Am I too strict or would you have done the same

[katycb]

1st world problem really- We were out yesterday in the kids playroom of an art gallery. DD (4) had spent ages building a house with some big foam blocks when another child runs in (probably 5/6 ish) with a big familly group and knocks it down I tried to get him to say sorry (nicely!) but he ran off and none of the 3 adults who were with him intervened. Anyway helped DD stop crying and build it back up which we did about 15m later same boy knocks it down again! This time his Dad says "Oh dear lets build it again" but DD is properly upset and at no point does any adult in the group get the boy to apologise. If either of my 2 did this I would pull them up, get them to say sorry to the child they upset and give them time out. It has really got me riled DH says its just different parenting and I shouldn't interfere AIBU?

Assuming your dd wasn't hogging all the bricks, I don't think that was acceptable. I'd be very cross with either of my kids if they spoilt someone's game like that (fair enough if she'd gone off and left the house, not OK if she's still building it/playing with it). I don't let my kids smash other people's sandcastles either.

Agree with Fresta I'm picturing a big quiet- ish room with various things for young children to do/build. Not the local Wacky Warehouse.

To deliberately destroy something another child is building is mean! Yes, it's fun to knock things down, but generally that pleasure goes to the builder!
I would have told off my kid for doing that at the same age, but I am not surprised that most wouldn't. Consideration for others seems to be optional these days.

I would ever force an apology as it defeats the point of the apology. However I would have (after the first incident) explained to my child that they had upset yours and got them to help rebuild.
I have a 3 and 4 year old now who both say sorry without ever being made to.

*never

i think these things teach children resilience. I wouldn't be too bothered and wouldn't necessarily coddle mine after, just say that's how it is really.

Worral Liberty - if they the parents looked relatively ok I would maybe shake my head or say something loud enough for the other child to hear without actively singling them out and telling them off. But if the parents looked very rough I.e. likely to kick off at me or my child and expect no better from their off spring I would keep quiet.
I am sure you knew this worral library so why comment on the obvious meaning?

I would ever force an apology as it defeats the point of the apology.

I disagree. Even a forced apology helped my children feel better when they'd been wronged because it at least showed that the adults were on their side.

I don't think it encourages resilience. It encourages children to think that other kids can behave as they please with no respect for others and no consequence to their behaviour.

I really fail to see it as a good thing.

I know where you mean and it's definitely a quieter area not a manic soft play. I can see why you'd be annoyed.

Kids need to learn to respect others, that doesn't mean they can't have fun but after doing it once and seeing it upset your child even the thickest skinned parent should be able to stop their child from doing it again and at the very least apologise for their child.

My friend can't understand why my son (who is in no way perfect) is generally polite, well behaved etc in public when her child is so wild. Yet mine has been set boundaries since he was wee and been told he can't always do or have things just because he wants to whereas she lets her kid do whatever she wants and wonders why sometimes she's a brat that even she struggles with. She keeps saying well they're only young and they don't really understand rules so she can't really set them, they are 9 FGS!

I would have been quite grumpy at the adults behaviour who basically told that child it was an ok thing to do (hence he did it AGAIN!)

It might have been a public space but it doesn't mean it's OK to go and purposely destroyed other people's work right under their nose.
It was very unkind and it's the unkindness of the act (pleasure of yupsetying someone??) that should have been addressed.

Yanbu. It sounds deliberate. It's not on to allow your kids to intentionally ruin something another is working on/playing with. For most people anyway....

Agree, it doesn't teach resilience at all! All it is teaching the OP's dd is that it's easier to let other's treat you with disrespect than to speak up. Better to teach your child to assert themselves and stand up for what they believe is right.

Re apologies.
Ive never forced my dcs to apologise. However, they would have been told in no uncertain terms that it was unkind, that you need to respect other people and they certainly hadn't.
There are plenty of other ways to teach a child in those circumstances than just making them apologise (esp if no other explanation is given. They are likely to say Sorry wo even knowing why they need to say it!)

I can't believe some of the responses on here!

The op has said repeatedly that it wasn't soft play but a quiet room with activities set out in it, and that the boy concerned went past the blocks he could have played with and deliberately targeted her dd's creation and knocked it down, not once, but twice!

Call me old fashioned but no yadnbu, this is absolutely unacceptable behaviour. Not only would (I hope) as the parent of the boy, have been alert to it happening the first time, I would have prevented it happening again and not only apologized myself, but made my child apologise (they have to learn) AND make my child help the op and her DD build it back up again.

I'm quite sad that people think it's ok to let their DC run around destroying other DC's efforts. Yes, perhaps it's a small incident in the scheme of things, but as a pp poster said, isn't it through these minor incidents that children learn basic manners and consideration for others?

I tried to get him to say sorry

You are on a hiding to nothing trying to discipline / parent another child OP, so I wouldn't waste your breath.

bettycooper totally agree with you, this just teaches the child that she should accept shitty behaviour because this is how life is, yes, maybe it is like this sometimes, but she should not accept it, rather should expect an apology and avoid the unpleasant people in the future, resilience is taught by helping her deal with her upset and continue on regardless, not by thinking the behaviour is ok!

*I would ever force an apology as it defeats the point of the apology.

No, it doesn't. It helps the child to understand the circumstances in which an apology is appropriate*

This ^.

I don't get the 'making a child apologise with a forced apology' has no purpose thing? How are they supposed to learn? They are hardly going to wake up one day and come up with the idea themselves?

My sister followed this approach and at 7 her son still has no manners, no empathy and is an entitled and unlikable child as a result, I feel sorry for him really as I'm not sure how he is supposed to know right from wrong, or how to behave or that he should apologise if he isn't taught how.

He is marginally better since being at school but as he gets away with whatever he likes at home and out and about (taking and often breaking toys, bowling past kids at play areas and knocking them down with no apology, not waiting his turn, running around restaurants, being rude to adults and children alike..all met with an 'oh, he didn't mean it did you' from his mum, who thinks that everyone else is 'too strict' and told me I shouldn't tell my kids what to do!).

Sadly it is easy to see how these kids end up the way they do, it isn't their fault if their parents let them behave that way with no consideration for others.

And no it doesn't teach resilience at all.

It teaches a little GIRL that it's OK for a BOY to do as he pleases, inc being unkind to her for no other reason that he can.

No a lesson I would my dc to learn (boy or girl)

Do children really feel better when they receive a forced apology? Mine don't, and I don't, that's for sure.
If someone has to be forced to apologise then they are not really sorry and are clearly missing the point and not 'learning'.
It takes much more effort than a forced apology to teach children about being sorry for their actions.
If children had really learnt what it meant to be sorry then they would say sorry by themselves - like mine do without ever being forced.

The reason I make them say sorry if they do something similar (DD in question is pretty easy going but has her moments) is so that they learn when it is appropriate to do so like lots of others have said. Just to add the comments about confrontation with the other family made me smile a bit though. They definitely weren't " rough" not that it makes a joy of difference but they could have walked straight out of the Boden catalogue! Also thanks for realising it wasn't a soft play I was almost about to draw a diagram in true Mumsnet fashion!

Yanbu. I’m sick of other people’s kids acting like vaguely socialised tornados. A 6 year old knows it’s not ok to do that but is old enough to know there’s probably not going to be any consequences to their actions so they can do as they please. Parenting kids to not be arseholes is hard work!

I would ever force an apology as it defeats the point of the apology.

'No, it doesn't. It helps the child to understand the circumstances in which an apology is appropriate.'

In which case you say sorry to the child yourself and children learn that sorry is a nice thing to say rather than something they begrudgingly mutter.

Well mine do Unicorn so maybe best get your kids to apologise next time they lamp somebody, just to be on the safe side. Apologising and learning are not mutually exclusive, so the presence of one needn't exclude the other.

Knew they’d be aspirational Boden wearing middle class! This social group ime ignores bad behaviour as it doesn’t fit their narrative that they’re so bloody brilliant and cultured and educated and Jeremy eats humus so he can’t possibly be kicking sand at toddlers and therefore it didn’t happen.