Before and after school playground problems. Not sure what to do/say.

[domesticallychallenged]

DS and I drop off and pick up DD at school everyday. Like most people we arrive a few minutes early and DS likes to run to the wall at the bottom of the playground and push his little car along the wall until DD comes out.

Usually this is not a problem but in the last few days there is one little boy (lets call him A) who has obviously taken a dislike to DS for some reason.

This morning DS did nothing (I don't even think he noticed A was there) when A grabbed him and hit him on the head with his bag. I walked over to them and pulled DS away saying to A that it wasn't nice to do that. Looked around for mum but as I'm not sure who she is, no one came forward so I couldn't say anything. (We are fairly new at the school)

This afternoon we went back again and I suggested to DS to stay near me but he insisted on pushing his car along the wall and before long A was over again. This time A hit DS enough to make him cry.

As I comforted him mum came forward and spoke to A (by this time I was too far away to hear what she was saying but assumed she told him off/ not nice thing to do). She started walking towards us and I tried to get eye contact so we could chat, but she walked straight by.

Poor DS has no idea why A keeps being like this, he kept asking why he hit him. I'm not sure what to say to DS now - should I let him play as he wants in the playground, it seems a shame to keep him by my side when he could have a run around, should I run around along side him and protect him - can't do that forever, or should I approach A's mum and say "look there's clearly a problem between our boys, how can we resolve it? etc"

Or am I just over reacting?

[Yurtgirl]

I would let ds play as he wants to.

If A comes along try to intervene before any problems arise, talk nicely to A etc

If A is horrid take ds away and pointedly look around for mum and calmly + nicely explain what happened.

I wouldnt make a big thing of it tbh as you are likely to make an enemy of her - If A has got older siblings he may well be quite used to bashing others in order to get a reaction..........

HTH

[domesticallychallenged]

Thanks Yurtgirl, as I was typing all that out I began thinking maybe I am being too precious. I never had any problems with DD, IME girls don't seem to be as physical as boys.