Would you ever tell off someone else’s child?

I had similar the other day with my three year old about to cone down a big slide. Just as he was at the top a nine or thereabouts girl ran up it. I said ‘he’s about to come down the slide now so can you move off it please?’

She honestly glared at me so horribly I thought I must be face to face with a future psychopath and I’m really not saying that lightly but the way she held my gaze was chilling! I held hers and eventually she moved back down, but gave us evils the whole of the rest of the time we were in the playground. Clearly not used to being told she couldn’t do something, especially not move aside for a smaller child.

I think it does depend on the age of the child though. I was far more likely to intervene and 'tell off' another child when DD was small. As she got older I would wait longer to intervene because she needs to learn to deal with other people's behaviour in her own way (obviously I'd still step in if necessary, usually if she was getting visibly upset or there was an imminent danger of serious physical harm).

I wouldn’t “tell off” another child. But I’d intervene if necessary, generally by speaking to my own children.

For example, the last time I did it my DD was queueing for one of those zip line things at the playground. There were two other children on there, and then my DD and another girl who were queueing nicely, and moving forward to take their turn, but the two other children weren’t letting them. So I just grabbed the zip wire seat as a child got off and loudly said “DD come on, it’s your turn now” and then when she got off said to the other girl “would you like your turn now?” And then to my DD “when it’s your turn again, you can have another go” (she knew this, it wasn’t a comment for her benefit).

Or when my 2 year old had walked really carefully along a really long series of stepping stones, being watched by a boy of around 7/8 yrs old. And when she was about 3 steps from the end he ran and jumped up and started along the other way, so coming face to face with her, blocking her path right before she could finish. I just said to DD “don’t worry, you were here first so he’ll have to move” and then just looked at him (my Paddington hard stare) until he did. Little brat.

This is interesting because there is a thread still running I believe when the OP's child was told off and the answers were very different.
So i am guessing the current thinking is if someone else's child is harming yours, it's absolutely fine to tell THAT child off.
But if your child is harming another, it's completely not on for someone else to tell YOUR child off.
Perfectly clear

Did it the other day on a train. Mum wasn't going to shut her kid up so I did it. The shock of a stranger saying in a very firm voice 'stop that noise right now' did the trick.

Exactly!
I won’t ever accept, under any circumstances a child being a nuisance or bother and my child just having to accept that. If no parent is around I will absolutely tell them off, and happy to tell their parent too

@stichguruyes, if that child is the one bothering everyone else then the parent/carer who knows that it happens needs to be there to watch them.
what makes you think a child being a nuisance or badly behaved should be tolerated? And the kids who behave well, should they have to just accept when kids are bothering them?

Haha I did this yesterday. Was in soft play with my dgs who us 2.5. He was in the under 3 area. There was a small baby about 6 months old crawling in there too.
Two girls (probably about 7-8) ran in to the area and started to boisterously jump about near to the baby.

I just told them to get out and go somewhere else. They looked quite surprised to be told off tbh, but that wee baby wouldn’t have stood a chance if they’d landed on her.

Absolutely I have. If the parent isn’t parenting and it’s affecting my child’s enjoyment of something (or in one case harming her because she was being repeatedly pushed over) I will say something and would be happy to explain why if I was ever challenged.

I voted YANBU, but actually I wouldn’t ’tell them off’, I’d simply tell them to stop.

What’s him being a bloke got to do with it? Her child was being a bullying duck, she was being a useless mother. They both needed shouting at.

I tell random kids running up and down the aisles in Sainsburys to stop it.

I try and use the same tone my old headmistress had when in high school. It does work.

Their parents are usually far away, I'd be worried if I couldn't keep eyes on my DC in a large supermarket.

Yes. This year's Y3 sports day a prime example. Boy sitting with his 'responsible adult', having left the main group (not his mother, but aunt and grandmother) and shouting 'I hate you Whatafustercluck's dd' getting progressively louder and louder. No attempt by his minders to intervene, so yes I told him to stop, loudly. And he did. It's pretty well known that the boy has SEN (suspect adhd from the behaviour) but so too does my dd, who struggled to attend sports day last year due to anxiety. So I saw red. I mean, I understand the challenges of parenting a child with SEN, but there's never much parenting on display where this boy is concerned. Like, literally nothing. His minders didn't even apologise because they're used to his behaviour I suppose. I'd be much more sympathetic if they'd made a token effort to tell him to stop and apologised on his behalf.

@Ellaalltheway If another kid is messing with mine & their parents are not doing anything, then hell, yeah!

My now 18yr old son still recalls a time when a kid in the park deliberately & randomly whacked him across the face with a closed umbrella, to get him off a piece of play equipment. I firmly corrected said child & their nowhere to be seen at the time mother later tracked me down & complained that I'd made her child cry - safe to say, our interaction did not go as she expected or wanted. 🤣

Yes I've done it many times.

Yes - yesterday 2 girls on their own in the cinema speaking very loudly directly in front of me for the first 15 minutes. I leaned forwards and said clearly "Girls you are talking very loudly. I don't think that's appropriate in here". Not a telling off per say but a reminder of ways in different places. Girl very politely said sorry and we watched the rest of the film undisturbed. Sometimes we all need reminders, just needs to be done politely, but assertively.

I agree with you about the seat-kicking. I disagree with practically everything else you have said.

Perhaps you didn’t read my post carefully enough to notice the bit where I wrote unless it was done to be deliberately intimidating or was threatening the safety of the other children.

Yes, all the time. I’m a primary school teacher. I can’t imagine not intervening. That is the village raising the child.

Yes I have intervened when I felt it was necessary. Often older kids aren't thinking too much about what they are doing and asking them politely to stop doing something that is causing a problem, works.

Yeah, a couple of years ago, doing the school run. We were walking home behind a mum and her 2 kids, and her son was eating sweets and spitting all over the pavement, obviously as we were behind them we kept having to dodge his globules of purple spit - me making sure our dog didn't also step in it.

I said something like "please stop spitting, it's really not nice" I didn't raise my voice and I wasn't nasty but the mum absolutely lost her shit and snapped at me 😂 she was outraged that I had dared to ask her son to stop spitting on the pavement... There's no reasoning with stupid though

Yes I would. I do, and I don't mind if other people tell my child off (reasonably). No one is perfect, they are all still learning, no parents have eyes in the back of their heads.

It takes a village to raise a child after all

Maybe he did go too far in threatening a consequence he had no power to enforce, but he didn't actually use or threaten violence. He reacted in an understandable way for a parent whose child was being hurt. If your child hurts someone and you do nothing to stop the behaviour, you lose control over the consequences because you can't control / dictate how others will react. If the parent had nipped the behaviour in the bud straight away, the other child's father wouldn't have had to do anything.

I think when it's something that can cause someone else to get hurt you have to act there and then. You can't take the time to figure out who the child's parent is and locate them when they are doing something dangerous with a stick.

In general it's a shared world, we have to rub along together and you have to expect your DC to come into contact with other people and be interacted with. You might follow a particular parenting philosophy but others have their own way of doing things.

I have been known to deploy my teacher voice.