Soft play situation - who is in the right?

[GlummyMcGlummerson]

Two mums meet at soft play with their 8yo girls - MumA & ChildA, and MumB & ChildB.

The slot is 2.5 hours, and after 2 hours ChildA comes to the adults crying because ChildB isn't playing with her anymore. ChildB approaches the table and MumA says "ChildA is upset because she says you won't play with her." ChildB responds "Yes I just want to play on my own for a bit". MumA says it's not nice to ditch your friend. MumB says that ChildB often gets tired of company and likes to do her own thing sometimes, and she's been taught to speak up if she ever feels like having alone time.

ChildA spends the rest of the session crying while ChildB goes to play on her own. ChildA says to her at the end that she isn't a good friend, which upsets ChildB.

Who was in the right, and should either mum have done anything differently?

"You go out to dinner with a friend, after thr starter you decide you’ve had enough socialising so decide to eat your meal at a seperate table alone"

Except that these two girls hadn't arranged/asked to meet & neither mother helped them to deal with it when one had had enough & the other hadn't.

@Bluntness100

Why didn’t she have the option of going home? Exactly why couldn’t her mother have taken her home?

She didn't have the option of deciding to leave and get herself home. Obviously her mum could have taken her home, but the child didn't have control over that.

OP, have you posted on this particular child before? I think there's a back story here and this isn't the first time Child A has been a bit difficult or overbearing to your DD in your view. Why are you still expecting the two girls to play together as friends when they clearly don't really 'gel'?

@diddl

"You go out to dinner with a friend, after thr starter you decide you’ve had enough socialising so decide to eat your meal at a seperate table alone"

Except that these two girls hadn't arranged/asked to meet & neither mother helped them to deal with it when one had had enough & the other hadn't.

I was talking with my 10 year old DS the other day about this sort of thing. Saying actually it is pretty hard being a kid sometimes because you have very little control over your own life.

Just a random musing.

@diddl

"You go out to dinner with a friend, after thr starter you decide you’ve had enough socialising so decide to eat your meal at a seperate table alone"

Except that these two girls hadn't arranged/asked to meet & neither mother helped them to deal with it when one had had enough & the other hadn't.

This is the point, yes. If an adult agrees to do an activity with a friend, they take into account whether they're going to cope with it. If they feel they're not, they'll cancel or rearrange or something - they will generally know what they can cope with. A child doesn't have that self-awareness for starters, plus in this case it was really the adults who made the decision to do 2.5 hours of soft play. The child just heard "soft play" and went with it.

How awkward. My child would be child B and I would be very uncomfortable if a mum spoke to my child like mum A spoke to child B. That mum was being very unreasonable for sure. Child A sounds very precious.

Think mum B handled it well. Mum A should have given her child the option to play on her own or go home. If she continued to cry then go home.

Yes and if you’re a child and you can’t cope then your parent takes control. As soon as her daughter said I don’t want to play with my mate anymore then the op should have ended the play date and taken her home. Letting her continue you to play whilst her friend sat alone crying is not ok.

This is what parenting is about. When a child is unable to decide or cope the parent steps in.

You’d do it as an adult, you’d leave. You teach your child the same manners.

Oh my word!!!

A child being raised with boundaries that include telling a friend they 'want to be alone' part way through an out of the house play date.

That's just plain rude. What she effectively said was 'go away you are boring me now'. Boundaries, like any other rights, come part and parcel with responsibilities. Most responsibilities are really just ways of being polite. Most people are brought up knowing that socialising means a bit of give and take. At 8 both children would have known there was about 30 minutes left and your child should have been polite and carried on playing, or at the very least not deliberately rejecting the other child.

You're only doing half a job with your daughter. Being yourself, having boundaries and not being put upon has to be balanced with being able to read social situations and accommodating them as social mores dictate. An occasional bit of boredom is par for the course.

Then again there is so much more me than we in society these days. Maybe I'm just old fashioned!!!

See, @CuriousaboutSamphire, I'd say Mum A was the one teaching her child that "it's all about me". Carrying on and crying for half an hour about this at the age of eight is absolutely ridiculous. If Child A had been mine, I'd have told her to go and play on her own, or find someone else to play with/go and see what her sibling(s) were up to, etc. If she'd carried on crying, I'd have told her to go and sit in the car if she wanted to make that silly noise.

@Jellycatspyjamas

I would expect my DD to leave someone alone who wanted to be left alone.

You would also expect her to negotiate with you to have the time you wanted with your friend, even if she wanted to leave, but you wouldn’t expect her to negotiate with her friend when they were out together.

You’re completely ignoring the fact that as her parent you expect her to accommodate your needs and feelings but don’t extend the same expectation to her friends. If you’d expect her to give you 10 minutes, I’d expect her to negotiate with her friend in the same way.

How can you not see how it's different?

They didn't choose to do soft play together, we did as adults with the knowledge that they are usually good friends and so would play together. No child was obliged to be glued to the other's side. We just hoped it would be that way.

If she wanted to go I wouldn't immediately pack up because respecting her boundaries doesn't always mean she gets her way. If she wanted to go she'd have to understand that the day isn't just about her, it's about me and her brother too, hence why I would compromise.

Parent B could have explained at child A that someone B gets tired and needs some time out and then made an effort to talk to them whilst they were sat there

That's exactly what I did

@Mummyoflittledragon

I see you are a secondary school teacher. You absolutely cannot apply the way teen circles and primary aged school circles work. Primary, which I said earlier, is all about inclusion of all children. No one left out. Your dd left child A out. By wanting to stay inside the soft play area alone, your dd effectively told child A to go away and play in another section of the play equipment or not to follow her. Of course Child A was really upset. This is why people are advising you that the way the situation was handled was not good and will only create issues for your dd as she gets older.

That's nothing like a soft play situation my DD wanting to have some time alone after giving her friend 2 hours of her time is NOT the same as cruelly excluding an undeserving child 5 days a week, 39 weeks a year at school

Did the children want to play together or was this organised so the mums could meet up? That would make a difference to whether child B should have been encouraged to make more of an effort to play with their friend for the last half an hour. But as an introvert myself I can't help but feel sympathy for child B who might want a bit of a break after two hours playing with what sounds like quite a high maintenance child who is used to getting her own way. And why should child B have to go home early if they're still having fun, just because their friend throws a strop.

If child B often gets tired of company, then a soft play that they haven't asked for with someone else was probably doomed!

Child B is perfectly within her rights to state that she wants to play on her own for a while and Mum B is doing the right thing teaching her child to voice her needs.
Mum A should have comforted child A and then told her to find other children to play with or sit nicely and stop crying.

What she effectively said was 'go away you are boring me now'

No, she didn't. We don't actually know how Child B phrased it to Child A.

OP, I do agree with your sentiment to raise your dd to stick up for herself, but it's important how she does this. No great harm done this time, maybe have a chat about what to say when she feels she needs a break in future situations and to be mindful of the feelings of others.

I'm amazed soft play centres are open or that people are going! It's a germ fest at the best of times!

I think both were unreasonable as the two hours was clearly enough to cause needing alone time in one and tears in another. No you shouldn't make children play together but if a shared activity comes to a natural conclusion like it did here then it's time to go.

If she wanted to go I wouldn't immediately pack up because respecting her boundaries doesn't always mean she gets her way. If she wanted to go she'd have to understand that the day isn't just about her, it's about me and her brother too, hence why I would compromise

This is illogical and easy to say, because she didn’t wish to go did she, she wanted to stay and play and bin her mate off. You gave her exactly what she wished.

You’d not have done it to your friend, told her you’d had enough of her and went and sat at the table opposite on yout own and had your coffee. Because you know it’s rude as fuck. So why teach your child it’s ok.

No matter how you try to justify it, it’s not acceptable behaviour. You need to teach your child it’s not all about her, so she doesn’t get to treat people like this.

And yes the other mother should also have taken her kid home, explained that your daughters behaviour was very rude and when folks treat you like this you walk away from them and you don’t ever go back unless you get an apology and you wish to go back.

Because as adults when someone treats you like this that’s what you should do. Walk away from them.

Neither mother covered themselves in glory but your child was the protagonist here and it was on you to teach her acceptable behaviour to others.

Where did I compare this to 5 days a week, 39 weeks of the year? Some, maybe all primary schools expect children to accommodate others in their play at the child’s request. Child A was expected to either go away or not follow your dd because your dd had decided she’d had enough of her company. How your dd went about this and what she said is something you cannot know. The only thing clear is your dd wanted space and child A felt excluded.

@Bluntness100 I'd say it was up to Mother A to tell her DD to stop being a drama queen.

As for all the walking away, expecting apologies, etc, etc: this is why people have problems with friendships. All friendships have bumpy bits, and if the friendship is important, you move on and let them go.

This is what children need to be learning. You can fall out, but you can make up again. In the case of eight year olds, a good night's sleep does far more than hand-wringing, over-analysis, forced apologies etc.

I learned many, many years ago not to get involved in my children's friendship problems. I would listen, but only very rarely would I get involved - and only then if it was evidently an entrenched problem, rather than a falling-out. Otherwise I'd have spent my whole life worrying/analysing while the children would have long since made up.

And, as I say, children 'making up' normally just means having a bit of a breather from one another and then carrying on as if nothing had happened.

It sounds to me as if this is what the OP was encouraging. Mother A was turning it into a big deal, and it's not surprising that her DD acted like an irritating drama queen as a result.

@Mummyoflittledragon I'd say, too, that your analogy is all wrong. If Child B had also been playing with (imaginary) children C, D, and E, and they had all told Child A to go away, that would have been excluding her - and I'd have come down on Child B like a ton of bricks at that point (I suspect the OP - who sounds very sensible and level headed - would, too).

This wasn't the case, here.

Tiers, I think we need to agree to disagree. I would simply not do this to someone, I would not tell someone I’d had enough of them and them go and sit at another table on my own and ignore them, and I’d not let my daughter either.

And yes if some kid did it to my daughter I’d tell her it was rude and we should leave, not let her sit there crying.

It is socially unacceptable behaviour and it’s not a good thing to teach your child is ok,

Yes, I think we'll have to agree to disagree, Bluntness. It would also have been impossible to know exactly what had gone on even if you and I had been Mum A and Mum B - so it's even harder to judge when we weren't there!

I think both were unreasonable

I'm coming to the conclusion that actually it was both the mums who were unreasonable not the children.

The OP inflicted a social situation on her child which went on for longer than her DD could reasonably handle. She also didn't make it clear to the other mum in advance that her DD might not want to play with the other girl so the other mum could handle it better. Instead, she allowed her DD, having reached her 'social limit', to blow off Child A with no warning, who was understandably upset.

Child A's mum should have dealt with her own child, rather than criticizing Child B. She had no place doing that, since Child B's mum was there and ok with the behaviour, which was hurtful but not dangerous. She should have left quickly when Child B started whining and being rude to the OP. She's not responsible for Child B's rudeness but she is responsible for her own child's behaviour. And an 8 year old, however upset that her "friend" has deserted her, should know better than to cause such a fuss.

Both mums should think harder about how they can meet their respective children's needs, given their divergent personalities, when planning meet-ups in future.