if you're not gone in 10 minutes I'll call security".
But that's just me, I understand a lot of people shy away from confrontation.
Perhaps the other people walked by because it looked like they were your children (heaven forbid!) or that you had the situation in hand?
You've done the right thing Encore.
Security here has no power over teens. And both security and teens know it...
But knowing that other parents are here and called them to behave is a bit scary. After all, you could also let the parents know the incident...
Even if the teens deny, if doesn't matter. What matters is that they were doing something out of control and damaging (or at least handling carelessly) community belongings, and they had someone who stood there and stopped them. At Teenage, boys particularly like to explore different limits and the authority of the parents are not enough. You doing that participated to their education.
Good job :)
I feel a bit sorry for security here, they're not really equipped to deal with situations like this, but I suppose thats the most you can do, although it would be great to be able to have a word with the children's parents, most parents wouldn't know their children were doing this and if they found out would be mortified and probably get them inline.
My Husband got security and we stood by while they denied it. We then walked over and and said, "yes, they did. We watched and want you boys to know we ARE watching and it is NOT okay to behave like that."
The reason why I posed the question is while I was waiting for security and while the poor display was unfolding, multiple people just walked past. They noticed and kept walking.
I love kids, most of all mine. So, we responded for two important reasons; We wanted our children to know that behavior is not okay and Second, we wanted the other children to know their behavior is not okay and we won't ignore them.
Poor, powerless security.
Yesterday late afternoon, we were walking towards the building pools for some swimming with the kids. We walked past the pool that closes early and a group of 4 teenage boys that had scaled the fence were swimming. As we walked past, our children inquired why we couldn't swim right there. Of course we told them that pool was closed and those boys were being naughty. As if right on cue, one boy age 12ish started throwing the plastic pool furniture into the pool, the others then started throwing the furniture out of the pool and across the pool decking.
There is the scene. What would you do?