Soft play bully

[SnappedCrayon]

Very long time reader, first time poster.
Hi to you lovely lot!
Was I being unreasonable to have approached the parent of a child who was bullying my child in a soft play area today? She said she'd sort it and get her child to apologise to mine but then proceeded to do (rhymes with duck) all. This happened only 2 hours ago so I'm still seething.

Thanks for reading, SnappedCrayon 🖍️

You’re allowed to say fuck.

It’s never going to be unreasonable to complain to
a parent about bullying. What did the child do or say to yours? How old are they?

Coffee - that's great fucking news thanks for the heads up!

Dizzy - I would say the other boy was around 7 or 8 tops, my son is 8. He was repeatedly following my son around saying "what is your problem?" to my son and also told him that he was the weirdest boy he'd ever met.

Pushing, shoving and name calling is part of natural behaviour for children and they have to learn to cope with th rough and tumble of life. Helecopter parenting will not help your child to grow up tough, independent and self reliant as my generation did.

I disagree with this entirely. This boy absolutely should have been challenged about his behaviour. It is not ‘helicopter’ parenting to stop children from pushing, shoving and name calling. No wonder society is a state if this is the attitude.

Not wrong to ask, obviously, but as you can’t control other people’s behaviour or parenting, I’d also work on developing strategies to deal with this with your child. It won’t be the only time he encounters someone aggressive.

I don’t think there is anything wrong with this. If a child is following your child around and hassling them at soft play and you can see who the parent is then why not ? I find at soft play a lot of the time it’s hard to know who the parents actually are . It’s certainly more appropriate to approach the parents than approaching the child themselves . If my child did this and a parent told me I would have no issue telling my child to rein it in to be honest. It’s not fair the children are there to have fun and why should your child have to put up with someone being nasty like this.

I would have told the boy off directly first, particularly an 8 year old. If they're old enough to go around the soft play on their own, they're old enough to be told to behave.

You are well within your rights to directly tell little shits to knock it off if they’re being little shits.

Yeah this kind of behaviour I just tell the kid off directly if there's no parent nearby. I don't yell or anything, just unsmiling face and "Oi, no pushing thanks" or whatever. Ditto for big kids running through the baby area or climbing up the slide when others are trying to go down.

Said by the parent of kids who bully, push, shove and name call because they don’t want to deal with it.

Absolutely right to say, but if he continued to do it and the parent did nothing I'd have stepped in and told him to stop myself. Not shouting, but a very firm "My son has asked you to stop. You are being unkind, and it's not ok. Leave. Him. Alone."

And when the kid hasn't listened then the OPs son needs to be backed up so he can enjoy himself. I'll tell off any kid who is being a dick.

I told off a 4 year old bruiser of a child who kept pushing my 2 yo ds over and chucking balls at his head. The little monster looked at me defiantly as I told him not to do that and how unkind it was…then as soon as I turned my back to walk away he smacked my bum and then raced off 🤣 I tried to see who he was with so I could tell his parent what had happened but lost sight of him. God I hate soft play.

I'm gonna say this as someone who was bullied for YEARS. So much so it turned me into a misanthropist. The parents of bullies don't do sh!t, let me reiterate that: don't do sh!t.

They don't care and they never will and why should they? It's your kid that will need years of therapy not theirs.

The best you can do is teach your child that they are loved just the way they are and it's not them that's the problem it's the bully.

Unfortunately there seems to be at least one at every soft play
You were definitely right to say something although of course the lazy twat did nothing about it. I mean there's phones to look at, she needs a break...how can she correct her child's bad behaviour? He sounds a total little shit
Honestly my dc are in their 20s now with fond memories of soft play. Me, er not so much!

Absolutely not!!!

I think seething over it hours later is a bit OTT to be honest. Tell the little monster to go and play somewhere else firmly next time and move on with your life. Cultivate your death stare.

Age 8 I would be saying something to the kid directly. Kids who are bullies at 8, often learn that behaviour from somewhere, or haven’t ever been corrected. Expecting the parents to suddenly parent won’t happen.

YABU seething hours later though. Kids will see and hear much worse. Teach him how to stand up for himself and resiliency, so he knows he’s a-okay exactly as he is.

I find happy sarcasm works for me (eg smiling broadly and saying 'oh darling, doesn't mum love you?' to the little shit). Something crazy so they can't possibly explain that to their parent without sounding like a loon who's making stuff up
Or I just 'be in the way' accidentally on purpose so the little fucker sweet darling bumps into me (only works if they're smaller than you). They always apologise. I then give a strained smile and make some comment about them being a bit clumsy, or a disapproving hard stare. They get embarrassed and leave us alone
Mine are well grown up now tho and able to sort of our the shits for themselves
What they need is to know that you've got their back, and what behaviour is socially acceptable
Best lesson they can learn

I didn't think 8/9 yo went to soft play?

Either way you asked and she maybe did try and tell him to apologise but she clearly didn't care that much. Unfortunately there are plenty of parents like that and you can only control your own behaviour and that of your child. Not other people.

I think that the lesson here is that you need to give your son the skills to deal with this kind of crap himself with his attitude, words, physicality. Sign him up to some boxing/jiu jitsu classes this summer. Rugby in the autumn. Will do wonders for his confidence.

So you are normalising bullying and crap parenting. Nice!!

OP, YANBU. The parent needs to get their kid in line. And it’s not helicopter parenting looking out for your child. I would have pushed the parent for action or gone to management and complained.

And just how do you suppose children learn that this is not acceptable behaviour if it is never challenged?

How difficult is it for the parent to give their child one warning and then if their behaviour is still unacceptable, then they leave and they don't go back until they've rebuilt trust they can behave?!
I wouldn't worry too much about it though, just make it clear to your child that they did the right thing by not retaliating and getting an adult to try and sort it.
I took mine to the local soft play during the school holidays exactly once... It's quite literally chaos and was filled with little darlings trying to claim certain areas and not letting others play. After school mid week is definitely the best time to go to soft play!