To have believed my son?

Honestly think that's the best decision, lost too much energy on this one already. What's done is done, even the OP has clocked off

Have a lovely new year

Agree with pp, it isn't so black and white

Child a is doing something and in doing so makes contact with child b. They may not even notice (my 4 year old could easily do something like stand on my foot and be oblivious if she's in the zone of dancing or something
Child b has been hit in the face and definitely noticed, as it hurt a lot
Parent asks child a if they hit child b, child a says no because in their mind they didn't...

In this scenario and many others like is,.noone is lying. Child b is obviously hurt, child a needs educating that just because you didn't intentionally strike someone in the face it doesn't mean you didn't hit them. It happened, and in that scenario we say sorry and make amends and that's how to be a better person. Writing off a child as a liar and a bad person is awful adulting. It's an opportunity to talk to them, work out what happened and teach them something surely?!

I.m not saying that's what happened, it's impossible for me to categorically say that as I wasn't there. However you seem to be able to speak with certainty like some sort of psychic detective which unless you know all the children in question to have a good assessment of their character and were a witness to the incident is pretty preposterous. If you can't even fathom there are possibilities other than the way you've seen it then I see no point in furthering this discussion. Would be a total waste of time to try and reason with someone who is apparently incapable of the skill.

No I have obviously accidentally bumped into people, has have my children. But I and they always apologise.
The problem here was he lied about it. And then he was rewarded for the lie by being allowed to carry on playing and not being made to apologise; when the OP clearly knows he's lied!
But if he's going to hurt someone, not apologise and lie about it he clearly isn't old enough to be unsupervised in a soft play area!
By believing her child didn't hurt/hit this other child she's saying the child that was screaming in pain was lying - how would you feel if your child came to you screaming in pain because another child had hit them and their parent basically said "your child is a liar they aren't really in pain"

What a ridiculous comment and high standard to have of someone who is only 4 years old. Gonna assume that poster has never once backed into someone, gestured and accidentally touched another person, stood on someone's foot or anything of that sort. Otherwise perhaps now they've done the sensible thing and made sure they're forever supervised from now on.

Sure :)

A 4 year old is school age! A 4 year old knows if they've made contact with another person. They also know the difference between a lie and the truth. If a child isn't sensible enough to play around others without invading their personal space they shouldn't be playing unsupervised.
The OP said that he didn't want to be removed from the soft play.

There are way too many variables for you or anyone to be speaking in such certain terms. Perhaps the OPs child was spinning around with their arms out and they made contact with the other child's face, perhaps they were almost falling over and their arms flailed and they made contact with the other child's face, or perhaps it was malicious. Either way the older sibling and the child who was hit weren't inaccurate with their description. However I know my children for the longest time wouldn't have seen anything other than a malicious and intentional strike as 'hitting' If they'd struck me whilst dancing or something they wouldn't have called that a hit. They do now with a bit of life experience, but the OPs son is 4! So going on the op saying it would be out of character, why wouldn't you give your child some benefit of the doubt until you could get their side of the story? I've benefited far more from my parents showing trust in me than instantly jumping to the conclusion I'm a liar. I'm assuming the op knows her kid. If he was the kind of kid to lie and hit then wouldn't have been a post about it. Also some children can be lightly brushed and scream blue murder whilst others can be walloped in the chops and keep on running. Amazed anyone would see it as black and white and speak with the level of certainty you have.

Soft play can be an absolute nightmare, I have seen full grown adult mums have an actual fight in a soft play. I was attacked by a child once who grabbed me by the throat, the child had additional needs and was left to their own devices by a parent who was not anywhere near their child, the staff said it happens often with this child and family in there. I have seen kids following other kids to taunt them, games turning into fights, all sorts. They are literal battle grounds. I wouldn't read too much into the situation, the soft play areas are a school of hard knocks sometimes and a normally mild mannered child can be hyped up, over stimulated and pushed to their limits. Your child is 4 so just coming out of the small kid stage and it gets rough in there for the bigger kids!! I hate soft play and avoid it like the plague now for these reasons but sometimes needs must and you end up in one and these things will happen.

What mystery 3 children in a play area 1 gets smacked and starts screaming, their sibling is comforting them and taking them to their parent. Both children say OP's son hit the screaming child.

There's no mystery - to cause that much pain that a child is crying means it hurt and was hard. Regardless of whether or not it was an accident OP should have made her son apologise and should have taken him out the play area for lying!

Sounds like he definitely did hurt the girl, and definitely hit her.
I also don't agree that at 4 you don't have to watch them so closely in soft play areas.

I think it's important he tells the truth so he didn't need to go home unless it was a proper hard smack but he needed to be honest. Be careful of saying my child wouldn't do that, they can surprise you. Praise any incidents of telling the truth and remind him that if he doesn't tell the truth you won't be able to believe him next time.

4 years old is too young to be left unattended

Also, I didn't read the OP properly.

I didn't realise that your child was the only other child in there. There were 3 kids in total.

Of course he's done it! Otherwise, what you are suggesting is that the kid has either voluntarily whacked himself in the face, or that his sister did it, whilst simultaneously boy was being comforted by her.

So, yes. With that rather significant piece of information, you know full well your son hit him, because it can't have been anyone else.

So all you needed to ascertain was how that happened, what are you doing even entertaining that he didn't and then going along with that? Not great OP, not great.

Possibly, although if he was lying and you did believe him then he's now learnt that all he has to do is be insistent enough and you will believe his lie.

At this age, you should be watching your child.

4 year old are smart. No chance they will own up as they know they will get into trouble.

Of course he hit him. An older child pointed your son out. But most likely it was not intentional.

DD, 4, was at a park the other day and another boy kept rolling about and obstructively sitting at the bottom of the slide. His mother made vague noises about him moving out the way, watched him ignore her, and then went back to chatting with her coffee. It was one of those enclosed things like a chute so you can't see the bottom from the top, and most of the climbing tower is completely enclosed as it's rather high. Next thing, DD comes flying out the slide into this boy. He runs off screaming "she hit me she hit me."

Technically she did. But it wasn't her fault. And I made it very clear to her that she had done nothing wrong, because she was quite teary about it.

I imagine it was something like that.

(I usually would have told DD to apologise because even if it's an accident but we hurt someone we should make sure they're ok, but this boy had been barging other children out of the way and pulled my DS off the ladder to climb up so he could go first, so frankly DD forced his lazy mother to put her coffee down and finally supervise her poorly behaved child)

Its not surprising that he lies about it happening if he knows the consequence is immediate removal.

Its too much for something that could well have been accidental eg he came down the slide too quick after another child and collided or whatever.

There just isnt any reason for two other children to both randomly to decide to accuse a strange child. Agree with others, him clamming up prob means he did it.

Do 4yo children understand yes I did but it was an accident??

This sort of thing does happen, I think it would be wise to keep an eye on him in these situations which I appreciate is hard if you have a toddler also. Maybe at 4 he isn’t ready to be left unsupervised which is fairly normal. Soft plays are a sensory overload for some children, yours and others too.

Children do lie, either they know they’ve done wrong or scared of the telling off etc, I find talking calmly (again not easy when other parents eyes are on you but aim to ignore them). Keep instructions simple “yes you can go back in but do not touch or hit any other child / if you start to feel angry come out and find me”.

No / few children are perfect, it’s how to deal with situations best suited to the child is best.

Soft plays, I totally understand splitting up the age ranges but is difficult when yours span the ranges.

The worst behaviour I’ve seen in soft plays is adults riding on scooters down a slide into a baby ball pit with babies in there, I’m not even joking so always remember there’s worse going on.

More likely that he did do it. Kids lie all the time tbh. I have seen kids who are genuinely lovely stick to a story and swear to their parents that they are completely innocent. Only when cctv footage is shown to them do they retract, cry and say they were at fault. You need to get to grips with this because you are teaching your child that you will always take their word which is going to encourage them to lie to you.

In this situation I would have told them that they needed to sit out because they had hurt someone elsewhether on purose or as an accident. I wouldn't have asked them if they had done it. Later after the consequence I would have asked them if they could have done anything differently. If you don't overreact then are also more like to tell you the truth.

I agree with this

I wouldn’t have left but I wouldn’t believe he hadn’t done it either. May have been an accident. Those wacky warehouse places are like a jungle!

I don’t miss them.

I agree with the poster above. If the consequence is being removed from a fun activity he 100% is going to lie. He is 4 and that’s a really drastic punishment in a 4 year olds eyes. Definite consequence needed if he did hit the other child but that would be come sit with mum for 5 minutes and calm down a bit. If my 10 year old did it the removal would be more appropriate as he has better understanding of right/wrong.

Maybe I’m on my own here, but ‘immediate removal’ is a bit extreme in terms of a consequence for a four year old hitting. If they went fully feral lashing out, okay, but if they lashed out once and stopped and were appropriately upset, I would ‘remove’ them to calm down and then encourage repair (so apology etc.) and moving on. He might not have the language to explain he did it by accident etc. or what the other child had done to provoke it, and understandably wouldn’t want to be taken out of the soft play. However, it may be teaching him to lie if you kept him there knowing he may well have done it, but would have removed him if he told the truth that he did.
Main rule is truth = not in trouble and you have to follow through with that. It’s more important he’s honest with you and feels able to tell you the truth than he never does something wrong.