To block a child at soft play

[Avopopcorn]

Just had a bizarre interaction with a lady at soft play today and want to know if I am being unreasonable. DS (two years old) was playing in the toddler section with building block. It's just us, and there are loads of other blocks. We're all sat on the ground (my baby is with me too). Another toddler, same sort of age comes charging over and tries to grab the block my DS is playing with. DS is obviously about to get upset and react. We've been working really hard on DS not hitting in this sort of situation and saying "mummy help" instead which he did, despite being obviously upset by the other toddler.

I put one hand on the block and one between DS and the toddler to block him coming closer but don't move him away or anything like that, just a barrier arm while I say to the toddler that DS is still playing and he can have a turn in a minute. Cue the mum storming in, shouting "he's autistic! He's autistic! He doesn't understand, what do you think you're doing?!?!". She was mad. So I explained and she's still mouthing off. Then she takes him away and thirty seconds later it all happens again. Cue more shouting about him being autistic (but no extra supervision from her...) as I still wasn't letting him just take the block. She gets him, calls me a bitch and storms off to complain about me to the staff.

Poor staff member comes over, and says that she says I pushed her child. I explained obviously not, didn't think much more of it. Twenty mins later we go to leave and this woman is still crying to the staff member!

I've played it back in my head a few times and I don't know what else I could have done really. This kid was all over us, no parent near, and it would have escalated into a toddler hitting match if I hadn't done anything. Plus it's unreasonable for my DS to have to tolerate some random toddler taking a toy he's actively playing with (everything else in there wasn't being used, it wasn't busy). All toddlers require supervision and surely even more so if he's autistic and doesn't understand? If she had been with him she could have sorted it out herself.

And sorry why wasn’t the other mother supervising her child? It’s not OPs responsibility the world has gone mad!

I don’t think you did anything
wrong.
My DD was diagnosed with autism when she was 2, and I watched her like a hawk at soft play and intervened if she tried to grab stuff off other children.

Given the child was autistic I think I would've just given the blocks to him and distracted my child to another activity.

If this upset my child then I probably would've just said he would have to wait his turn and expected his mother to intervene.

You are so right!!! Spot on

Why?

@Eightfour why what?

The autistic child needs to learn the same things a NT child does like sharing-nkt to be treated specially.

Are you saying that you'd tell your child they'd have to wait their turn after letting the other child snatch it? Or that the other toddler had to wait his turn?

She was enjoying the drama and attention. She actively allowed it to happen again and then massively reacted sobbing and crying to staff loudly enough for others to overhear. I fail to see how any of it was helping her little boy. He should have been her focus and ensuring he wasn't in a position to be upset , but she didn't. She stood by letting it happen again knowing her making a fuss about it all would likely encourage him back over so she could play poor victim with a child with additional needs. Yuck. You did nothing wrong xxx

@Cappuccino17 - why would you give the blocks to the child because he was autistic?

My DS1 is autistic and has severe LD, diagnosed at 3 and still cognitively a 2 year old. I have always been with him in soft play and anywhere like that, I always will be as long as he accesses these places (rare these days unless relaxed sessions). The mum needs to supervise AND explain the situation if she feels the latter is necessary, not run in screaming when her child has been thwarted or a situation has arisen. This makes me angry; we are responsible for our own children while they aren't able to be responsible or responsive themselves and to be teaching them and controlling them when teaching doesn't work.

It's sad and frustrating as I'd love to be having a coffee and chilling like mothers of other 3/4/5/6/7/9/10 year olds but it isn't an option when I choose to take my son into spaces where he can't understand or navigate them age-appropriately. That is not including during SEND specific sessions but I'd still be supervising throughout those. Age appropriateness at two which is obviously going to involve conflict and issues at times, for all children whether additional needs or not. You handled this well and shouldn't feel bad at all. At all.

It's unfortunate because it feels unfair but you parent the child you have, which is what you did and what the other didn't.

Err I don’t think I would use my arm to block another toddler unless they were being really aggressive. My toddler is at nursery 3 days a week and I assume that plenty of snatching goes on and an adult can’t monitor every single interaction. I don’t think it’s a huge deal. I agree with a previous poster who said this all sounds a bit precious!

How was OP supposed to know the other child was autistic before his mother ran in screaming "He's autistic, he's autistic" ?

Excellent comeback! It’s such a shame parents don’t supervise their children properly or understand that it’s a shared space!

I think sharing is great, and I would encourage this too so they could play with the blocks together. But snatching out of another's hand is wrong and the child should be told "no". ND or not.

@WithACatLikeTread It depends where he was on the spectrum actually it's not that black and white is it. I have a 2 year old who has learnt skills to share and wait turns so he would be quite flexible changing activities.

@Avopopcorn sorry wasn't phrased clearly. I meant I would ask the mother of the child to tell her child to wait his turn. As my child would come first if it was upsetting him.

Autistic children need to be taught boundaries just like every other child on this planet. I say this as someone who has been a mum to an ASD toddler. 🙄 You are absolutely right OP she should have been supervising her child. Lazy is the mother who can’t be bothered to parent and then shouts her mouth off when some poor other parent has to intervene. If people can’t be bothered to supervise their children they should be the ones asked to leave. All of the “couldn’t you have distracted your own child” camp either must have no kids or a short memory. Small children instinctively want what others have, regardless of how many other of the same toy there are. No good comes with being passive to your own children or expecting your children to be passive to other children for no good reason. It just teaches children that they don’t have the same rights as other kids and that if they have a tantrum they can get away with murder. I do despair at this generation of people. I really do. 🤦🏻‍♀️

You handled it perfectly. Blocking is perfectly acceptable.

You handled it fine. Maybe other mum has had a bad experience in the past or something but her reaction was very very unreasonable.

Absolutely nothing to do with the post (possibly related due to reaction)...but years ago I used to put my niece and nephew into the gym cresh for or an hour (approx 2/3yr old) and when I collected them there was always a little girl ages with them who always ran up to me, wanted to cuddle me, sit on my spare knee when sitting on the floor to put the kids shoes on, show me what she was doing etc. and the staff always would say that's really unusual for her but you do look a lot like her mum. I did always give her a cuddle back and pretend to be interested in whatever she was playing (as you do with toddlers) but always had the fear her mum would come in and hit the roof about her child basically being ready to leave with a stranger

My child is autistic. He's 11 now & I remember DS' psych telling us to never use, or allow a diagnosis to be used, as an excuse for poor behaviour. It's a future of pain if you do!

The toddler must be severe ASD to have such a young age diagnosis. Perhaps it's a new diagnosis where the DM hasn't had support yet, and feels upset, confused, and over protective. I know the feeling well.

I disagree strongly that OP's child should just give up the block. I was raised like that and now struggle to assert myself instead of just doing what everyone else wants or letting others have the cream of everything. DH was too. He used to automatically make the kids get off / give up things because another child wanted it (even if they'd just gotten it), and even tried to get me to move away from a rack in a shop if someone else came to the same spot! Or let others have a table/carpark etc we'd been waiting for. He didn't even realise what he was doing was telling us we didn't matter as much as others. Now he understands, and we teach our DC you have your turn, then make sure the child waiting first gets their turn.

Like my username says, I know I’m about to get lynched, but I’ve seen autism being used as reason/excuse for this kind of thing way more times than I’d like. Do two year olds often get diagnosed with autism, or is this a self diagnosis from the parents who don’t want to face up to their kids behaviour?

It's not just that we find parenting hard... although we do (hello, kidlets noisy swimming triggering my sensory issues!)
It's that we legit have no ideawhat NT looks/feels like. There were several times in my son's initial assessment where we were asked 'does he do XYZ' and I was like 'yeah but so do I, doesn't everyone?'. No, they don't 😆

That's why I put "autistic" in inverted commas earlier in the thread.