Other family on day out

[Cheekychops82]

Went to a family day out theme park type place yesterday with the kids DS9 and DD4.
Whilst in the huge indoor soft play (have to go in as DD not tall enough unaccompanied) I was waiting at the bottom of a slide with my DS when a lad about 9-11yr? Come over and shouts “WHAT WHAT” at us.

I replied pardon? You ok? He shouts “MAKE ME MAKE ME MAKE ME”

So I said oh my mistake sorry 🤷🏻‍♀️ At this point I assumed the lad possibly had additional needs or that I was the target of some ridiculous game??

He puts on a posh accent and walks off saying “oh pardon me I am mistaken so sorry I am mistaken”. At this point me and DS do laugh, only because I am from Manchester originally and would love to have a posh accent!!

Anyway DD comes off slide and we move on. I’m then below a net bridge type thing watching DD balance and this kid appears again. “DONT EVER SPEAK TO ME AGAIN. DONT EVER SPEAK TO ME. MY FRIENDS MUM IS IN THE POLICE AND IV RANG HER”.

Ah ok mate 👍🏻

After that I didn’t see the kid again and all was done.

Around 45mins later I’m approached by a woman with 5 young lads, one of whom was the shouty lad from earlier.
So the woman is his mum and she asks me what my problem is. I reply that I’m not really sure? I explain the above.

“My son wouldn’t say that unprovoked”

Oh. Well he did.

“You’ve shouted at my son, scared him, he’s been crying his heart out to me”

I was slightly bemused and explained that I certainly did not raise my voice at him and he wasn’t crying when he was shouting random stuff at me!

“It doesn’t matter what he did or said. You are an adult and he is a child”

Yes but as the adult I haven’t acted out of line? I didn’t shout!? I barely said two words never mind shouted!?
Woman kept repeating then that I was an adult and he was a child. I think we had established that.

I said I didn’t know if there was any issues with her child but I could assure her I have not shouted at him.
She responded by saying her child did not have any issues and then proceeded to shout “STAY AWAY FROM MY SON”

FFS your child and you have on 3 separate occasions approached me!! How about you stay away from me!

It was really busy, loads of people stared at us. Totally mortified! My son was scared and said he wanted to go home, which we did. DD asked all the way home why the angry lady shouted at mummy.

DS is still upset this morning. We have annual passes for this attraction and he’s saying he never wants to go again!

Aibu to tell DS they were a batshit crazy family and the apple didn’t fall far from the tree?

There no arguing with this level of batshit

^ this.

It happens all the time as there's always an arsehole somewhere at every moment in time somewhere in the world.
You have to learn to have the confidence to know you did nothing wrong and know what the truth is and know just because the other person shouted louder doesn't mean they were right.

People do do batshit things and unless you have done something, or unless they are physical or actually threatening something physical, teach your kids to walk away with their heads held high and a shrug.

I would not have taken the kids home, just moved away from them to another part of the park. Tell your son clearly and firmly that they were clearly mistaken or deluded, cannot harm you and their behaviour is nothing to do with you. And that if people do behave badly they can be reported to park security.

Things happen . Try not to spread the impact by reacting and letting them chase you home. Kids need to learn resilience.

You can see where the son gets it's from...no point dwelling on it...just move on..

Thanks everyone, I have decided to tell DS that I realise they must of had the wrong person.
Thinking about it it’s highly likely that is the case!

We have been super lucky in nearly 10yr of soft plays and adventure parks that we’ve never had any encounters of such before??!! We get the ‘that kid in the green top told me to move/pushed/said I couldn’t play’ and we just brush over it and move on with our outing.

We’ve had annual passes to this place for 8yrs running and never encountered this family that I remember?? Hopefully it was a one off pleasure!

It's best to try not to engage, rude little gobshites tend to have rude Jeremy Kyle style gobshites as parents.

It sounds to me like this little boy wanted his mum's attention and by causing trouble with you was the only way to get it.

.

Cherry 😂😂

Maybe the mum had additional needs as well? Or was just an absolute crazy.

Woman kept repeating then that I was an adult and he was a child. I think we had established that.

Missing the point, but that did make me chuckle!

Urgh I loathe soft play. She was batshit, OP, and I’m sorry you had such a horrible experience. I recently went to a new one on someone else’s recommendation and some little shit kicked my crawling baby and I just saw red - really really shouted at him. The shock on his face told me he’d never been told off for anything in his life. I wasn’t approached by his parent afterwards because the child was unsupervised - which did not surprise me at all.

Cherry 😂🤣😂

DS has agreed we will go back in a couple of weekends time.
When I spoke to him he said the reason he was scared was because the mum had loads of ‘big boys’ with her and he said he wanted to leave because of everyone else staring at us. Bless him!

Reading all your replies I’m thinking we’ve had an easy ride with soft plays! It’s every kid for themselves it sounds?!

Think yourself lucky that sounds like my neighbour!!😢😢

I think that I would have told her that I was going to complain to a staff member/ security and would have done so. I think that's quite aggressive behaviour approaching you with several lads and intimidating your children.