I was at a pre school visit this afternoon with my 3 year old DD, there were probably about 10 other children there and their parents. Children were wandering around playing while parents spoke to teachers.
My DD was in a "life area" and there was a fake wall between myself and her, I would have to climb through a kid sized archway to be next to her, so I was on the other side but still near her. There was a little boy who was barring her way when she wanted to walk past him so I called her name to tell her to walk around the table the other way so to avoid him but before she could react he pushed her, hard enough so she lost her balance and fell. She got very sad so I crawled through the arch to get to her and give her cuddle etc, gave the child a look but he ran off. I comforted my DD said it wasn't kind of him etc, but did I do the right thing not verbally correcting the other child?
His mum wasn't watching him so didn't see it, I had been next to her while she discussed sen with a teacher and other mum so he potentially may have had sen, he was definitely a bit younger than DD too. I don't know any of the other families and didn't want to get into a row with the mum (she was not the shy wall flower type) and embarrass my dd or make it awkward, especially as we have a whole year of pre school and potentially primary school classes together..
But now I'm having mum guilt and being 6 months pregnant just extra sensitive anyway, I know this must happen all the time in childcare settings, and I have corrected other children in a park before if they've been mean, but I just didn't know how best to handle it today and not sure if I did the right thing by my DD.
If it helps, she got over it quickly and we talked about it on the way home and she said next time she'll say "please stop" etc, and she knew he hadn't been kind. I also told the teachers who were sad for my dd as hadn't seen it and been able to step in themselves.