to STILL be p!ssed off that DS was pushed over in the library...

[MrsCravendale]

Went to rhyme time at library with friend, her DS (3) and my DS (2).
They were having a great time and afterwards went to play in kids area, looking at books together, playing on the toy fire engine.
Older kid appears (looked about 5/6) and stands grimly staring at our two playing. I notice him but ignore it. He then runs full speed at the fire engine and jumps in shoving both our DS's when he is trying to get in. I went over and asked him not to shove as the boys were playing but he could play too as there was plenty room. He was not interested in this and seemed to want to just push the boys.

We moved away from the fire engine to another area to do jigsaws and puzzles. The older boy follows. He is just staring at our boys and standing waiting for them to do whatever they are doing next and he jumps in and kicks the jigsaw pieces. Friends DS runs off crying. My friend is just watching rolling her eyes and tries to distract her DS. Older boy runs after him then stops and stares at him while friend tries to distract her DS.

I look around to see if older boy's parent/whoever is nearby. I can't see anyone who seems to be watching him or looking out for him.

I take my DS away to do something else. Older boy runs over and stands right next to me and DS staring. I ask him if he is looking for something to play with. There is no response as he just stares at my DS (who is now driving a small car along the floor and up onto a small chair). Older boy then begins to attempt to push over my DS so I get in between with some pathetic attempt to say "I don't like the way you are playing" so I am on my knee between older boy and DS when he then shoves me full force, I fall and DS is then given a full shove and he falls face first into the wheels on the buggy. I let out a shout as I thought DS was going to be hurt but luckily the buggy rolled back and he just got up, looked at the boy and carried on playing.

The older boy then ran off kicking over another child's lego tower and I saw a woman sitting on the floor reading a book who appeared to be with him. I was absolutely livid and filled with rage. I was about to head over to the woman and make a complete scene but then stopped for a moment thinking "Ok, we are in a library, other mums and toddlers are here who prob are in the same situation hoping they just leave and they prob don't want a scene".

I just made some remarks about what had happened loudly (how sad is that) and just left it. I was thinking that the woman with him may be his mum and maybe she is used to him acting like this and it would ruin her day if some other mum came ranting over.

On the other hand I am now so angry with myself for letting some older child push my DS over in the library and I didn't even say anythin to his mother. I let it happen. I am supposed to protect my child and I just let a 5 yo push him over.

Sriously, I prob ABU but I just wanted to post on here so I can get some perspective. I suspect this happens a lot but I don't know if I handled it very well.

My friends just kind of said it is best to let it go as no one was hurt and kids do stuff like this all the time. Yes, DS is PFB. I just am not sure how I should handle this kind of thing...

What is SN ??

Special Needs

I would be in the camp of very loudly asking for a parent to take the little retch under control. If he was younger than he looks or has any SN then surely this is even more of a reason for the parents to supervise him. If he couldnt be kept under control then he shouldnt have been there.

I would have told the other kid off and asked him where his mum was and asked her to stop him bullying other kids. I'm not averse to being stroppy with badly behaved kids though and when mine were younger was the sort of mother who would stop older kids climbing up slides the wrong way and stopping the little ones from coming down. Big kids will only bully little kids if they are allowed to.

I also don't think having special needs is an excuse to bully other children. Special needs children need to be taught not to bully as otherwise they will have more difficulty making friends and interacting than they need to have.
I suspect none of the mums writing here would have let their kid bully other kids in the library, if you do have a special needs kid they need more supervision and help with interacting, not less.

I agree 2rebecca
Sn kids do need telling too,. Absolutely !

I've been here before & used to usher my kids away but now I just draw attention to the situation - who's this kid belong to. He/she's been hitting the others. The other kids can keep doing what they're involved with whilst I deal with the other parent. If it's sn then the parent should be there stopping other kids being hurt. sn is no excuse for my kid being bashed.

Even if the child was younger than he appeared, that's still totally unacceptable behaviour for a 2 or 3 year old. I'd be very worried about the emotional state of a 3 year old who followed and attacked other children like that. Especially if what roused him was jealousy at the two playing together and getting plenty of maternal attention. Doesn't sound like a well-cared for child at all, SN or not.

The boy may have special needs but ignoring his aggressive behaviour is still not acceptable; it will never win him any friends and will make difficulties for him everywhere - so it needs dealing with not ignoring.
Unfortunately, some mothers still think it is funny/macho for their kids to behave like this.
I know a mother of 3 very disruptive and aggressive, and extremely handsome boys, and she coos over their looks and self confidence as they mash all the other kids in sight.
However, another point is that my own grandson at 2 1/2 is taller than many of the village children in school uniform, so they must be at least twice his age - maybe this boy is much younger than he seemed.
YANBU , I would be furious too.

I am amazed that you managed to stop yourself
shouting telling the boy off when he pushed you over tbh. Well done you. I would have yelled at him as I do my own dcs if they hurt me in some way - I just cant help it

I've never seen anything that bad either though tbh - its not normal - you arent being pfb-ish.

yanbu even if the lad had sn his carer/parent should have been keeping an eye on him

YANBU at all.
I'm sure most parents of SN children will vouch that this behaviour would be neither normal, or acceptable if it did happen and they would do everything they could to deal with it, by removing the child from such a situation.
So presuming the child neither has SN or is big for his age, he was being a violent brat and his mother/carer/babysitter should have dealt with it.
I remember a child in dd's nursery class used to terrorise the children in the local park when we had the misfortune to run into them, he would run up behind all the children and literally smack them down onto the floor (he watched violent cartoons, wrestling etc from an early age) I went ballistic once at his babysitter who was sitting there doing nothing, and she said "but I'm not his mother"

He pushed YOU over, OP? No fear there, then. I would hvae punched him squarely in the fisog as hard as I could.

Joking aside, Ezma has a good point about SN. DS has been coming home from playgroup telling me that one little boy has been whacking him over the head with toy trains etc and DS's friend has said the same to his mum. I had a word with the play leader today and she said she is aware of it and monitoring it but this kid has SN. It still doesn't excuse DS getting whacked but it makes it feel less like a personal attack if SN could be the explanation.

Still, where was this kid's mum/dad? It sounds like an incident that went on a few minutes rather than seconds.

Bugger the SN theory - he was probably with one of those lazy fecker lentil weaving parents who don't believe in telling their DCs off. There are lots of them around here - it drives me nuts.

SN is still no excuse to allow the children to hurt other children. I would most definitely have had words with the mother/carer.

My DS is only 20mths but even with our limited experience of baby groups, I have already learned that lots of parents are too busy chatting and I have had to speak up and say something to the child doing the shoving/snatching, etc.

That situation sounds particularly bad - I've never witnessed anything like it. I would certainly have said something to the carer. Even if the child has SN, it's no excuse for allowing that kind of behaviour!

Sadly, hindsight is always 20/20 so I think you need to chalk it up to experience and know what you should do next time

I bet you were in shock and disbelief that that could happen in the library and so didn't react in the way you might have wanted.

Perhaps you could think in advance of a few things you could do in future in that situation?

Especially as the child was much older and shouldn't really have been around your child. There are nice friendly ways of distractring naughty kids without upsetting them - maybe in future find the other child a toy to play with give them some positive attention and make sure your little one is safe?

YANBU - to have done what you did, nor to wish you'd handled it differently.

I was right with you, until he pushed you over! About then, standing full height (all 5ft of it mind you!!) I would have said 'What. do. you. think. you. are. doing? You do not push anyone - now go away and play somewhere else before I get really cross with you'.

Mind you.... it does rather depend on the locals - in some lesser charming places I would have done what you did!!

Removing your child from the situation is the best thing to do. Confronting the child doing the pushing/shoving etc, will not solve anything because they will probably not take anything in that you're saying and go off and do it to someone else next.

as for him shoving YOU, well...I would have said something like 'that was very bad, you don't behave this way'.
DH got sand thrown in his eyes by a 4yo girl a few months ago at a play park and he just told her 'NO, that's bad' but she just continued to do it anyway (her mum was sitting on her backside chatting to another parent, as is usually the case in these kind of situations) so DH walked away with DS and left her to it.
It's the way some children are brought up and no amount of telling them off will make a bit of difference tbh.

YANBU at all.

Sounds awful.

I think I might have said to the woman reading: "Excuse me, you don't know who this boy belongs to, do you?" Or maybe to one of the ladies working behind the desk. ie making a passive aggressive point that he is to all intents and purposes unsupervised.

ooh if it was this week, maybe the child was younger than he looked as if he really was 5 or 6 he'd have been in school?

YANBU to be upset, but umf- aggression in a child with SN does not mean they are not well-cared for, I know a lovely woman with a daughter with ASD who hits other children, she is mortified and does all she can to stop it, its not a lack of care which makes her DD aggressive.

2rebecca - ".... if you do have a special needs kid they need more supervision and help with interacting, not less"

A special needs kid? Not the best way to refer to a child is it?!

I'm not saying that the little boy's behaviour should be excused if he does have SN, it's just worth bearing in mind and I certainly don't think it's on that the mum/ carer ignored what appeared to be aggressive behaviour over quite a prolonged period of time. All children need to be taught the boundaries of what is acceptable/ not acceptable behaviour (I'm currently dealing with a demonic toddler at the moment who seems to think it's funny to hit and it's bad enough when I get one in the face but mortifying if someone else is the recipient)and we all have that responsibility. At the end of the day, what I'm trying to get at is it's the mum's/ carer's responsibility to take appropriate action and I am miffed that she failed to do that and if she couldn't be bothered to do anything how is the poor child going to learn the right way to behave around other children and adults regardles of whether he has SN or not?