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?

Maybe child b should have just said "i am tired now/hurt my knee, i'll go and sit with mum/have a drink"

And no one would think anything of that.

it would have same outcome of getting quiet time (i assume she could sit with mums drinking and looking at book/game quietly).

thats probably the lesson to teach her, you can leave if you have had too much but you can't do same activity on your own as it looks rude.

No, but it may explain why she didn't respond particularly well to you chatting to her. Children can tell when people don't like them. And she'd already been brushed off by your DD.

Was that dig about child A really necessary again? You are a teacher of secondary school children. From my experience, 8 year olds, still being little kids, are more tolerant of any kind of behaviour than those in secondary. Being a teacher of older children is very different from parenting them.

You don't have to like your friend's child - I strongly suspect your friend doesn't like your child, either. But it might make it increasingly difficult to meet up with the children - I know that's hard because it means you can't easily see each other at all but unfortunately things don't always align like that.

Op has already explained she doesn’t think this to be an acceptable solution.

It wasn't a dog, it's my experience in response to "your child will have no friends".

I'm aware teaching and parenting are different things thanks.

Being a teacher doesn't mean I have to adore all children. I tried to engage, she ignored me - at the age of 8 that is pretty rude.

*dig

Wow op

You’re not doing your kid any favours and you come across as deeply unpleasant.

Next time go alone and meet your mates and don’t drag your kid along with you.

@burnoutbabe

Maybe child b should have just said "i am tired now/hurt my knee, i'll go and sit with mum/have a drink"

And no one would think anything of that.

it would have same outcome of getting quiet time (i assume she could sit with mums drinking and looking at book/game quietly).

thats probably the lesson to teach her, you can leave if you have had too much but you can't do same activity on your own as it looks rude.

Oops I forgot to quote. Op has already said this is not an acceptable solution.

Being a teacher doesn't mean I have to adore all children. I tried to engage, she ignored me - at the age of 8 that is pretty rude

What can we say op. She was putting her needs first.

Right.

Maybe your friend doesn't care, but all in all it sounds a fairly negative experience for child A. If I were the mum, I'd be having a stern word with her about manners but I'd try to avoid putting her in that situation again, amongst people who don't like her and view her as a drama queen.

@Bluntness100

Wow op

You’re not doing your kid any favours and you come across as deeply unpleasant.

Next time go alone and meet your mates and don’t drag your kid along with you.

Because I don't agree with the posters who seem to be ridiculously bent out of shape over the situation of a stranger online? Ok then.

I've already said I'm a single mum, her DH won't look after the kids - the only way to meet my friend is with the kids in tow. And no I won't go NC like people seem to love doing on here.

I may cancel the museum visit, give everyone a bit of a prolonged time out. I chatted to another friend about it today, she agreed that DD wasn't in the wrong but said maybe lay low for a while. I think she may be right.

Ignoring an adult at 8 when you are upset is not rude.

@Bluntness100

Being a teacher doesn't mean I have to adore all children. I tried to engage, she ignored me - at the age of 8 that is pretty rude

What can we say op. She was putting her needs first.

Right.

Something you're all outraged that my DD did.

Right?

So presumably you're equally outraged that ChildA was rude?

I chatted to another friend about it today, she agreed that DD wasn't in the wrong but said maybe lay low for a while

😂

@Mummyoflittledragon

Ignoring an adult at 8 when you are upset is not rude.

But telling a friend who you've spent 2 hours with that you want some alone time, is?

@Bluntness100

I chatted to another friend about it today, she agreed that DD wasn't in the wrong but said maybe lay low for a while

😂

What's so funny @Bluntness100?

Honestly op I don’t think it is a crap analogy. We are training our kids for social life as an adult - my child B finds these things hard too but I don’t think I will do her favours if I don’t try to help her learn they won’t be perceived as ok in an adult

I agree. I do think it's worth thinking about what you would want her to do when she is an adult. An adult would, yes, be able to leave but would make a polite excuse "I'm feeling a bit tired", not "I don't want to be with you any more". Your daughter couldn't leave but she can still make a polite excuse like "I just want to sit down and have a drink for a bit" or whatever

So presumably you're equally outraged that ChildA was rude?

No. Because she was hurt and upset and didn’t wish to interact and at eight it’s hard to hide that. Child a was not thr protaginst that caused the issue

And if your “mate” really thought your child had behaved well she’d not have said to lay low

Look op you’re hell bent on putting this other girl down and stating how your child did nothing wrong. Because you don’t want to accept you did something wrong

And that’s fine. But you’re doing her no favours. Step away from the thread and give it some thought and stop lashing out.

Child A was not rude. She just didn’t respond to you. You are now classing her as rude for not being a performing monkey and responding to you because you interacted with her. She was upset. Yet you think it’s fine your dd put boundaries in place and not be a performing monkey for other children including child A. It is not possible to have both ways.

@HazelWong

Honestly op I don’t think it is a crap analogy. We are training our kids for social life as an adult - my child B finds these things hard too but I don’t think I will do her favours if I don’t try to help her learn they won’t be perceived as ok in an adult

I agree. I do think it's worth thinking about what you would want her to do when she is an adult. An adult would, yes, be able to leave but would make a polite excuse "I'm feeling a bit tired", not "I don't want to be with you any more". Your daughter couldn't leave but she can still make a polite excuse like "I just want to sit down and have a drink for a bit" or whatever

As I said earlier, our lessons aren't perfect - I think it's being obtuse to imagine that, because age 8 she said in a soft play "I want to play on my own" that she will NEVER hone those social skills and will grow up to be a rude person who leave dinners early

As I said earlier, our lessons aren't perfect - I think it's being obtuse to imagine that, because age 8 she said in a soft play "I want to play on my own" that she will NEVER hone those social skills and will grow up to be a rude person who leave dinners early

Agree but you're not helping her to get there by encouraging her to say things like "I want to play on my own now". Basically she will learn that lesson from upsetting her friends which feels a bit unnecessary when you could just help her choose her words more sensitively

No. Because she was hurt and upset and didn’t wish to interact and at eight it’s hard to hide that

Oh, but my DD had to hide it when she wanted to play alone 🤔

And if your “mate” really thought your child had behaved well she’d not have said to lay low

Don't profess to know what my mate (why the inverted commas?!) said.
And by lay low, she meant not see them for a bit.

Because you don’t want to accept you did something wrong

I you wilfully ignoring all the times I said I realise I need to discuss with her the impact of being assertive?

Step away from the thread and give it some thought and stop lashing out

No. Please don't tell me when I should and shouldn't post on my own thread

Are you ok bluntness? You seem so angry about this.

@Mummyoflittledragon

Child A was not rude. She just didn’t respond to you. You are now classing her as rude for not being a performing monkey and responding to you because you interacted with her. She was upset. Yet you think it’s fine your dd put boundaries in place and not be a performing monkey for other children including child A. It is not possible to have both ways.

I didn't expect her to be a performing monkey but yea it's rude to ignore people. Which is not what my DD did, she simply asked for some space.

Unless it all kicked off massively after you left the softplay I really think you are blowing the whole episode out of proportion. If you want your DD to learn how to be assertive and not hurt other people's feelings in the process fair enough but to cancel a whole trip for a much larger group of people because the two girls had what was really a minor and run of the mill softplay disagreement seems like overkill and, actually, making your I'm sure lovely DD and her wanting to be alone a bit special and powerful. 8 year old girls DO react dramatically to these type of events because they can't regulate their emotions yet but that doesn't mean their mums have to.

I mean this thread has gone the way of all mumsnet threads and become very dramatic so I can see why you might 'catch' the drama but really, in real life, you and the kids all need to learn how to deal with and get over this kind of minor incident.