“Your kid is really annoying us” - soft play rant

[HolaPedro]

Took my DC (4,2 & 20m) to soft play today.

I go in with my children and supervise. Oldest goes off and plays for a little bit in the “bigger” area but is within eyesight/earshot.
Comes into the baby area (designated 0-4 years) to play with his siblings.

a group of about 7 slightly older children come and play in the baby area… would say they ranged from about 5/6 to 9ish.

they are playing roughly - climbing on things they shouldn’t, throwing things around. All while their parents (5 of them) are on a table the other end of the room, chatting and eating a picnic, completely ignoring their kids. The only babies in the baby area are mine so just keep them away and kind of hope their parents will see in a second and address it.

My oldest is going to school in September so I’m trying not to smother… they want to play with these older children so I hover within earshot and tell DC not to do xyz. DC asks “can I play with you” and one of the older children happy and being quite sweet telling DC what game they are playing.

DC being quite chatty telling older child what they like doing - other children start saying “get lost/you’re so annoying/shut up/why are you here” and mocking my DC copying what they say etc..

in the end one of the girls in the group marches right up to me and says “you’re kid is really annoying us” right in front of DC. I was shocked and just said that this was the baby area and they can always play in the bit for older children if they don’t want to be near little ones

Now, with DC going to a big school in September I have been trying to explain that not everyone will want to play with you all the time… but at the same time, I think their parents should have at least had an eye/ear on them!? If I heard my child saying that I would have had a word with them

In the end my DC was so upset they just asked to leave so we did.

would love some thoughts, my DC honestly can be quite annoying but on this occasion I really don’t think they deserved to be spoken to like that. I do also appreciate that many older children won’t want to play with younger ones and would never force it

but I appreciate it’s something they might experience more at school. DC gets on fine at nursery and has some really good friendships

thoughts on how to discuss this with them? They are nearly 5 and quite good at understanding things so not worried about having a bit of a serious conversation

also WHY tf do people just ignore their kids at soft play? Does my head in

You'll always meet badly behaved kids in there and usually they get their behaviour from their shitty parents. My little one once got dragged by her hair off a slide in the baby bit by a 4 to 6 year old.

After asking her parents to call her away and telling her this bit was for babies and to be gentle and her continuing to basically throw my 18 month old off whatever toy she was playing with, push her over and laugh when she cried, I got really quite short with her in the end and told her to go away, she was a nasty girl and dd didn't want to play with her. She looked quite shocked but did go away.

@SingleMumStruggling

Right.

So, not shit parenting then.

I didnt supervise mine directly because I didn't need to. Like you say

I think you should have been more assertive and told the group to leave the baby section immediately, rather than just hoping their parents would notice. Demonstrate behaviour you want emulated in your children.

Be blunter. “Your kid is annoying me” “you’re annoying me, go back to the area for older kids you brat”

In the same way you clearly ignored the signs everywhere about parental supervision!

I see, when somone tells off a brat for being bratty because their bored parents don't care what their free range offspring is up to it's 'shaming' yet when the gobby girl tells OP's son to “get lost/you’re so annoying/shut up/why are you here” it's assertive building life skills. Sure! 😂💩😂

@chaosmaker

What signs?

The only signs our softplay had were ones telling parents to stay off the equipment.

You do realise that not every soft play is the same, right?

There's a difference between telling off and shaming. There's also a difference between a child and an adult.

You can tell a child off without shaming them that they are too old for soft play, especially if you are telling them off for being unkind. If you can't manage it as an adult, why have higher expectations of a child?

Just say that you didn’t feel like going anymore but perhaps next time the children there will be a bit nicer.

Wow.
To start with how about point at each of the kids and say 'you lot, get out. This area isn't for you!'.

Honestly, if any kids were telling my child to go away and shut up and then came up to me to tell me they were annoying I would tell that kid they were annoying me and maybe they should shut up and go away.

I really don't care about the other child's feelings in these instances. Just the other week a child was throwing wood chips at my toddler in the playground and I told him that if I saw him do it again then I would throw wood at him. No fucks given.

🤣🫣😬

I don’t know what it is about soft play but it seems to bring out the underlying lunatic in some people. DS1 and I were in the baby area once when I was days away from giving birth to DS2. I was charged into and nearly knocked over - not by a child but by their mother! 😳

Definitely shite parenting.

You actually said that the whole point of soft play was not to watch your kids. As I said, shite parenting.

Independent play is important but you shouldn't be 'ignoring' your child. I go to soft play with DD every week and I know roughly where she is, I sit so I can see the play equipment and see if she's in the baby bit (although she knows she's not meant to go in there but occasionally there are other kids in there and she follows them), when I hear crying, if I can't see DD I have a quick check to make sure she isn't involved.

I think that's what people mean by supervising, not crawling around the soft play with them. I don't see everything DD does but I am aware of where she is, who she is with and ready to respond if needed.

I have no qualms telling off other people's children either and have no issue with my own being told off if they are misbehaving and I am not there to see it.

I'm sure if you were on the receiving end she wouldn't be flavour of the month!

Sounds like the parents only brought their kids there for some selfish 'me' time rather than for their kids enjoyment! Oh, I have all this to come.. 😒

How do you know? … you used it as an opportunity to be lazy instead of actually parenting your child.

You sound a bit soft.. I’d have said to the kids to leave the area as this is for babies, before they started pissing around. Then if the incident had occurred I’d have gone over and spoken to their parents’ and said their children are being nasty to others.. I wouldn’t have been rude but I wouldn’t have let them do whatever with no consequences. Agree that parents who ignore their kids at soft play are the worst!!

I'd say it's guaranteed that your child won't be like this when he's older. This is because he has an engaged parent who cares about behaviour.

Lord of the Flies is an allegory. It's not about the nature of children.

It makes me so cross that nobody enforces the infant area (under 3s where we go) and so it’s always full of bigger children being rough. They have a whole other massive area to play! I think the people that work there should be keeping an eye on the toddler area really and telling older kids to play elsewhere.

I think your DC was going to have that experience at school though anyway. It’s horrible but it’s just what some older children are like to little kids. He’ll probably be a bit more wary at school now.

When mine were babies I'd sometimes nip off and tell a staff member if older kids were in the baby bit and getting too rough.

This whole "keep your kids in earshot" thing seems a bit mental though. Mine are 8 and 5. The closest soft play is absolutely massive, huge slides, towers etc - would people genuinely follow their 8/5 year olds around in that kind of place checking that they were "being kind"? I mean I generally know where they are roughly and the baby section is next to the cafe tables so I can check they aren't in the younger kids section... But otherwise I don't hover around watching obsessively! Its not "shite parenting", it's just letting your kids play independently. Just like I can see where they are at the park but don't charge around obsessively watching and listening to every interaction.

OP I'm sorry your child was hurt. It does sound like they were being mean, copying him etc. In that situation all you can do is explain that not everyone will be kind all of the time but you can't control other people's behaviour and it says more about them than you!

It’s horrible, my DD is only 3, she’s been told a few times she can’t play or go away. I actually loathe some children, I was pretty speechless first time it happened. DD was petrified, there were 3 slightly older kids shouting at her. I told her some people are horrible but she also know so many nice people. Tbh though I’m starting to lose my patience with kids, last time she was told she can’t play somewhere I just said “yes she can” and then proceeded to play.

Tbh I actually think we’ve lost something about setting social norms as a society, a short sharp shock from an adult pointing out your behaviour is not ok will probably do these kids some good. if Dd was being awful to another child I would have no problem with an adult telling her off. What we have now is people not bothering to parent their own kids and many adults too hesitant to say anything to other peoples kids. Takes a village and all that.

Laughing my head off at the PP "I never supervised my kids after toddler age... They were never rude to adults though" 😆 how in the blue hell do you know that. And yeah, kids do deviate from how they behave at home/have been taught. All the time.

Some parents seem to think that it's down to parents of littles to watch their own kids and literally every other kid in the place as well, because "that's the point of soft play, I've done my time with toddlers, I'm having a coffee and a cake and they can do what they want." It's rubbish parenting any way you slice it.

No, you don't have to follow them around. But you look up every now and then, listen out for crying/shouting, and keep the baby bit in your eyeline so you know your 'little' darling isn't trampling on any toddlers.

As for how do you watch two kids of different ages at the same time - as above. Stay with the youngest if they're young enough to need it, and keep watch to make sure there's no baby section overlap.

This whole older kids in the baby bit thing grinds my gears no end! I've shepherded out many kids, physically removed their hands from my kids, taken projectiles off them, ordered them off things e.g. when they've started walking up a slide that a toddler is about to come down... Parents nowhere to be seen, obviously. 🙄

The whole idea that telling them off is shaming is way over dramatic! Making the kid feel a bit silly and immature is definitely the way to go.
They aren’t going to respond to “that’s very unkind now please leave the baby area it’s for smaller ones”. They KNOW it’s unkind. They KNOW it’s a baby area. A 9 year old doing impressions of a toddler?! Telling them they’re annoying?! That’s a year 5 child to a nursery age child. In a little baby area. It is pretty shameful.
You can’t give them consequences (obviously) and they already know they’re being unkind but seemingly don’t mind about that. But what older kids DO care about is not being babyish. They don’t like to think of themselves as being immature or not “9 year old ish”. They don’t like to feel embarrassed or silly. And tbh if I made the two girls mocking my little 3yo who was trying her very best to go fast on the tunnel feel embarrassed and ashamed of their behaviour then that’s a win. Hopefully they won’t do it to another 3 year old. Fingers crossed they’ll realise that their role now, as older children, is to be patient and encouraging of littler ones.