to think parents should control their chldren in the playground

[tholeon]

I was in the playground this a.m. with DS, who is one. We brought a ball with us, he loves balls. Got it out and a bigger boy, age about 4, immediately came over. grabbed the ball from DS and said 'he can't play with it, it's mine'. I said yes he can, it's his ball, we can play with it together - keen to encourage sharing and all that. He said 'no it is just for grown up boys' and ran off with it. Don't feel very happy telling off other peoples children in the playground but didn't seem fair to DS just having his ball snatched away by a bigger child. Shouldn't the parent in charge have kept an eye and intervened? Guess am used to hanging out with kids DS's age where the parents keep a closer eye but still??

Small think in the great scheme of things of course but interested in people's opinions!

As everyone says, just take the ball back and state firmly what the expected behaviour is - he probably seemed big, but he's still little in developmental terms - they haven't all got the best impulse control at that age.

Also, my ds at aged 2 looked like a big four year old...
..I spent a lot of time being judged by those who believed he was much older than he was, and thought his behaviour was incongruous with his size - don't be too quick to judge!