At soft play DS, who is 3, and his friend got a bit lively. 2 girls who were older than them - looked 4 or 5 - didn't like how the boys were playing (they were chucking ball pool balls at each other, so not terribly heinous) and tried to stop them by holding them back. The boys whacked the girls, once, to let them go. They ran sobbing to their mums. Me and friend saw what happened, were mortified, grabbed boys and marched them over to girls - both of us adults apologised and made the boys apologise to each girl in turn. Here is the AIBU bit. Neither mother acknowledged our apologies or encouraged the girls to acknowledge them. In their position I would have said something along the lines of "it's not nice to hit, but thank you for saying sorry." They wouldn't make eye contact with us at all. Mum friend and I took the boys off, had another chat about hitting not being acceptable, and then they carried on playing. We were being much more vigilant and following them around. Every time either of us went past either of these mums they cringed away from us and shielded their daughters.
AIBU to think they should have played their part in the conversation? Yes, the boys were wrong to hit, totally acknowledge that. But surely as adults, when hurt is caused we should encourage apology and acknowledge it, then help them to move on.
It really hacked both of us off. We are both parents to older girls, and have had our fair share of boisterous behaviour from other boys. We rarely got apologies from other parents, hence our insistence on always making our boys apologise. i don't think they gave either their daughters or our sons a great message about dealing with conflict. And the cringing was totally OTT and quite embarrassing.
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AIBU?
A soft play one
38 replies
Narnia72 · 07/05/2015 18:05
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