Asked to explain myself by a child!

[DucksOnThePond]

So in a pool earlier. There are always publicly accessible floats and noodles but never toys. DC playing with a toy. It has been borrowed from another friend at the pool but is certainly not for public use. Suddenly find nyself being told - by a 5/6 year old boy in armbands! - that said DC is unkind for immediately not handing over this toy and that it was outrageous I wasn’t forcing it. Unwilling to engage I said very little and moved on. 5 mins later at a different area of the pool a follow up of ‘excuse me, DC should hand it over. Did you bring it from home’. A third time and my response was that as an adult I was not explaining myself to a rude child.

Since when did kids not only feel comfortable enough challenging a stranger but actually harassing them?! No sign of a parent at all.

Just because a parent isn't directly next to them it doesn't mean they are lacking in appropriate supervision and what is appropriate will vary on the pool and the child's abilities
OP is describing a 5 yo wearing armbands. Parents were “nowhere to be seen” over an extended period of time. Are you seriously arguing that that could ever be an appropriate level of of supervision??

YANBU.

Unfortunately the real blame lies with its lazy parents who were apparently nowhere to be seen. If they had taught their child better manners the situation wouldn't have arisen.

Ah, don't be so hard on yourself OP. YANBU and you did absolutely the right thing! You are overthinking it and don't need MN approval!

Should have dunked the wee shite

Oh dear! Being an ex-teacher, I would have given him a full explanation which would have lasted till his eyes glazed over. Is he one of the 'spirited' MN children that so many on here seem to have?

it is entirely inappropriate for a child to pester and harass a stranger in the pool.

The problem is that because we don't know exactly what was said then we cant say whether it was pestering/harassment or whether it was reasonable enquiry.

If a child came up to DD and I in this situation, my first reaction would be to explicitly say "Sorry kid, this doesn't belong to the pool, it is our personal toy and we're using it. Why don't you play with xyz from the pool toys?"

If the child continued asking or arguing after that point then yes it would be pestering/harassment as they had been given an adequate explanation.

However, if I just ignored the child or gave wishy washy answers that weren't clear (especially to 5 yr olds who generally don't understand "polite hints" adults tend to use) then it's not pestering/harassment if they continued to approach for clarification of what they felt was unfairness (my DD hogging an item they thought was communal property) until they were given that explicit clarification.

At 5 my child was able to roam the baby pool alone. It’s about 10m by 10m and you can see all around it. It’s also not deep enough for a 5 yr old to be out of his depth. If I took him swimming I’d play with him when he wanted but I’m sorry but it’s helicopter parenting to not sit back and watch them play alone sometimes. The Mum was probably watching from somewhere in the pool but God forbid she also probably thought the child and adult would just be chatting or the other parent could handle the question of a 5 yr old. How was she to know you can’t be troubled by other human beings in a public place.

Harassment is usually defined by an interaction that takes more than 5 seconds. Had he really been harassing you on spending too much time around you Mum would have then waded over I’m sure.

5 year olds shouldn't pester and harrass adults,but only because nobody should pester and harrass anyone. This ^^

It could be that the said child is on the spectrum, and therefore it wouldn’t seem rude to him, usually children on the spectrum are quite forthright and will say it how ‘they’ see it, and can articulate very well, it may have felt unjust to him and he told you.

Children need to learn and he’s not going to learn anything with you ignoring him. You should have explained it to him. Adults shouldn’t be challenged as such by children, but they ask questions to learn and grow.

So basically you let the child who was asking for a turn think you were just selfishly hogging a pool toy. You could have just said something like "Sorry dear but this isn't a pool toy it belongs to our friend." Instead of being rude to the little boy

I agree. A simple explanation that the toy wasn’t to be shared this way as the boy it belonged has said this and he’d be heartbroken if it got broken

I'm surprised the lifeguard allowed him in the pool unsupervised they would lose their for that, serious breach of the law.

It's a holiday weekend isn't it . . .because I can't believe an adult with children would be so deliberately rude and obtuse when interacting with another child.

Well none of my children would have ever approached or asked, whether at 3, or 5, or 10. Not only is it rude to just assume things are for sharing, but if someone is using something they clearly haven’t finished. It’s likened to butting into a conversation with your own thoughts before the other speaker has finished. As an aside though I always wanted my DC to appreciate that adults they did not know are strangers, even seemingly nice adults with children, are still strangers. Proper supervision ion should have avoided this situation, however I sometimes find parents of these precocious children off load their supervision so that they don’t have to deal with their spirited behaviour themselves.

Why is it the OPs job to parent another child? The child didn't wander to the pool on their own. Somebody brought them there. Rather than focusing on how the OP should have behaved, why not focus on the parent/guardian who let a 5 year old in a pool on their own, and talking to a stranger on 3 separate occasions, without ever intervening? That child was somebody else's responsibility. And they completely dropped the ball.

Why is it the OPs job to parent another child? The child didn't wander to the pool on their own. Somebody brought them there. Rather than focusing on how the OP should have behaved, why not focus on the parent/guardian who let a 5 year old in a pool on their own, and talking to a stranger on 3 separate occasions, without ever intervening? That child was somebody else's responsibility. And they completely dropped the ball.

Why is it the OPs job to parent another child? The child didn't wander to the pool on their own. Somebody brought them there. Rather than focusing on how the OP should have behaved, why not focus on the parent/guardian who let a 5 year old in a pool on their own, and talking to a stranger on 3 separate occasions, without ever intervening? That child was somebody else's responsibility. And they completely dropped the ball.

WOW - some people have strange perspectives on sharing... I am so so pleased that my children 1) share (which is very much encourages and has been known to be enforced by me) 2) can voice their opinion (god forbid that a child have one) 3) know and have a strong sense of injustice (it will serve them well as adults). What a sad world we live in. I bet you expect inclusivity for your child with, yet you dismiss a young child, who could also have SEN. Absolutely absurd. My sympathy lies with your children.

rita i can't tell if you're being real or goady. You believe your child should have access to whatever another child has regardless of context because 'sharing' and have given them a strong sense of injustice (which usually means kicking off if things don't go their way and expecting the world to pander to them)? Not all things need to be shared. Nobody is entitled to have their own way all the time.

Not quite sure why you didn’t just say “don’t worry, we brought it from home.” Kids don’t like perceived unfairness. He wouldn’t of understood the nuance of the answer you gave

Rita so your kids are never allowed to not share? What if they voiced the opinion that actually Mum, just for bloody once, I would not like to share my things with that irritating child who never leaves me alone even when I say no?

Rita2u - can my child have your child’s new toy please? Your child has the new (fill in blank) that I haven’t got hold of yet. No? But why? My child will find it UNFAIR and an INJUSTICE that your child has something he doesn’t and you can’t blame me if he keeps on questioning you as the adult on why. After all, my child wants what he wants. You can’t expect me to squash that. rolls eyes

He is a young child who didn’t understand & as the adult, could have handled the situation more gracefully. You took the time to explain on here to explain to a bunch of adults, but not to him, when it was relevant. You them called him rude. YABU.