To think this mum could have done something a bit more effective?

[Canonlythinkofthisone]

It's not very exciting but I'm just a bit perplexed by events of today.

Took DD to an adventure type playground thing. There was a slide. Long story short at one point, a child held the slide hostage by sticking himself half up and half down, refusing to move, meaning no other children could use the slide.

No big deal right, loads of other stuff to play on. However, I'm a people watcher and so I watched this unfold.

Mum, looking a bit harassed, repeated approx 30 times, come on joey. Off you get. That's it. For 15 solid mins she stood at the bottom of the slide repeating that, quietly.

Kids were queuing up to use the slide. If it had been mine DD. A couple of nice asks, a stern get down, and if still no budging. I'd have just gone to remove her.

Eventually a bigger child approx 8yo (the one in question was about 3/4) took matters into his own hands and barreled down the slide taking out the 4 year old.

There were then loads of tears and tantrums and the mum of the 4yo was having a right go at the dad of the 8yo.

But AIBU to think the mum should have/could have just removed the problem from the slide? 15 minutes when toddlers/young children are involved is a long time, and I was just a bit baffled by her complete ineffectiveness. Or AIBU?

I once had a parent complain to me about upsetting her child. Her older sibling was in my class, by a window overlooking the carpark where parents waited with younger ones who had already been collected. Naughty younger sister could not resist coming up to the window and pulling faces; understandable (tbh, at her age I would have found it tempting) but disruptive to my Maths lesson, and embarrassing for big brother. Mother was chatting away and leaving younger sibling to let rip freely.
So I double-checked with big brother what his little sister's name was, left my classroom, strode out of the front door into the carpark, summoned the little miscreant (who began to howl as soon as I called her over and tried to hide behind Mummy) and gave her a fairly routine dressing down. She wailed in dismay at being held to account; clearly old enough to be at school herself as in uniform (ours was a boys' school, hence not a pupi; at the same school) so knew she was being naughty.
Mummy's response was to try and say sorry without reprimanding her errant child, complaining "Ooooh, telling her off in front of everybody!"
I pointed out with some acerbity that she had been misbehaving in front of everybody.
She scooped up the younger one, collected the older one, and scuttled off to her car.
Older brother told me the next day, "It was great, Miss Twosheds, she cried all the way home!" By his account she was an absolute pain at home, but he was no saint, so I took that with a pinch of salt.
Indulgence of poor behaviour is not kindness in the long run; someone less tolerant will be along sooner or later.