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.

There's a 10 year old boy in my street who has autism. He peed on a little girl one day last summer when all the kids were out playing. Girls mother went to talk to the boys mother, the boys mother said "oh he's just having a laugh, your DC looks fine" and that was the end of the conversation. I found this absolutely shocking.

I think I wouldn’t have been able to stop myself from asking why she wasn’t closely supervising her child so that you didn’t have to protect him from YOUR kid’s reaction when he tried to take the block…

Like several pp's have already said, it is possible for a 2 year old to be diagnosed with Autism. They likely have significant developmental delays such as non verbal, limited to no understanding etc which makes it 'easier' to get an earlier diagnosis because it is more obvious.

My son is severely autistic OP and I don't think it sounds like you did anything wrong. If he son is autistic and likely to snatch and hurt another child then she should have been with him and watching him closer

Why on earth should she ffs???
Would you allow some random kid to snatch something from yours just because they wanted it?
We're you the grabby kids mother by any chance?

Also people saying you can't get diagnosed at two are wrong! My son was diagnosed a few days after his second birthday. He is severely autistic and anyone can see it. Even from a very early age

She didn't attempt to discipline him.

@Avopopcorn atleast you are teaching your child about turns etc. Seems like this situation is a bit blurred as the mothers reaction wasn't normal. She must feel overprotective over her child if he has autism and emotional. So it's a bit of a tricky one really. I personally wouldn't have blocked the child unless he was going to physically attack my child or myself though. But you did what you felt was right.

Where does OP say she tried to discipline the child?

She stopped the child because she knows her son tends to hit when upset and has been teaching him to ask for help instead of hitting. She didn’t touch the child and only told him that her son was playing with it and he could have the block in a minute.

So this child should just be allowed to have whatever they want no matter who is already playing with it? I don’t think so.

i work in early years we promote sharing , taking turns and gentle hands. Every child has to wait their turn, no snatching!

Most parents that actually have an autistic child don’t behave like this woman. Usually the ones that go around screeching that their kid is autistic and making a massive scene every time their kid behaves badly have ‘diagnosed’ their kid themselves and think it gives them a parenting pass.

Those who actually have autistic children know very well that they generally need a closer eye in places like soft play and parent their child appropriately.

It sometimes IS.

Reminds me of what happened to me in a soft play. Sat in the ball pit thing with my then 3 and 1 year old. Boy comes in (about 3/4 I guess) and starts throwing balls hard at me and my children. I look for parents - no one there. They are only plastic balls so no harm done but was stressing out my kids a bit so I moved away.

Went back about 15 mins later, other boy is not there and start playing catch with my two. Out of nowhere the boy came in really aggressively throwing balls right into my face and I just said 'hold on mate' and then he started attacking my face with his fists. I held his arms for long enough to move him to the side and said firmly 'enough'. Then this woman appears (turns out she had been sitting 5 meters away and starts shouting at me like a banshee that how dare I touch someone else's child and he has had an awful life and has 'needs'. I said to her that she should keep a better eye on him if that was the case. I thought just as well he attacked me and not one of the babies in the ball pit because he proper went for me and could have done serious harm to one of them.

Yes! I am sick of parents not supervising their children at soft plays and play groups. Stuck on their phones and ignoring their child. Yes it’s tiring, but then book them into nursery instead if you don’t want to supervise your child.

Why? If it was the only one, then fair enough but it wasn't

And it was the other child's mother's job to do the distracting, not leaving him to his own devices

There are always some snide contrarians who must attack OP in the first few posts of every AIBU thread. Even if they’re obviously not being unreasonable. It’s annoying as fuck.

You obviously don’t have a severely autistic child. My son in this situation would have decided he needed THIS block and ONLY this block (then promptly lost interest in it 2 seconds later) and could not have been distracted or placated by anything else, as he is extremely “own agenda”. Trust me, I don’t want him to be this way but i have to pick my battles as there’s only so many meltdowns I can deal with in one day, particularly when in public. Knowing that the child has difficulties, I would have used it as an opportunity to maybe show your son it’s nice to be kind and help others and praised him to the hilt for doing so.

but I would also have been beside my son if I had seen you say no once and been trying my very best to distract him away.

You're not being unreasonable but I think sometimes when something like this happens and it seems inflammatory response from the other parent, there is probably more going on behind the scenes and this just happened to be the straw that broke the camel's back.

I think it's unrealistic to think at soft play children won't take toys off of one another etc, even if supervised or parent intervenes, it's just one of those things, I think the mum overreacted but also maybe a better option would have been to pick up another brick and offer the other child that instead of it looking like you were blocking her child. She obviously read your action completely differently to how you tell it. So perhaps see it from her perspective, her autistic child wants to play, happens to come towards you and your child and you put your arm out as a barrier before her child even makes it to you. It's just a misunderstanding.

I was at soft play last week, children snatching toys and sharing toys is all part of the learning process. It's probably actually counter productive if you are actively stepping in and preventing it than teaching how to react if it does happen i.e. encouraging sharing/redirecting attention.

...we're all mums, I just think support one another.

I’m the parent of an autistic child. Assuming you did it all gently and calmly, I don’t think you did anything wrong. It wasn’t the other mums fault the first time, perhaps she wrongly thought he would be fine and desperately needed a break. But the second time could have been avoided and her getting angry wasn’t needed either, assuming you were kind and polite. I would have apologised to you and just distracted my child in another area or got him excited by the other blocks.

Exactly this it's because of reactions like this we wanted sessions at a local soft play for families with disabled children. Sadly though parents would still come with mainstream children demanding they be let in. They ended up stopping the sessions because it wasn't worth the agro. Mum of 2 with autism I just used to let other child have the toy including my own and pick baby up. It did take a few years to teach them not to snatch.

Very similar thing happened to me years ago. My DS is ASD. He must have been around 3 and was playing with the blocks when a toddler comes over and pushed them over. Cue my DS shouting. I calmed him down, told him child didn't mean no harm etc. Blow me but he did it again and my DS screamed louder. Well, the Mum comes charging over shouting her head off, telling me I can't parent my child, that her child was merely a baby.
I was extremely impressed with my response - I didn't use the ASD excuse but merely stated 'for gods sake, he's just a child, build a bridge and get over it'. Lol.
Inside I was seething but I'm glad I stood my ground.
Soft play areas are hell in foam and plastic. Glad that period of my life is over.

My DS was officially diagnosed at 3 1/2. But had first assessment at 2 1/2 referred by speech therapist. With her info she passed on they were fairly certain he had autism. I was put on the earlybird course so everything I learned on that confirmed it for me he is.

This was 2001 when services were better funded. But a friend of mines grandson was diagnosed at 2 1/2. Christmas before last he struggled to sit with his reception class for the school play. Last Christmas he sung a solo.

If what you posted is accurate then you did nothing wrong.

So if you were in a situation where there were lots of other blocks around and your child was upset and said "Mummy help" when another child wanted to snatch away the toy he was playing with, you'd let them? Sorry, but I don't think that is particularly good parenting.

This isn't a case of a mainstream child muscling in on a disabled one. OP wasn't aware that he was autistic. She was trying to keep her own child calm. We've all been in situations where you try to be fair - well I certainly have. You sound as though you stay near your children in this sort of situation. This mother did not. If she hadn't caused a scene OP probably wouldn't even remember it now..

OP stepped in because her son is a hitter and she was preventing the other child from being hit. I'm sure the other mum would've made just as much of a scene if OP's son had hit her child too.

and Mumsnet would've asked her why she just sat there and let it happen.

It seems like OP can't win.