My 11 year old son upset a woman by standing up to her.

[Ginette74]

At a bouncy castle holiday activity, in a local community centre, my son overheard a woman saying loudly that his brother, and his friend, who both happen to have special educational needs, were idiots and bad children. My 11 year old challenged her, saying not to be unkind, and the women became very angry with me. She said my son was cheeky and rude, and did I have no control over him! I have always taught my son to be brave and stand up for his friends and what is right. I've never taught him that it is wrong to stand up to adults, but this situation hasn't occurred before. I'm I being unreasonable to tell my son that adults are not always right and you are not wrong to challenge them.

It's not wrong to stand up to adults when they are being dicks.

I have taught and will continue to teach my children that if anyone is being mean, be it another child or a "grown up" then they should say something.

Tbh, She was probably highly embarrassed by getting a dressing down from 11 year old and so she should have been. A big well done to your son

Yanbu to say that adults are not automatically right, but what was your other son and his friend doing for her to be annoyed at them?

YADNBU! The women was the one who was rude, good on your son for standing up to her in (what you describe as) a mature way!

Good for you OP. Go OP's DS!

What were your son and his friend doing to make her react in such an extreme way?

Nope, yanbu, good on your son.
I brought my boys up the same. How else can they be safe from predators if they believe adults are always right?

I'd be immensely proud of him.

Sounds like you're doing a great job.

You're entirely right to discuss the fact that adults are fallible, and that racist, disablist or plain stupid positions taken by adults can and should be challenged.

Well done to your son!
And to you, you’re not unreasonable at all to teach your child this. I also have an 11 year old son who can spot dickhead adults and bad behaviour a mile off.

The women said this out of the blue or was there some reason for it?

Hmm...would be very interested to hear the other side of this story

YANBU - unless the brother or friend had just pushed or hit this woman's child, in which case it was understandable that she was upset at being told not to be unkind.

He said she was being unkind - was she being unkind (well it sounds like she was being a bitch)?

Well then, he was stating a fact and I wouldn’t be surprise if she was one of those people with #benice all over her Facebook this week.

It sounds like your DS did the right thing& spoke politely enough to her. But did you see what your other DS & his friend were doing.

Is your DS able to differentiate things your other DS does due to his SEN & things he dies just because he’s misbehaving?

I am on the fence. What caused her to say what she did in the first place?

It was a busy play session. The idea is that staff supervise, and parents generally stay in the café, which my friend and I normally do. Today there were lots of parents sitting watching the children, this woman was one of them. My younger son had had some disagreements with a boy, who he said was calling him names, and my younger son had been feeling angry and upset, I'd done my best to calm him down, the children whose parents were observing, seemed to be telling on our boys frequently, around this time, the incident happened, and then I took both of my boys out of the session. it was a real shame for it to end like that. But in my view the whole session would have worked much better if all the parents had stayed in the café and left supervision to the staff. Children do squabble sometimes, but if you let them they can also resolve their own situations, and they will get valuable learning from this too.

Good for
Him

She should have kept her far
Mouth shut

Thank you!

Well done to your son OP, too many people let terrible behaviour slide. Good on him for challenging in a polite manner.

There is no excuse for an adult to call children idiots so even if they were being naughty, she has no excuse for her behaviour

They were no worst than the other children, the only thing is that sometimes when they are goaded verbally by other children they might respond physically (with a wallop), of course I will always address this if it happens.

Hard to say without having seen how they were actually behaving. One person's 'squabbling' is another person's 'antisocial behaviour '. I agree that it's fine to stand up to an adult who is behaving unjustifiably, but it's impossible to say whether she was.

The way you say your ds said the boy was calling him names implies that maybe it was at least mutual, and the fact you say you did your best to calm him down implies that you weren't able to. I'm betting they caused quite a scene.

You have obviously posted this looking for lots of “Be proud of him OP, he sounds amazing!” type responses, but I would interested to hear the other side.

So the woman witnessed what went on with the kids but you didn't?

I think this might be one of those threads where you 'had to be there', to know who was in the right.

Not knowing exactly what happened with the kids, not knowing why the woman was so annoyed, not knowing exactly how your DS spoke to her, makes it difficult to say YABU or YANBU.

She shouldn't have called them idiots though. Although having said that, if I witnessed kids being idiots (imo) then I would say so to whoever I was with.

Absolutely agreed, that's a very important point!

We can’t possibly know as you will be giving a version of events that suits your perspective.