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?

It really doesn't matter that the mother was present, she didn't react to the situation in time and another adult had to step in. She should be embarrassed. OP you did nothing wrong, she cried because she obviously was embarrassed.
It amazes me that the feelings of an out of control child always seem to trump that of the children they are hurting or picking on.
I would have done exactly the same and I wouldn't have been there with my own children, I would have been there with my minded children. If they were to ever hurt someone I would intervene, clearly that makes me unreasonable as they are not my children so I should never have any physical contact with them!

If the mother is reading,

The mother was doing something-she went to get him and you just happened to get there first. If the mother wasn't' there then I would have said something to him, but with his mum there, I think you were in the wrong for getting involved. I expect his mum was embarrassed and upset.

The hit from a 3 year old to another 3 or 4 year old is hard enough to make the victim cry.... not sure how people reason though but parents need to get a grip and take control of their kids when they are being unruly and stop the lame excuses. YANBU. Welldone

Mother was in processing of sorting it out - ie going up the stairs to retrieve hitting child. OP, with what seems like a flair for the dramatic, runs up the slide and removes child. Saving seconds. No wonder mother felt undermined and was tearful. And when OP added in that somewhat gratuitous comment that he was really hurting the other children.

It’s not about not touching other children - it’s about letting the parent sort the situation whe she was already in the process of doing so!

If I was a parent of one of those children being hit then I would have been shouting at the little boy to stop too. The mum should have gone to collect him from the top of the slide as soon as he refused to go down and a queue started forming.

You did nothing wrong OP, just showed the mum what to do in future...

There’s many incidents in soft play etc where you find yourselves given other children a mild telling off of if the parents aren’t close to hand ( or not doing something about) . You can’t just stand by and not say something whilst children are hitting/ biting/ pushing others just because your children aren’t one of those involved.

If I'd been that pregnant woman watching my child taking a beating I would have been grateful.

I think the child was bloody lucky that none of the other kids that he was hitting decided to just chuck him down the slide to be honest! I’ve always told my children never to hit first but if someone is physically attacking you then it’s fine to respond physically to make them stop. If the mum didn’t want her son to get hurt she should have stopped him sooner.

OP you did the right thing.

Children lash out when they feel threatened, I expect the child felt threatened. He shouldn't have been allowed to hit, but children do, the mother should have intervened earlier. I expect there is something deeper here re the mum and child. I say that as a mother of a child with ASD.

I don't think you did wrong.

You did the right thing. The other mum was stressed because she should have acted quicker. Maybe she was also quite tired.

The thing that occurs to me is that I doubt it was a case of holding the hands gently. Any child that is upset and lashing out is going to be struggling to get away and you'll have to hold on with some force to stop that.
So I think that in that circumstance that was the wrong thing to do to a child who was not your child, especially as she was pretty much there with him.

She was on her way to get him, you were wrong to step in. Do not touch other people's children, you have no clue how they might respond. Many children have special needs and react horrible to touch.

It's a tough situation. I usually err on the side of, "you shouldn't put your hands on someone else's child" but at the same time, she wasn't handling the situation properly, other children. You did what you thought was right.

I don't think you crossed any lines here, but I probably would have handled things a little differently. It sounds like she was stressed and upset (and maybe embarrassed) by her child's actions vs. really being angry with you.

recommendations please : looking for a decent driving school for my daughter, in Barnet EN5.

It’s not about not touching other children - it’s about letting the parent sort the situation whe she was already in the process of doing so!

She wasn't though, OP managed to get there before her. This woman wasn't in a massive rush to get their because her child wasn't the one being assaulted.

There, not their

@losmn YABU 🤣

It seems like she was upset about the whole situation and not just because of your actions. She was probably very embarrassed. If a child was hitting my child I would have told them to stop. I wouldn't have gotten involved with other people's children because their parents should have done that. Though it sounds like you were doing what nobody else was and helped stop the situation, which should have been stopped sooner.

@thats well the OP says the mother went up the stairs to sort the situation. So I’m unsure why she felt the need to run up the slide? It was being dealt with

I’m a mother to 2 SEN children and would not have appreciated you approaching one of my children.

Your child wasn’t even child involved - you should have kept out of it!

@strongmummy Exactly. The mom was heading up to get her kid, why did OP need to get involved?

I’m a mother to 2 SEN children and would not have appreciated you approaching one of my children
You having 2 SEN children is irrelevant to the story. There is no prove that the child in this case has SEN. People are guessing. A woman has stopped another child being belted. She was fair and firm.

I guess if it was your kids being battered you wouldn't appreciate that either and possibly be grateful that somebody put an end to it.

The OP was closer and had more noose to stop the situation much sooner. A child could have fallen. Children were being hurt.

It doesn’t matter who the other children belonged to they were being hurt & no one was stopping it.

Because she wasn't getting there fast enough and other children were have the shit belted out of them waiting for the mother to get there. Sounds like she knew there was about to be an outburst so she should have probably felt with the situation before it got to that point.

Child protection is everyones business