I’m so irritated with myself, this happened 2 days ago now and I’m still replaying it and feeling annoyed.
I had a run in with another mum at soft play this week. Long story short, ds8 came back complaining that 2 older boys had been following him and had kicked him in the stomach and hit him round the head after he’d asked to have a go on something they were using. I’m generally pretty relaxed at soft play - kids will be kids and all that but felt this was more than typical soft play behaviour and should be followed up on. I didn’t know the kids obviously. Ds spotted one and pointed him out. We went over and I asked if something had happened with my son and he said yes when his mum appeared seconds later and started having a go at me for approaching her son and I should be speaking to her not him. The great irony of all this is that in fact I agree with this and the next words out of my mouth to her son would have been to ask where his mum was.... but instead I freeze and pretty much say nothing other than to say ‘how can I find out who the mum is without speaking to him?’ Bearing in mind this is a boy of about 10, not a little kid. Anyway, she basically rants on about how her son and his friend have already told her what happened, apparently my son was hurting them and hey were afraid..... he is about a head shorter than them and there was only one of him but ok..... and how of course she will believe them and I will believe my son and I should have just told him that these things happen in soft play etc etc (which is what I would generally do but not if he’s complaining of being kicked and hit!) Also I would want to hear from another parent if there was any chance that my son had been behaving like that. Knowing ds well enough I think it’s highly likely that he was annoying them about the item of equipment he wanted to use and that he would not tell me that he had been winding them up and annoying them, but equally he is unlikely to be lying about what they did to him as that’s not really his style - he’ll lie about what he’s done but not about what someone else has done if that makes sense.
But that’s not really the main point. I’m just so irritated at myself for letting her rant at me for speaking to her son for 1 minute - I didn’t shout, I didn’t tell him off, I didn’t say anything other than ‘did something happen with my son’ to make sure it was the eighth boy and then she appeared before I could say anything else. I feel I was perfectly justified in following up on this, and I’m just so cross with myself for not defending this and not even managing to say what my sons story was. Instead I just went silent. This happens whenever I come across anyone confrontational. In some ways maybe it was the right thing to do anyway as I doubt she was interested in my point of view and it maybe would have riled her further but I’ve come away feeling pathetic and annoyed with myself for not speaking up for myself and my son and like I just got a big telling off from another adult.
So out of interest firstly are there others out there who just are rubbish at dealing with this kind of situation and then find that it sticks in your head as you plot all the things you should have said but didn’t?
And secondly out of interest was I unreasonable to have approached her son? Like I say I barely said 2 words to him before she appeared and I was intending to just ask where his mum was but didn’t get the chance. Was I wrong to have spoken to him at all?? I’ve not really been in this situation before as our soft play trips are usually fairly trouble free!
Sorry for the length of this message, I’ve just been dwelling on it all for a couple of days now. It was a long story short at all!!