I took my three year old to a soft play place the other day. He was playing nicely most of the time but then I noticed he pushed a child out of the way to get on a slide first. I went straight over, took him aside and explained pushing/pushing in wasn't nice and he was to wait his turn. If he couldn't wait his turn and I saw him do it again, he would go in time out. He started kicking off because I'd removed him from the slide and was losing the plot - he ended up lashing out at me.
I picked him up, took him to a quiet bench away from the play area, against the back wall and explained hitting was unacceptable and he would do 3 mins time out. If he repeated it, we would go home. I stood about 1 metre away from him and turned my back while he did his time out. Close to him so he knew I was there but not giving him any attention. I was calm but firm - Supernanny would have been proud!
He was sobbing hard though, but stayed put. About a minute later a woman came rushing over to me, pushed past me and picked my son up and started cuddling/rocking him! She kept saying to him, "shhh, there there. It's not your fault you have such a cruel, abusive mummy. It's ok now."
I was so shocked, I just stood there with my mouth hanging open, catching flies for about a minute. When I got a grip, I told her to put him down and stop interfering when I was calmly disciplining my own child. This woman had a smaller child with her, plus a female partner. She put him down and went back to her partner loudly talking about how awful and cruel and damaging I was to my son. I lost my temper, and went over and said how dare she touch my son and interfere when I was trying to teach him hitting and pushing was wrong and that surely time out was better than screaming/swearing/smacking him?! I walked away shaking like a leaf.
Her partner came over a few minutes later and apologised, saying she had very strong views on discipline and ignorance and that she didn't agree with what I had done but that she shouldn't have done it or been so rude. At which point I said I wasn't ignorant in any way, and that they should be careful who they say these things to as next time they might get thumped by someone or ejected for inappropriately touching a child.
What would you have done?! Is time out cruel?! I didn't smack him or shout at him, but I did have to wrestle with him slightly to get him over to the time out spot I chose.
It's still making my blood boil just thinking about it.