There's a small park/playground on our way home from school where DS aged 7 often likes to stop for a while before we go home. Yesterday, we got there and two other boys from his school saw him coming and immediately said 'Oh no, not him' and 'It's THAT boy again' and 'don't let him play on anything'. DS hasn't had a falling-out with them and hadn't said anything to them to deserve this kind of response. He's not a very sociable child inside school, he's very shy, but likes to join in with children in this park. He looked very sad at them saying these things and just wanted to go home.
So I said 'Well, that's charming' in earshot of their parents and we went straight home. The mum of one of them just said was 'Oh, X, just play nicely.'
If DS had been so unwelcoming and unpleasant to another child I would've told him off. Should we have stayed anyway and not allowed them to hound us out of a place we have as much right to be in as them, or was it right to just leave if they were going to be horrible?