How do you react if your child is accused of hurting another?

[whoopsfallenoveragain]

We were at a soft play centre this morning & another childs parents accused ds's friend of knocking into their ds intentionally on a slide and taking balls off them to me it seems accidental and to be expected at a place like that as kids do run about excitedly.
They seemed to think that because their ds was 2.5 others should be careful of him but surely if they were that worried about him being knocked he should have been in the under 3 area?
I wonder how they would if it was far busier with a lot older kids and the child would have been knocked a lot more!

Also if people have problems with other children why do they wander around watching the kids rather than letting the parents know there was a potential problem?!

How old are you ds and his friend?

Ok accidents happen but he should have been in the under 3s FFS thats what they are there for .

ds is 5 & friend is 4

I would have apologised, called the boys over and asked them to be a bit more careful with the smaller boy and not to take balls off him. I would just do that gently though and with a friendly voice since you don't seem to have seen what actually happened, I wouldn't be sterner than that. I would expect my dd at 5 and even at 4 not to push a child and not to pull balls of him so I would have intervened if it had been my dc

the problem was I don't think they did take the ball off him just wouldn't give him one. his mother took 2 balls from our boys and gave them to him.

Also we weren't aware of the slide incident til after my friend why the father was watching our children as they seemed to just be glaring at us & watching our boys

I think I would hhave asked my ds to be careful around the younger kids but not in a voice that indicated he was in trouble (agree, sound the little one shouldn't be there). But he was so they can't just run him down. I might suggest to the parents the under 3 area might be better for him. Then, they are on notice they have put their child in the wrong play araea.

I hate over protective parents....Kids are Kids,not condoing if an older child would purposely hurt another (or any child of any age, really)...but well, if it was an accident, then those do happen!
If they wanted to mollycoddle there child, tehy shouldn't have let their child play in an area designed for older children!
Saying that, usually those under 3's areas are a bit boring...and my lot never really bothers...but then, I am not an overprotective parent

I have found that Alot of parents seem to think their children are better than everyone elses, And they act accordingly. It is really annoying, just as annoying as parents who leave their very young kids in the local park and wander off and don't watch them. People should have to take parenting courses before they even think of having kids.

P.S. I woulda been really pissed if a parent took something off one of my kids and gave it to their own. Thats plain common and scummy. Kids are kids they need to get over it.