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?

I agree with @Bluntness100 , it's really worrying that this behaviour was accepted, even encouraged when frankly it was just plain rude. This will not help your daughter in life as you think, but will hinder her, you need to teach her the balance.

Sorry, when Child A started whining and being rude to the OP.

And I’m not agreeing on inclusion either. As a mum I don’t think it’s any issue to encourage a class to include anyone who wants to play in a tag game eg.

In adult life people don’t get up and move tables in the work canteen when a colleague they don’t really like that much joins the group for lunch.

In many social settings inclusion is expected of adults and children need to learn that too.

I do like the new feature that allows you just to see the OPs posts.

I’m not reading people pleaser.

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

I agree fully on this. Because rhe parents were in control. They should have stepped in, the op should have explained to her daughter it wasn’t just about her, and she had to think of how her behaviour made others feel and explained what was socially acceptable behaviour. She is old enough to understand.

The other mum on seeing the op was going to allow this behaviour , should have taken her daughter and left and explained why to the op instead of leaving her child crying and hurt at the rejection.

I'm really surprised at the posts on here. It's rude to ditch your friend end of. Imagine if I invited a friend out for a drink at the pub for a couple of hours. And half way through I went and sat at a table on my own for some "alone time". 1 that's weird 2. It's rude.

I do you were away for a whole weekend or something it's a bit different but if it's a few hours then no you don't take that as an opportunity to have your needed alone time. You do it afterwards.

Special needs of course are an exception to this.

Yeah mum A picking a fight with a child wasn't helpful.

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.

I agree. It's pretty rude behaviour.

Child B was cheeky
Child A was whiny

Both parents need to be a bit less tolerant of whining and telling tales and rudeness. The children are 8 so they will be like this sometimes but there's no need to indulge them.

@GlummyMcGlummerson

OK, so I'm MumB.

To answer questions/clarify points:

MumA is a good friend, and as a result our kids are friends, us mums made the arrangement to go to soft play. There was no "agreement" to attend from DD, it was more "we're going to soft play with ChildA on Saturday" which she was fine with.

My DD wasn't bored of her friend, she just gets to a point where she prefers time to herself. She very rarely has a personal problem with people, but she gets tired of people's company in general. She does like to have alone time. She will often, after a busy day at school or home, go to play in her room alone for an hour as she wants a bit of breathing space from others, including me and her DB.

I have always always always taught her to speak up when she feels her personal boundaries are being compromised, and not just put up with being unsafe, uncomfortable or unhappy to avoid offending anyone. I'm raising a little girl in a patriarchal world where girls are socialised from practically the day they're born to be polite and compliant and not to ruffle feathers. I'm trying to counter that and raise a girl who will stick up for herself and own her bodily autonomy.

I don't think 8 is too old for soft play, it has target practices and vertical slides, it takes all my power not to join in with them

I didn't leave because actually neither of my kids were wanting to leave or making a fuss. DD wanted to continue to play, just alone. And because I'm not psychic, I wasn't able to predict that "2 hours was too long" (not that it was) so I'm a bit at people suggesting I shouldn't have booked such a long session (they only had 2.5 hour sessions)

Anyway the reason I posted is because I'm kicking myself a little that I didn't call my friend out on making my DD feel bad. I guess because I am the kind of woman who doesn't like to ruffle feathers, that socialisation got to me a long time ago (and I was raised to be ladylike and always polite to other no matter how I felt).

Well your child and you were still rude on this occasion. Sometimes you do need to put others before yourself. It's a tricky balance and one that you should be helping your child find. Not going too far the other way and becoming a person who is selfish, always putting their needs first.

The balance on this occasion would have either have been to end the play date if your child had had enough of socialising so child A didn't feel left out and shunned. Or to have said to your child to continue playing for 20/30 mins until you could leave at which point she can take her alone time. Which as you say is good for her to identify that she needs and feel ok for her to take at an appropriate time. There will be lots of reasons why alone time may not be appropriate right now.

Presumably if you are midway through dinner or she is in the middle of a school lesson for example she knows it's not ok to take alone time then. This is just another example when it's not ok.

Just think how it would make you feel if a friend just got up and went and sat at their own table in a pub. Leaving you drinking alone. Because they decided they'd like to stay in the pub but be on their own. You would be understandably cross and may be upset and you would think it rude. It's the same thing.

@TiersBeforeBedtime
I understand what you’re saying. I’m talking from the child’s POV. Primary schools tend to teach inclusion, which is possibly where Child A was coming from. At 8 children tend to have very black and white thinking and possibly wouldn’t get the subtleties of one person or a group of people leaving her out. My dd definitely didn’t at this age.

I do agree with you about not getting too involved in children’s arguments. What I don’t agree with is that op was encouraging her dd to have a bit of a breather before playing again. That’s not how I read the comments at all. For me, her dd had decided she had had enough of child A for the day.

@Hazelnutlatteplease

Did the kids come to play with each other or the parents come to talk?

2.5 hours is a long time in soft play hell

I agree and wouldn't have deleted the H word.

There were no designated 'soft play' areas when my child was little. Obviously he played in safe places but the label was not known.

I can't even bear to think of parents having to sit somewhere with loads of other parents for so long while their children play but I 'get' that people are used to that now. However, during this pandemic?

@GlummyMcGlummerson

I wouldn't be impressed either if a friend took off half way through a dinner, but children going along with their parents plans is hardly the same is it

Not relevant. Another example might be a dinner you are attending arranged by your husband. Would you go off and sit on your own half way through because you didn't fancy it any more and wanted some alone time? No not ok. It's rude.

If you wouldn’t bin your own friend off for 10 / 15 / 30 minutes of alone time on a one-on-one get-together (how completely weird would that be?), then why would you encourage your child to do it?

Sorry, my previous comment was not helpful. I think parents should stay out of children's squabbles and these are only little.

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

Yes, I pity all who have to sit through it though.

The parents were unreasonable here to expect two children to play together for 2.5 hours. If it had been an hour and after 30 minutes child B had decided they wanted alone time, I would have said she needed to learn politeness and flexibility. It's all very well teaching her to speak up if she wants to be alone, but that's not how the real world works. In the real world you have to balance others' feelings against your own. However, in this situation, I have every sympathy that after 2 hours she was probably just tired and fed up. Two children playing together is much more intense than a larger group playing together because you can't go off and play with someone else.

@Cnto if the parent of child A was posting here I'd not change the gist of my post to her. But as it is child B's mum....

Both kids and both parents were selfish in much the same way.

@MerchantOfVenom

If you wouldn’t bin your own friend off for 10 / 15 / 30 minutes of alone time on a one-on-one get-together (how completely weird would that be?), then why would you encourage your child to do it?

I assume she would encourage her dd to do it, because she doesn’t think her dd has a real friendship with this girl that would justify comparing it to adults dumping their friends in a social situation - they just happened to have been dumped in the same soft play area together so that their mothers could meet up, even though this compromised her dd’s personal boundaries! Or, to quote from @GlummyMcGlummerson - “I have always always always taught her to speak up when she feels her personal boundaries are being compromised, and not just put up with being unsafe, uncomfortable or unhappy to avoid offending anyone. I'm raising a little girl in a patriarchal world where girls are socialised from practically the day they're born to be polite and compliant and not to ruffle feathers. I'm trying to counter that and raise a girl who will stick up for herself and own her bodily autonomy.”

What she actually means is, she is teaching her dd that it is OK for Mum to take her to a soft play area because that is what suits Mum, and to leave another girl feeling unsafe, uncomfortable and unhappy there, because it wasn’t her choice to be with the other girl in the soft play area in the first place and therefore it was OK to dump her when she got boring, because she never made any promises to this girl to be her friend, friendly, or play with her in the first place and therefore shouldn’t be held to any normal standards of friendship or consideration for others, as girl A was just another of many children in a soft play area to her.

I mean, it does somewhat boil down to whether or not these two girls are actually "friends" or not.

If they're friends...it's a fairly rubbish way to treat your friends.

If they're not friends...why are they being forced to spend so much time together?

All in all, girl A was spot on that they are not good friends!

Not relevant. Another example might be a dinner you are attending arranged by your husband. Would you go off and sit on your own half way through because you didn't fancy it any more and wanted some alone time? No not ok. It's rude.
But if you're husband took you to a party and went and chatted to his mate, and his mates wife came and talk to you and after 2 hours of her company you'd really had enough, you're at a party so there's other people she could talk to or she could safely and acceptably be on her own, do you really think it wouldn't be ok to make your excuses and move on? Ops child isn't a babysitter

Why didn’t you just defuse it by taking them to get a snack, or engaging the one who felt left out in conversation or something?

If the girls are friends, Mum A is perfectly right that it isn't nice to ditch your friends (though she shouldn't have said it to Girl B) and Girl A is right that Girl B isn't a good friend, even if saying it aloud hurt Girl B's feelings. Having said that, 2.5 hours was too long for a child who likes her own company so OP is primarily to blame.

If, as seems to be the case, they're not really friends except inasmuch as it enables the two mums to meet and send the girls off to play together, the situation is more complicated. Girl A obviously has a mistaken view of their relationship - that they are good friends and shouldn't ditch each other - whereas Girl B seems to find Girl A a bit too much and is just putting up with her for as long as she can stand to keep her mum happy. Not ideal for either child.

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.

She'd given 2 hours of her time. And yes I do hope I'm raising a child who doesn't sit somewhere, a meal with friends etc, too afraid to speak up that she wants to go home like me

That's just plain rude. What she effectively said was 'go away you are boring me now'.

No she wasn't. It wasn't personal, she'd have felt that way with anybody there. She's not there to entertain my friend's DD, she's not obliged to have anyone glued to her side when it makes her uncomfortable

@pipnchops

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.

It was mostly for a mums meet up but the kids have known each other for years so we kind of assumed they'd play together