AIBU to think woman in soft play was rude and unhelpful

[fassbendersmistress]

Sorry...it's a bit long...(and about soft play to boot.

Put money in air hockey machine to play with DS (3) and Dsis. 4 boys, about 2/3 yrs older than DS came over and tried to grab the equipment. I said, in a really friendly way, we had paid our money and DS was playing. They hung around the table trying to grab the puck and demanding a turn, shouting it wasn't fair...I told them if they wanted to play they could go ask their mums. They kept reaching onto the table. I told them several times to be careful/watch their fingers etc...no drama, just a bit annoying but par for the course in soft play. So at one point when they all had their hands in front of Dsis trying to grab the puck, yet again holding up the game, I said to her just to play on and if they got their hands caught they got their hands caught. Bear in mind they'd been asked very nicely many times to move hands and this was a VERY gentle game - puck travelling at snail pace! She was not about to smash it into their fingers.

At this point a woman appeared beside me and gave me a filthy look. She moved next to the boys who were still reaching and grabbing but didn't stop them, just continued to stare me out. So I asked her why the look. She told me I couldn't speak like that to the children. I explained I had only asked children politely to take their hands off the table (it would have been obvious to anyone watching they were really disrupting the game but we weren't actually making any big fuss about this). She told me that one of the boys had SN and that I was a disgrace. She said she wasn't his parent but that she knew him and I was totally out of order to say that Dsis should play on and that 'the boy could get his hands caught'. She just kept saying 'he has SN FGS'....that I had 'no idea'. This all took place over 5 minutes. At no point did any other adult approach the kids. She didn't attempt to get the parent of the child with SN. For what was left of our game, she stood by the table giving me filthy looks, allowing the children she apparently knew and at least one of whom was hers, to continue grabbing away. When the game finished outraged woman went and got a hug from her friend.

Now, I accept that I probably shouldn't have said the comment about them getting their fingers caught out loud...(it wasn't actually said to or overheard by any of the children)...but AIBU to think she totally overreacted to that? Common sense would have told her there was no actual threat to little fingers being deliberately bashed by an adult.

And AIBU to think that her telling me the child had SN made no difference to the situation because the whole time I continued to just talk to all the children in a friendly way. I was tolerating their behaviour the whole time just trying to manage it so DS could have something of a game. Knowing one of the children had SN wasn't going to change my approach of continue to tell them to stand back, let us play and watch their hands for the 5 mins or so the game lasted. Surely it's better to get the parent involved who knows their child and how to help them if they're in a disruptive situation?

No Alice isn't telling me how to parent my child.

Just making endless snarky digs about me while I'm not even on the thread. Nonsense about me using SN as excuse.

Which I won't dignify with a response, although it's incredibly cheeky and out of order.

I just feel like we fucking fight hard on a day to day basis to dispell the myth that SN kids are brats and parents use it as an excuse to not take responsibility. It's a relentless fight. Then it feels like it's set backwards again, not only those who perpetrate it by saying it, but by those who should get it as parents of SN children, but still claim it's an excuse.

It's lucky MNHQ intervened on this thread, it's become much less heated

oh i'm sorry, does Cunt offend you?

i will rephrase.

The woman in the op was being terribly rude and displayed dreadfully rude behaviour. Jolly Bad show!

No one claimed it was an excuse, merely a reason for the boy perhaps not understanding what the op told him.

It's you who have gone off on a massive rant.

Some might say you should 'get' how people don't want to be judged for behaviours which are a result of SN, but obviously no one has ever judged you in public. Have a medal.

And that is my last word on this revolting thread.

It shouldn't be up to the parents of children with SN to fight these attitudes. They have enough on their plates.

People need to wise up and educate themselves.

The blog you posted just perpetuates these negative, lazy attitudes.

The whole Op reads as that, Alice!

We have the Pushed To Her Limit protagonist, the Winsome Child who looks on as a paid for game is ruined by the Boisterous Gang and Lo!, their appalling behaviour is excused by an absent Feckless Carer. Who plays the SN Card. In time honoured MN Tradition.

Cunt neither offends nor impresses me.

"No one claimed it was an excuse, merely a reason for the boy perhaps not understanding what the op told him"

Everyone got that, surely? The thread was about the adult, not the child.

I can never have my son out of arms reach anywhere out of the house so the situation in the op would never arise. But even if I parented him perfectly he is never going to be anything approaching 'normal' and people will have to accept his different behaviour.

And what "reason" do people offer for the nasty behaviour of the NT kids spoiling the toddler's fun? They were behaving badly and the unpleasant woman with them let them. And got a strop on when the toddler's mum tried to stop the bullying behaviour.

honking that is what we are saying though- yes, your DS behaviour is different but you do what you can ie keeping him within arms reach.

People are not cross with the child with SNs, they are cross that the adults did absolutely nothing.

Just to ask OP the child did have all singing all dancing flashing sign on their head to say they had SN? No thought not so by that card do we need to assume every child who is displaying bad behaviour has SN and make allowances. Just wondering what the posters who thought the OP was out of order would have done. Let the kids carry on ruining the game.
The parents or the person trusted to watch the kids should have stopped them and that's that. SN shouldn't come into it, the kids where acting up and should have been stopped.
And I say this with a hell of a lot of personal and professional experience of SN and learning disabilities.

And when I say acting up I mean spoiling someone else's game or hurting someone

I really didn't intend to start a SN debate here - it's a shame the thread has upset some posters. Naive of me perhaps, but mentioning it in the OP was unavoidable.

For me it's about the bad behaviour of ALL the kids and the fact that when one parent turned up and witnessed it, instead of getting on with trying to right the immediate wrong and manage her own kid she decided to get all passive aggressive with me. Anyway, from reading the responses I don't think IABU although do concede the comment about playing on and fingers getting caught was just stupid, because as an earlier poster said, I lost the moral high ground at that point. Still doesn't excuse her mad approach to ignore the misbehaving children and not actually do anything to help out the child with SN. (I assume she reported back to his parents later that she intercepted an incident where their DC was being unfairly treated by a stranger but that it was ok because she stared me out and got a hug from her friend!).

fanjo hand on heart, would you have allowed your DD to behave in the manner described in the OP. Or would you have done something appropriate to the level of understanding your Dd has.

For example:
Physical guidance ( eg taking hand and leading away)
Distraction (with something else that you know your child likes)
Apologising to the children whose game has been interrupted
Maybe even offering to give them their money back

OP, you acknowledged the comment about hurting fingers wasn't ok right from the start. Seriously, YANBU. At all.

Missed a bit: meant to say that obviously you would need to judge which of these would be suitable for your child, but they are all things I've done in the past with children with various SNs. I'm not trying to tell you how to parent your child but just trying to show that there are more options than just 'they don't understand, leave them to it' and 'they should be locked up'

Wow are there? I didn't realise that in 9 years of parenting.

Now I will actually hide thread and go to bed because I don't want to read any more of it but keep seeing utterly insulting posts

Can I ask where this soft play is please? Because it sounds really familiar and the same happened to me (and I do have a child with sn but they were at home) The mum is v aggressive?

It sound as though, from your op, that the fingers comment is what started the filthy look and comments anyway. As she did come over to where you were, presumably to do something about the situation, although admittedly a little later perhaps than you wanted. But if you hadn't said that then maybe she would have tried to usher the children away, or explained to you more nicely what was happening, or something else. But I guess you'll never know now anyway.

fanjo I think that came across wrongly, in my post of 20:51 I meant a more general 'you' not you personally. I didn't mean to insult you, so I'm sorry. Please let me try to explain myself again.

I can't honestly believe that you (fanjo) would just stand by doing absolutely nothing while your daughter upset somebody else, like the woman in the OP did. So why are you defending her behaviour? Surely the woman in the OP (or the child's mum) should have done one of the things I mentioned earlier. If the child was not able to follow the OP's requests then something appropriate to their level of understanding should be done.

A lot of digging in of heels on this thread.