To think you don't encourage your children to fight

[Waimea]

And you should actually tell them off if you see them hitting anyone.

Incident at small soft play
I noticed my child and his other school friends(5) not sharing with other younger kids(4)
Went over to talk to them about it and all hell broke loose
2 of the other kids hit my son, proper punch, not push
The father is right there, laughing and saying 'go on my son' kinda thing, and actually doing the punching action
My ds emerges crying and the father says ' well you shouldn't have ganged up on them'
They weren't letting them play, but there was no 'ganging up'
Then the mum tells my ds off for pushing the cushioned blocks onto her child, after he punched him(she didn't see that)

Then the father comes over to me and says 'did your ds go to hit you then, you need to get him under control'
Ds was crying, he wasn't hitting me, then the mum came over and said 'we've got our children out, it's yours that's out of control'

Yeah right, he's still crying from the 2 punches.

Anyway, my child and his friends were out of order for not playing nicely, and sharing, but they saw their children hit mine and encouraged them

Please tell me I'm not being unreasonable
I left shaking and crying, sobbed in the car

tbh. id prob be crying to.

sheer madness that is. of course your child and frind was wrong but nothing excuses the parents behaviour.

i feel a bit sorry for thier child/children. hardly their fault being dragged up like that.

There is an over- representation of gittish parents at soft play centres. Fact.

Thanks
Felt dreadful

Oh god the dad sounds delightful!!!

I don't know what is wrong with some people!
A few weeks ago my partner was in tesco and was stood by a dad with 2 young children, the eldest (about 5) turned round to my partner and said "alright dickhead" and the dad just laughed and high fived his son.

Dh just got the full story, not happy at all

Lj, I was in the park last week and I was smiling at a boy who was covered head to food in sand, his older brother, about 7, said, 'what are you f...ckin smilin at'

Right now I want to just take my ds and hide him away from the rest of the world

Omg!does this stuff really happen??Im scared for when my boy gets bigger!When you find that hiding place let me know and we will come too,we dont do swearing and fighting.We shall create happy land.

Yanbu, it was the bane of our lives at our school. I don't understand the mentality of parents who say, "I've told him/her, if anyone does XYZ to hit them - they won't do it again." Possibly not, but your otherwise pleasant DC now has a fixed term exclusion for assaulting another pupil on their record and ultimately you are teaching them a pattern of behaviour which could land them with a criminal record as an adult - awesome

in theory I agree, but bullies thrive because no one will stsnd up to them. I was bullied at school and did the proper thing told the teachers/parents etc. Didn't mske a scrap of difference.

One day the class bully, a proper weasel ly little fuck kept kicking my chair, I don't tuned know what came into me but I turned round snd smacked him one.

The bullying stopped there and then. Was it the right thng to do, no. But the alternative was to spend all of high school being a victim, so it worked.

The father actually stood there encouraging his 4 year old son to throw punches..????? Please don't think you were being in any way unreasonable. They sound like an absolute nightmare.

In response to your OP, YWNBU at all, however in response to the thread title - I believe there can be times when teaching your child to fight back can solve a problem.
The parents were idiots in this case.

There's a lot of what I call 'parent blindness' going on nowadays that I don't recall when I grew up.

Basically where patents see every look in the direction of their child or every word said to them. But they don't see (ignore) what their children do.

I actually nearly passed out with shock yesterday when my friend said she nearly got into an argument with an aquantaince or ours over her dcs accusing hers of doing something and the mum responding with well my dd says yours called her x name.

My friend was incensed her dd had been accused. It's not a name she would ever use (wuss). Apart from the fact I've heard her dd using it millions of times, her dd spends most sentences calling someone idiot or stupid. She actually screamed today that she hated my DS and wished he was dead . Why? Because she wanted suggestions for a name of a clubs he wanted to start. My DS and her sister suggested about 10 - they were all stupid. DS then suggested one her sister loved and she thought stupid. So DS said he was going to start a club with that NAND cos its cool and her sister asked to join it.

My friend nearly started an argument with me when her dd tried to ask me for sketching 5 minutes later and I said I wanted an apology for what she said first as it was hateful. Apparently according to her mum that's unfair as she didn't mean it and doesn't really understand the seriousness if what she said. The girl is almost 10yo!!!

However there is a lot to be said as mentioned above for people reacting to bullies. I judge each case on its merits - but NEVER encourage violence.

depends. kids need to learn that sometimes some horrible behaviour might earn them a punch or such. my son was an aggresive toddlet - sometimes i wanted the other kid to hit back. i've also watched when that same 3 yr old protected me and his two month siblong from another child by pushing hom hard an would never have told him off for it.