A classic soft play AIBU

[DinoNuggetsRUs]

So at soft play today, there was a football box section with two goals on either side.
probably about five or six 3-4 year olds in there and a couple of older kids around 6 or 7.
the older kids were absolutely belting the ball about really hard. Mums were stood on the side telling them to keep the ball low and the kids were just pretty much ignoring them. After the 3rd time one of my two 4 year olds got belted on the side of the head with the ball I said to the mum ‘can you take him out?’ as it was the same boy who was doing it and he wasn’t paying attention to what she was saying when she was asking him to be more careful. It was a knee jerk thing for me to say cause I was pissed off but in my head I was thinking, he’s not doing as he’s told, if that was my child I would have removed them from the situation or at least got them apologise. He definitely wasn’t doing it on purpose he was just kicking the ball too hard.
My kids were taking shelter in one of the goals at one end as the balls we’re just coming from everywhere at high speeds and she said the kids were unable to play football because mine were sat in the goal, there was a goal the other side but I kinda see her point but they were scared to come out as they kept being twatted by the ball.
Anyway, me and the other mum ended up having a chat which turned quite heated, I kept saying to her I’m not trying to have an argument, it’s just mine was on the floor crying and her child was STILL booting the ball around at high speed. I ended up just getting mine out of there, which I probably should have just done in the first place tbh without mentioning anything.

Looking back, I genuinely don’t know whether I was being unreasonable or whether the other mum was for not taking her child out when he was ignoring what she was saying.

YABU you should have removed them. The other mum was probably trying to draw your attention to the fact they could get hurt.

Soft play is hellish. It wouldn't have hurt them to wait a few minutes as several little ones were having a kick around, or to be more mindful. Id also have asked DS to stop to allow the other parent to get their crying child. Lots of parents don't really give a shit though I'm afraid.

YABU if I let my kid hide or play in a football goal I'd assume they would be hit. The older kids weren't using them as target practice and have as much right as your kids to play there. I would have been really annoyed as the other mum with you trying to tell me what to do

I think this is a classic case of OP seeing 6yos as giants compared to her 4yos.

OP, the onus is on you to get in and remove your child. It wasn’t the NBA, you could have gone in and got your dc within 10 seconds, but you wanted to prove a point.

This is why play gyms catering for different ages are a good idea. Even if they do different hours for different times- e.g under 3, 4-6 and 6+ then sibling mixed hour (if you have children of different ages you are more likely to be more tolerant of boisterous older kids). Been there on all fronts- when your children are little the older ones seem like feral dangerous animals, then when they got older you want to actually enjoy your coffee without hearing they’ve barged into the toddler climbing up the slide or who is randomly sat in a busy area.

Got to agree with this. There are parts of the soft play that are not really suitable for a big range of ages to be using them together, I would usher my kids away from older kids in those areas when they were too small until the area was clear again.

I wouldn't expect an excited 7 year old at soft play to "keep the ball low" for smaller kids, or keep out of an area smaller kids are in unless it was specifically an under 5's area.

Sorry but I would say YABU. In a soft play there are so many areas - your children did not need to be in the football court.

Children get to an age where they really get into football but are too young for teams or places where you can go and play on pitches so these areas in soft play are something they can do. Kicking the ball hard isn’t wrong , it’s what they do when they play football. They were using the area for what it should be used for , the 3-4 year olds were not , they were just playing so they should have been the ones who were taken out.

Why didn’t you mention your son was crying in your op?

At 4 years old… if he felt like he wasn’t enjoying the area, he’d have roamed elsewhere.

Those soft play balls couldn’t cause pain even if Ronaldo tried

does your soft play not divide in to ages? Our local one has a 0-2 a 3-5 and a 6-12 area. The football area is in the 6-12, obviously they are not checking IDs but the area is to play football .

Yours sounded too little to be in there.

DS is 9 and likes the football section. Quite often younger children go in and run round, not playing football and invariably get hit. Unfortunately hiding in the goal means you will get hit.

How much was this soft play op?

I loathe them and never take my dc. My toddler now goes to a member only one, we pay a fair bit for a session, but it’s well controlled, a member of staff always hovering around , cleaned daily and thoroughly, and only a certain number of kids allowed in time slots, and grouped according to ages.
I pay extra to not deal with the horrible situations I read on here

If your kid is repeatedly getting hurt, you remove them from the situation. You can’t control how that mum parents their kid so you do what is in your control. Take them out to play in a different area and go back when it’s calmed down

The mum may have told the kids to hit the ball low but tbh it's not like telling a child to stop hitting where you would remove them if they didn't stop, in my opinion, it's more that she was being polite and probably had done enough to tell them but they're just playing football in the soft play and I think you should have gone somewhere else.

I'm actually most surprised that the mum of a 7 year old is even watching them and not having a coffee across the way. I wouldn't be following a 7 year old around.

OP I have children who now play elite football at the highest level. At the age of seven there is no way their aim was that good to keep the ball ‘low’ and not hit it that hard. They have one speed. And the balls aren’t proper footballs. They are soft balls for soft play.

There is a football goal and you didn’t like that kids were using it and playing football and taking shots? What did you think it was there for?

If it’s too hard or fast you don’t tell other kids to calm down you take your kids out and go somewhere else. This sounds like pretty entitled behaviour to me.

These other kids did nothing wrong. You didn’t like them playing football in a football area with a football net because they didnt have the accuracy of Messi (and just for reference sometimes Messi misses too) you told them to move and got into an argument with their parent.

Sounds like a you problem.

It’s not a “classic” soft play scenario because you took it upon yourself to ask a mum and her child get out of an area of soft play which is invariably very “energetic” - and that is a pretty 😮 soft play event!