Perspective needed - I made another Mum cry yesterday.

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I need some help to decide if what I did was ok, I felt right about it in the moment but then this poor woman cried and I feel worried I did wrong. Tell me what you think.

I was at a busy playpark yesterday with lots of children. There is a tall treehouse thing which has a slide out of it. There are steps around the back to get up to it, but doing this is out of eyeline of the slide.
There was a small boy, probably nearly 3ish, at the top of the slide he wasn't coming down but wasn't letting anyone past. His mum was at the bottom of the slide cajoling him 'come down x, come on darling, ok well let the other children come down etc'. He wasn't moving, this continued for 3 or 4 minutes. During which time the queue of children waiting snaked all the way back through the tree house and down the step sections.

Not sure why, but then he turned and started to hit the other children around him. Really hitting hard, one little girl next to him in particular was getting beaten around the head and face. His mum then walked off around the back to go up and get him. Lots of parents at the foot of the slide were shouting at the little boy to stop hitting, there were 4 children crying from being attacked and he wasn't stopping. So I ran up the slide to get to him and took his hands and said 'don't hit them, it's not kind'. The mother then appears behind him and sharply tells me 'I can handle this'. She lifts him down the steps. I go back down the slide.

A few minutes later she appears beside me telling me she doesn't think I needed to intervene, that my child wasn't in danger from him. I told her that none of those children up there were my children actually, mine had changed her mind and left the queue. I calmly told her that he was hurting and scaring the children and I couldn't let him do that. She said 'he is very tired and only little' so I replied ' I totally understand that, we all have days like this, but I had to step in, he was really hurting them'. Then she burst into tears. I told her it was ok, we all have days like this. But then her friend came over, gave me an evil look and took her away.

I feel bad now that she cried, but I also feel like there were 4 children crying and scared. Did I do the wrong thing?

Some of the responses on this thread have really shocked me!
You cannot touch another child? under any circumstances? absolutely bizarre and a load of bollocks.

If my child was the one doing the hitting, I would be embarrassed in this situation, but I would not be unhappy that someone else stopped them!!??

And snowy - you're on another planet. It doesn't matter one jot what caused this boy to lash out, only that it was happening and needed to stop.

And people saying OP should only intervene if it directly involved her own child! Jesus, is that for real???

And I think the saying is 'All it takes for evil to prevail, is for good men to do nothing' or something like that.

We are really supposed to just standby and watch now? Just incase someone's feelings get hurt. Because lets face it, OP didn't physically hurt the little boy by touching his hand. And maybe now he'll think twice about lashing out at other children at the park.

@Snowymountainsalways
Maybe the parents of the kids being hit,where not near enough.

If that was my child hitting or being hit i would be glad of somebody to intervene.As i said if it was your child you be glad of someone stepping in.

It mightnt be what you would do,doesnt mean the op was wrong though.

Perhaps you are only two, and it is your first time on a slide. You're queuing patiently, like all the big boys and girls. And then suddenly, pow! a bigger boy has whacked you across the face! Slam! The child next to you gets it on the chin. Is that the big boys mummy? Why isn't he doing anything? Smack! The little boy in the red jumper gets a taste. Nobody is doing anything to help! This big boy is hurting you all for no reason and you are stranded, stranded on the top of the big slide in the park, abandoned

And then we wonder why people grow up so violent and antisocial these days!. If OP had just stood there, the victims on the slide would have felt like the adults were happy to just stand around watching them getting the shit kicked out of them. They would have grown up resenting authority and likely seeing extreme violence as normal and acceptable. Then when they're 17 and stab someone, we wonder why? We're creating monsters!!

Everyone is taking your story at face value op and not questioning what may have happened to the 3 year old :(

Good grief @Snowymountainsalways overinvested much?

Step away from the keyboard and take a pill.

DorasBob, if it's me you are referring to, I have two boys, aged 11 and 12 years old and they are still under control. I am writing on this board with experience and hindsight. You simply do not tell another child off. It's not your job. What you do is you step away (and take your own child with you). And you pay attention to the child or children who have been hurt and make sure they are ok. This way, the child who is misbehaving isn't getting any attention whatsoever. For many toddlers, any attention is good so they will misbehave just to get attention from an adult. If another adult present gives them attention, they have achieved their goal. If on the contrary you pay attention to the child who has been hurt, you have a much better chance of actually changing the behaviour of the child who has misbehaved.

Not normalising anything. In fact, trying to explain that it’s not ok to go around restraining random children in parks when the mother is already there and trying to discipline the child herself.

Instead of reaching out to hold back someone else’s child, just remove your own from danger. Why is that hard? OP knocks this child off by mistake or he gets a mysterious bruise and the Mum can’t know if OP did it or not? Then it can be escalated and OP can find herself in a whole world of trouble, when all she had to do was wait 10 seconds and the Mum could have dealt with it herself.

This is why teachers do not touch children in their care, even for cuddles.

The slap in soft play sounds suspect as well. I’ve never even witnessed anything like that

I was at soft play once with a friend. Our dcs were playing at the far end of the frame so not involved in following incident -

2 boys who seemed to know each other, maybe 5/6? We're having a full on, roll around the floor scrap right near us. Pulling hair, punching each other. My friend looked around for parents but not came, so she dived in, pulled them apart and told them that fighting was NOT allowed at soft play.

I was impressed. She sat back down next to me and carried on with her coffee. Still no parent came but the boys stopped fighting.

It takes a village to raise a child etc.

I think what people are telling you Snowy is that it simply doesn’t matter what happened to the 3 yr old. He was the only one hitting other people and the OP did nothing outher than stop his hands hitting and calmly tell him no. Why the 3 yr old was hitting us a matter for after all the hitting was stopped.

I’m not sure how hard a 3 year old could hit and hurt someone

At that age a child can put someone in hospital with a well placed smack in the face. He was hitting other children round the head and face. And they were on top of a slide - the little girl he was hitting could have gone over backwards before the boy's Mum got there.

He sounds like he has some SEN and the children behind him were crowding him and he freaked out - if so touching him was completely out of order

No it still wouldn't be out of order. (I've done SEN play training.) He was hitting the other kids, it was unsafe and he needed to be physically stopped asap. Him being freaked out doesn't mean he gets to hit the other children til he feels like stopping.

Strangers do not get to touch you. This is what we teach children so why is it ok for OP to have done this.

They do if you are hitting other people. Physical safety trumps all else.

I'm sorry the other Mum was upset (and I've been upset myself in situations I couldn't handle!) but I don't see that you did anything wrong widget.

Mymycherrypie I agree, whenever my children have been hit by others when they were small whether intentionally for a toy or just by accident. I have always simply taken my children away. I have never seen it as my role to discipline other people's children.

I think you did fine op.
And yes I feel a bit sorry for the other mum.
Put it down to life.

Its not your job
But it is your community responsibility. Snowy I just hope we don't need to rely on you if someone had fallen and hurt themselves, was lost, was drowning, was being shouted at or abused in the street. You just walk on by, and be content in the knowledge it isn't your job.

Alot of the posters are totally missing the point that the mother was actually there! She was present and she was running up the stairs to the slide. If you can see this, then there is no reason to get involved.

*of the slide

Well she would seem to have been taking a circuitous route.

Personally I'd have thanked the op for getting up there to stop the mayhem however humiliated I might have felt.

I have told other children off in parks etc, if they are being violent.

One in particular who was hitting other kids in the face with a stick while hogging the playhouse I remember.

However, I just cannot get over the image of you running up the slide to this child when you KNEW his mother was on the way to him.

A slide that is suitable for toddlers is not going to be that big, even if she had to go round the back and up the steps.

Yes she should have intervened sooner, I just do not see why YOU felt the need to intervene when you did, when the mother was on her way already and indeed as you said yourself you got there seconds before her.

I'd rather be feeling bad for the crying woman than terrible because a kid had fallen off the slide and been badly injured. That could have been the hitting boy too. It was a judgement call and she made it. Correctly, in my view.

I'm not sure how hard a 3 year old could hit and hurt someone

When DS2 was in nursery class he'd launch an attack on me at hometime, it fucking hurt! The teacher was the only one who could stop him. Caused by overtiredness, she'd get him ready, I'd strap him in the buggy and he'd sleep until teatime.

Alot of the posters are totally missing the point that the mother was actually there! She was present and she was running up the stairs to the slide.

The OP already said, the boy's mother couldn't get there fast enough. She wasn't running up the stairs, she was struggling past other children.

Snowy - she wasn't disciplining the other child though... she was stopping him from physically harming others - they are not the same thing !!!

I wouldn't have touched. But I guarantee that the telling off he'd have gotten from me would have stopped him.

To all those saying so sagely that a child should never be touched by a stranger.
What about the other children who were also being touched (hit!) by a stranger?
Does the naughty child's needs overrule the victims' needs?

So, to be straight - the naughty child must not be touched on any account, but the victims' of his behaviour - who presumably must also not be touched on any account - have to suck it up, even though they are being touched by the naughty child.
It doesn't work, does it?