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?

You saw she was in her way up to him, no need for you to zoom up the slide just to get there a fraction before her.

Some people cry from frustration or anger.
You clearly thought you'd take it upon yourself to look good in front of the other parents, who weren't in a rush to do so btw, after you'd seen she was already on her way to sort it. If you were that bothered, you'd have stepped in earlier. Horrible move

From what I can tell the only person who behaved appropriately is your daughter. I don’t think you should have intervened as the mother was on her way up to him. Totally different if she wasn’t around. She did take too long to react to his behaviour in the first place. However, if my daughter was being slapped uncontrollably I would have been up that slide like a rocket, and grateful to you for putting a stop to it. You can look at this situation from many different ways.

I thought the OP was just trying to protect the other children.

Your own children were not involved so why was it any of your business? . . ...Yes, this is why if I see children getting beaten up by bullies after school, I never say anything. Not my kids, not my business.

YWNBU

The mother had it all in hand and was taking appropriate action. There was no need for OP to do anything at all. This is not at all comparable to a bullying intervention.

YANBU, if my child was taking a beating and I couldn't get to her for whatever reason I'd be grateful for someone intervening.

I assumed the op's kid was up there. If they weren't I might have shouted up but not gone up. If they were and were hitting my kid, the little toe rag would be lucky I'm so mild mannered.

StrangeLookingParasite You seem confused because I never said you shouldn’t intervene. I said you shouldn’t restrain someone else’s child.

Gently restraining was the only way anyone could have intervened in a situation like this.

Or waiting for the mother to arrive, 10 seconds later. No one else felt the need to take such action and their own children were in the firing line... if you read my posts I am happy for people to intervene if I am not there, and will intervene if there is no adult present and someone will be hurt. By speaking to the child and removing my own from danger. However I will not touch another child because I don’t want to be in court if that child ends up in hospital for some other random reason and “that lady who touched him in the park did it” is a convenient excuse.

To be fair the OP didn't know how long it would take for the mother to arrive and the children's mothers were either pregnant or with other children.

10 seconds is a lot of bashing time.

The mum was already on her way to sort it out when you decided to run up the slide and take hold of him. You should have stayed out of it unless there was no parent around.

Even then I’m appaled that all these adults are shouting at a scared young child who appears to be lashing out when stressed out. How did that help the situation?

^^ I agree fully with what @Nicknacky wrote.

Bears the child had been blocking the slide for 3 or 4 minutes, prior to starting to hit the other children. It’s quite clear in the OP.

The other parents probably panicked when they saw the children being hit

All those “appalled”, I am actually appalled you think it’s ok to advocating holding down a small child that isn’t yours, in favour of just saying “come on, let’s play somewhere else where you aren’t being hit”. Seems provocative and exactly the sort of behaviour to get you slapped in a soft play.

All the people shouting at him were probably very alarmed that their children were being hit and they couldn't get up there themselves.

Would you expect them to keep their mouths shut in these circumstances just in case the mother was embarrassed or the child didn't like being told to stop.

^ that is to everyone saying that removing your own child is ridiculous advice and the only course of action was restraint.

Woolly, there is somewhere in between keeping your mouth shut and putting up with it, and racing the mother up a slide in order to restrain her small son and be named saviour of all playground disputes by the “victims” parents. There are other options.

How do the other small children manage to get somewhere else to play when a child is blocking the slide, and the way out is blocked by other children queueing and other mother trying to climb up?

Yes, if you can move freely, you move out of harms way and avoid trouble.

In this case, they needed help to do so.

I'm sure the children being hit were very grateful to the OP. The mum clearly didn't handle it brilliantly and being hit by a 3 year old does hurt.

I had touch a child who must of been about 4 as he was pulling another girl's hair in soft play once. I have had my hair pulled and it fucking hurts so no time to look for parents. Her dad thanked me afterwards. Unsure if the boys mum even knew I intervened.