Was I wrong to touch her child?

[WhatDoYouDo1234]

At a famous London attraction today with my 4 year old. She was playing on one of the interactive exhibits. There was a long queue behind us. Another little girl about 3 kept running up and putting her hands on what my daughter was doing. Think an interactive drawing, so each time she touched it the screen cleared and my daughter’s drawing was lost. There was no parent anywhere near. First time I said gently “No, it’s not your turn, it’s this girl’s turn, you have to wait.” Or something to that effect. By the fifth or sixth time my daughter was getting increasingly cross, no matter how much I told her to be patient and try again, or how I tried to ask the other little girl to stop, and the kids behind us were getting cross too. I’m trying to prevent my daughter from loosing her cool. So I actually removed the girl’s hands and gently lifted her back saying “It’s not your turn. You have to wait.” A mum then came storming up shouting at me “Not to effing touch my child again!” To which I said something like “Well maybe if you were watching her you could have sorted it.” So my question is not if I was unreasonable, I probably was, but what do you do in that situation? With hindsight I’m thinking I should have called out for someone to come and get their child? But it was all quite quick! What would you do?!

Lots of thick parents like that about. Best one was when I ran to stop a 3 year old who was tipping her chair backward in a cafe and about to crack her skull open on the hard floor, oblivious parents to busy ignoring their rambunctious loud child. As expected said child tipped all the way back and I broke her fall with my leg. Peasant parent shouted oi don’t kick … I was speechless. Nowadays I just think crack away… not my child .. some parents are twats 🙄

A slap would do the trick! I sometimes wish it was the olden days and you could administer a swift slap to an unruly child.

I'm not sure what I would do in this situation, I think these days people lose their shit over minor things when it comes to kids and that my might make me think twice, but I don't think you were unreasonable.
You gently moved her out of the way so your child could enjoy their turn, some people are reacting like you did something to hurt her.

The kids parent was a dick head and should be paying attention to their child.

@LoisLane66
Why is it unbelievable that I havnt had the time to read all 12pages of responses.
Meanwhile I am watching my own child so, no I don't think it's unbelievable.
Just points of view that differ from your own.

I think there is nothing wrong with touching someone else's child in this type of situation. If a parent is not parenting their child I think it's fine for another adult to step in.

Not fine to shout at, swear at, be rude to or physically punish the child of course, that goes without saying.

Dont blame u. Id probably have yet STOP at her so loudly she'd have cried 😆 and told her to go back to her mum ....

@SylvanasWindrunner

I honestly think people whose first thought is 'how dare you touch my child' and not 'oh, I'm sorry, I should have been watching her' are so far out of touch with what is acceptable parenting of young children in a public place that you can't reason with them anyway. If your toddler has been repeatedly annoying someone to the point they have to physically move your child away from them, you are failing to look after your child properly. It's as simple is that. It's lazy, bad parenting and you deserve to have someone call you out on it.

Well said-i can't believe some of the lame comments that are being made on here. The parents were likely busy on their phones & taking no interest in what their child is doing until they are outed by someone else. They were lucky it wasn't someone leading their child away. I brought up 4 children now all in their 40's & parents themselves-my children were never allowed to bother anyone else and they learnt how to fit into a civilised society-something I fear is being lost in 2021!

I pretend that I think they are lost 😀

Hand to a staff member if at all possible, saying loudly ‘This child is alone. There you are sweetie, the lady will help find your mummy’.

@ABCeasyasdohrayme

I wouldn't have done it, but the mother should 100% have been watching.

That said I wouldn't let my kid be drawing 5 or 6 times if there was a long queue of people either. I would have come back later.

Why? It wasn’t her fault some little precious Annie was allowed to run amok

Personally I’d have moved my child onto something else

@PuzzlingPieces

You were right. I was at the park once and a child was not "taking turns" with my child at the playground ie snatching and pushing. I managed this for around 5 minutes before eventually he went to hit my child and I stopped his hand and said "oh dear, we don't hit do we". The apparently absent mother then appeared as if from nowhere and told me not to dare touch her child! Madness.

@PuzzlingPieces isn’t it amazing how they come flying out of nowhere when someone dares to say anything about their horrible brats though? Like hey didn’t you see your kid for the last half hour though love.

[quote lazystar]@LaetitiaASD
I can't believe how crap you are at not being able to read my first statement, that you copy and pasted back at me.

I said if the child was not in any danger or hurt.

At no point did I say I would let a child die.
I suggest you start reading before you make wild and untrue accusations.

I would however treat you like an adult if you touched my child without undue reason.

Try reading before you go off on a wild tangent.[/quote]
Apologies for being so sloppy in my reading! I would never touch your child without undue reason, but I would touch your child if I felt it appropriate to do so.

Only certain types of parents react like that, usually the ones who don't watch their kids and then shout.

If it were my child and I hadn’t noticed then I wouldn’t mind at all. It’s not like you hurt her and probably have her enough of a shock to make her think twice in the future.

@Jeannie88

Only certain types of parents react like that, usually the ones who don't watch their kids and then shout.

Absolutely.

No doubt watching for an opportunity for faux outrage.

Aka, the dregs.🙄

@WhatDoYouDo1234

Ok mixed bag! Thought I'd get more flamed!

I'm not saying she was in danger, but I could see my daughter whacking her. Not condoning that behaviour, she's just four and it's an impulse response to someone not taking turns and destroying her work.

Interesting those saying to move my daughter. Firstly there was a queue of other kids, so this girl would have effectively pushed in n front of them. But more importantly, why should I cut my daughter's time short and her not get her print out drawing because someone else was ruining it? We would have had to queue again!

Ugh! Other parents are a minefield!

I seriously don't think you done anything wrong, the fault lies with the little girls mother. By taking your child away you're teaching her that her good behaviour gets punished, and that other little girls' naughty behaviour gets rewarded.

Also, why on earth is the mother swearing like that in front of children? Vile!

Why do some people have children if they can't be bothered with them? If you are not going to pay attention, don't take them out of the house.

The mother sounds like a vile, rude foul mouth. But the kid was only 3? A little more than a baby

You should have moved on

@MissMaple82

Yeah I think you were unreasonable, you have no tight to physically touch or pick up someone's child regardless of how annoying the situation was. I'd of gone bat shit too! The best thing to do would to of taken your child away to do something else amd return a bit later when hopefully the child had gone. You were in the wrong 100%

@MissMaple82

Why should her child be moved? The other mum should have parented her child properly, rather than ignore her.

I'm assuming you're one of the mums in the scenario tbh 🙄

You gave the other Mum plenty of time to intervene, she allowed her DD to be a little pest so I feel you had every right!

YANBU

Maybe picking up the kid wasn’t the wisest move but with parents like that you’d have been in for earache no matter how you’d approached it.

When DS1 was 3 we were in a sports hall and he was running around with some little friends whilst we packed up. There was a bigger boy maybe 6 or 7 who was hanging around them and then ran between them and shoved my DS in the back knocking him to the floor. I immediately went over to pick my son up, and as I passed this boy I said firmly ‘that wasn’t very nice now was it?!’ The next thing I knew his Mother flew over, all expletives and fury, demanding to know how I dared speak to her child and I should have spoken to her not him if I had a f’ing problem. You simply can’t argue with stupid.

@teatime9999

I wouldn't really mind if you did that with one of my kids tbh. With twins that age and a baby, I'm not always paying close attention to every kid. I'd actually feel worse about one of my kids had behaving that way that if you tried to move her. BUT you were a bit of a bitch when you told her off for not watching her child. Who knows what she was dealing with when it was going on. Anyway, it takes a village.

Nope, no excuse ever for not being able to watch your child. Your child, your responsibility - end of! If you take your eyes off then and someone else stands in then they are not a bitch for calling them out on it!

what if you just spent flipping ages a bit of time typing a flipping genius interesting anecdotal answer and then somehow lost the whole thing logging in and you wanted to launch the laptop through the big telly and somehow blame the dog
just asking for a friend

I would have invited the other child over, not pushed her away.