to hand this family a list of their own shortcomings..

[TandB]

...for them to consider at their leisure?

I am at a small, local softplay (yes, I know, I am probably automatically unreasonable because my brains have been scrambled by the noise and primary colour overload) where there are seats right next to an enclosed baby and toddler section. This means I can do a bit of work on my laptop while DS2 potters about a few feet away and DS1 gets on with his own thing.

We do this a fair bit and generally DS2 will be happy to play by himself for about 30 to 40 minutes, occasionally coming back to point at me and inform me that things are very "daaaaaa" and "baaaaaaa". Then when he starts getting bored I will grit my teeth and climb up the playframe with him for a little while.

DS1 is in a bit of a mood and had two timeouts within about 15 minutes of getting here. There is a family (three children, mother and both grandparents) a couple of tables away whose judgypants are clearly chafing a bit today. They don't approve of timeouts and have had a loud conversation about this. They also think it is terrible to bring your children to soft play and not spend the whole time playing with them -they have had a loud conversation about this too.

DS2 saw some tea and toast arrive and started wailing because if there is food in the vicinity he is firmly of the view it should also be in the DS2. Judgypant family immediately had a loud conversation about the fact that he wouldn't be crying if I was playing with him and clearly all he wanted was a bit of attention. This was while I was getting a high chair and DS2 was attempting to grab the toast and shovel it into his mouth.

Now, it seems to me that if you are going to judge other people loudly and at length, you probably should make pretty sure you are perfect yourselves.

So, instead of my slightly passive-agressive current approach of looking straight at them and raising my eyebrows pointedly every time they are talking about me, would I be unreasonable to type a list of the things I am judging them for and ask the centre manager to print it out for me?

So far, I have:

Letting their children go on the equipment in their shoes.
Allowing their older child to climb on the wall to the toddler section and jump off, landing about 2 inches from DS2.

Allowing their middle child to also go into the toddler bit and take toys off DS2.
Allowing their baby to poke DS2 in the eye.
Allowing their older child to climb up the slide despite the staff repeatedly asking him not to.
The really bad Christmas jumper the grandfather is wearing, despite 12th night having been and gone.

I am thinking of adding a note to say "You think I'm doing it wrong, I think you're doing it wrong. So how about you do what you like and I do what I like and everyone's happy."

Or shall I just tell them to bog off to the far side of bog? (slightly sanitised soft play version of the MN perennial favourite)

Oh yes, fight in ball pool!

Bazinga

Just go up to one of the inept supervisors and complain about the shoe thing and the inappropriate aged kids in the baby bit, point out the parents and ask them to do something about it.

Someone "official" coming over to bollock them is far more satisfactory. Then as they are doing it, play "we are the champions" or some such song, over the speakers of your laptop whilst discreetly rubbing a "V"sign on the side of your cheek.

Then have the big slice of cake and vow never to do soft play again.

It brings out the stabbyness in all of us.

I thought softplay was for Kids to run of energy without risk of injury, so the parents can chill with a coffee and a newspaper.

Are their children drinking fruitshoots? Pasty? If so add that to the list.

Arf at laminate it!

Down load that app where you can write sentences that then scroll across your screens as a screensaver and copy and past your OP in. Then turn it to face them, while you supervise your children of course

I'm sooooooooo glad DS is over the softplay phase. Brightly coloured hell on earth.

I judge anyone who willingly goes to softplay centres - they are utter hell

YANBU, OP. My old soft play, when we lived in London, was full of frantic freelancers trying to make deadlines on their laptops next to the toddler area. What you were doing is entirely normal as far as I am concerned.

YANBU.

I don't pay good money to SP centres so that I have to interact with my DCs. I can do that at home for no additional charge. I go to SP to ignore them, drink coffee and read trashy magazines.

I suggest calling to your children, "Dahlings, are you enjoying your free play? I would hate to crush your individuality through over supervision." then stare pointedly at the judgers. A comment with regard to 'encouraging independence' wouldn't go amiss either.

Sorry, will stop ranting now. But the idea that we have to hover over our children ever second of the day to be 'good' parents really winds me up. Which SP are you at? I could come along and make passive aggressive comments too.

you really need to go again with friends and family, hey arrange a meet up, and hope that that family are there so you can too judge loudly

YOu could also have a nice loud conversation with DS2 about how funny it is that some morons are incapable of keeping their opinions to themselves while their children are misbehaving and bullying others. OOh, yes DS2, we think people like that are right old thickoes, don't we diddums

Yanbu I hate softplay and I hate people who don't have the common curtesy to judge in silence!

I took my charges, dss and eldest charges friend to soft play last week, sat on the floor next to the bit for younger children not the toddler bit, the age 4-6 bit because it was so busy there was nowhere to sit, so that I could supervise youngest who is 4 and still see eldest 3 who were in the older bit, I sat and read my book with 1 eye on 4yr old, 1 women was clearly judging but the children were happy and I was still supervising so I just ignored her, I also had the satisfaction of watching her son bite another child, but I politely kept my judgy comments in my head.

I did play with them for awhile and discovered that it is possible to get whiplash from a slide, but at 4yrs, 7yrs, 8yrs and 9yrs they really didn't want me following them around, imo softplay is a safe place for children to wear themselves out and adults to have 10mins peace.

people who don't have the common curtesy to judge in silence!

Exactly, they should think it quietly inside their heads then come post it on MN!

Thought that was the point too! If we wanted to spend every waking second playing with then we'd stay home with the tv jig saws crayons etc. the whole point is to let them run around some where safe where theycsn have fun socialize and parents can have a coffee. I would t pay to play with my own children can do that home for free. :)

YANBU

And you are doing nothing wrong either. Laptops while you sit next to the toddler enclosure sounds very sensible to me!

An so glad DS is now too tall for soft play centres.

I think you are both entitled to your opinion but i think it is very rude to talk about someone with in ear shot.

I would also mention to staff about thier kids in shoes tc

Feed your children fruit shoots and fangtastics and point them in the direction of the judgy table.

That should do it.

Oops

We had WORDS.

For the record, there were unfortunately no fruitshoots or greggs pasties. There were healthy, wholesome snacks which were also talked about loudly.

"DS3, DS3 would you like your lovely BANANA now, would you, would you? We love lovely FRUIT don't we, don't we?" while I tried to hastily cover up the pile of biscuits and the cup of squash - pre-schoolers get free squash and biscuits.

Anyway, the WORDS.

DS1's timeouts had been for two attempts to launch himself over the fence into the baby area. This may not seem like a big deal but I get all tutty and pouty when big children flatten DS2 in the baby bit, so there is no way on this earth DS1 is going to get away with it. And more to the point, he knows this perfectly well and was doing it quite deliberately - the fact that he waited until I had walked over to get him a cup of squash before he tried it was the giveaway

Once we'd got over the initial trying-it-on phase he stayed out. He asked a couple of times if he could go in and was told no, but didn't make any attempt to actually climb in. Just before we left, he was leaning on the wall making DS2 laugh. The grandfather walked over to speak to the mother who was in the baby bit and when he turned to go back he picked up DS1, pulled him away from the wall and deposited him a few feet away and walked off without saying anything. He wasn't rough, but he was a bit firm - it was a very definite 'plonk' rather than a gentle move. Now I am not of the view that adults should never lay a finger on my pfb. If he is making a pain of himself and I haven't noticed for some reason, more power to anyone who wants to intervene.

But he wasn't actually doing anything! When I stopped staring, open-mouthed, I called "excuse me". He looked at me and I said, perfectly politely "Can I ask you why you just moved my son like that?"
He said "he shouldn't be in the baby bit." I said "he wasn't in the baby bit, he was leaning on the wall." He got a bit arsy and said "well he shouldn't be anywhere near it." I said that that was entirely a matter of opinion and my view was that there was no problem with him talking to his own brother over the wall, given that he was making no attempt to climb in, but in any event, I was right there beside him and it was inappropriate for him to have taken it upon himself to do that - he could have just said to me that he thought he should be moved. And also that it was a bit rich for him to randomly decide that DS1 shouldn't be anywhere near the baby area when his own grandson was, at that very moment, running riot INSIDE the baby area, along with a couple of other older children. He said "but he's only four" and I pointed out that DS1 is, in fact, three! At which point he stomped back over and told his grandson to get out. The mother objected and he said "well I've told this other child to move now so he'll have to get out too." The mother then said "well you shouldn't have done!"

I started packing up at this point, and when I left, all three were bickering like mad with the mother saying "I'm sick of this, dad"

So I now feel rather sorry for the mother who clearly has hugely judgy and embarrassing parents! I also feel bad for including her in my evil thoughts, because in retrospect, all the audible rude comments were from the grandparents so she might have been telling them to shut up!

I did have a bit of a scramble to get this thread off when the grandmother walked behind my table at one point - it was pretty close to the wall so I'm sure she was trying to see what I was doing. Should have gone with the giant "fuck off" idea.

SGB - I thought about it but DS1 would have got a bit too enthusiastic!

"What RUDE PEOPLE mummy? Those ones? Those ones RIGHT THERE?"

oh dear, that did make me chuckle. i can imagine my own mother being so judgemental and embarrasingly loud as well.

smilingthroughgrittedteeth - I once got a nasty friction burn from that very slide....

oh dear.

I look forward to the thread from a frazzled mother about her embarrassing parents

I know. Poor woman. My gran got hugely embarrassing in her final years. I dread to think what she would have made of soft play. I think I would have been weeping quietly in the toilets while she loudly set the world to rights.

OP start a skype conversation on your laptop with a friend and make comments about them.

Way to go, this has made me laugh so much. Thank you

You all sound pretty pathetic, you sound like you set out to get wound up and they were the perfect winder uppers!