I was at a farm park at the weekend with 8yo ds.
There were some ride on tractors on a track that were really popular. There were 5 tractors.
Ds waited patiently for about 20 minutes for a go on the tractor. There were some children who were having a few circles of the track then getting off, but some were staying on. All fine, annoying but not really my business.
No sooner did ds start his turn a big group of women and children arrived to have a go on the tractors. I decided I’d let ds circle round maybe 4-5 times which would take a few minutes. Then call him off to let someone else have a turn.
Ds hadn’t even had his first circle when a girl from the group (looked about 12) started really whining that it wasn’t fair as she wanted a turn. She’d literally been waiting less than a minute at this point.
She then approached me and started demanding that I tell the other children to get off so that she could have her turn.
I very politely told her that the other children weren’t with me, but that when my son had finished she could have a go, but that he’d only just got on and would be a few minutes.
Then she started asking me to please tell my son to get off now because she wanted a go.
By this point Ds had gone round twice I told her clearly he’d go round a couple more times and then she could have a go.
This obviously wasn’t good enough because next thing, the girl starts running over to children blocking their path asking them to get off the tractors. Most of the children were just ignoring her and then she did it to Ds. Stood in front of him blocking him and asked him to get off so that she could have a go.
All of this and Ds hadn’t even had 4 minutes on the tractors. I asked Ds if he wanted to finish his turn and he said he did.
I politely but firmly called over to the girl and asked her to stop it. To let Ds finish his turn and then she can have her turn.
At this point the mother of the girl appeared and had a right go at me for speaking nastily to her dd. She told me not to dare speak to her daughter like that and said her daughter was only asking nicely.
I wasn’t nasty and her dd was being a pita. What was I supposed to do?
Ds finished his turn and came off and went to play on something else nearby. The little girl had a turn and was then trying to kick other children off so that he friend could go on at the same time. When her mum called her off so that another child in the group could have their turn, the girl had an alright tantrum and the mother said, pointing at me “we share, not like SOME people”.