Do you intervene with 2/3 year old bullying?

[SilverBirdie]

Eg: if a similarly aged child was dragging your DC by the neck of his shirt across the soft play centre then pushing him to the floor and sitting repeatedly on his head? Knowing the mother hadn't seen any of it would you say anything?

Erm, if it was my child being dragged, I would rescue them! I would also closely supervise/hover so my child couldn't have his head sat on!

2/3 years don't bully. They just play too roughly. Which is why you can't just abandon them to soft play with a load of other 2/3 year olds. (Although there is always one parent who will!)

Her head was fixed firmly in her laptop I'd let a couple of other things go before rescuing him from the crazy child. Maybe not bullying but he was only interested in my Ds and seemed intent on being as rough as possible.
Have never witnessed any words being spoken between parents/carers so wondered what others might do. I was up and out my seat to rescue him but kids act fast and there were a lot of little bodies to dodge on my way to him.

I would have said to the child that that behaviour is too rough and they should not do it. Then I would have just moved off for a bit, got ds a milkshake or something in the cafe and come back a bit later when child has moved on to something or someone else. I wouldn't confront the parent.

lynette if there's more than one level of the play area do you follow DCs to each level to supervise?

At 2 maybe (they wouldn't have gone far anyway), but certainly not at 3.

I would be pretty annoyed but at the other mum for not noticing if it was more than just a one-off push or bit of rough play. I would go over and say that's enough, you'll hurt him, please be more careful and then keep an eye of further behaviour - if repeated pushings / hittings that are spoiling your child's play then I would say something to the other mum as politely as I could. I have found ds whimpering in the corner at a soft play centre being repeatedly thumped by one boy while his mum nattered away to her friend and ignored them. Although it evoked my maternal wrath I didn't say anything as I was too much of a wimp but I would have done had this boy kept hitting my ds. When they are a little older you have to let them learn to stand up for themselves to an extent and not leap into the fray every time some mini tyrant another child gets rough, but at 2-3 that is a little small I think and you do need to stop overly violent behaviour.