Child hitting DD at a softplay - should I have said something?

[kva]

The other day DD and I were at a fairly quiet soft play with only one another child and his mom. The kid (6.5) invited DD (3.5) to play. Everything was good at first, they are running around in circles, laughing, etc. Then suddenly he picks up pillows and hits DD with them quite hard (not sure if that was sort of a game for him too?). DD bursts into tears, I pick her up, cuddle her and she tells me a few times about how the boy hit her. The boy and his mom don't react although they both clearly see what's going on. I say to DD he 'did not do it on purpose' (although he clearly did) and we leave soon.

Should I have just said something to the boy's mum? I had a feeling that DD wanted me to talk to them but I was not sure what to say? What would you do???

Honestly no I would just inwardly eye roll and move on. And then in the future when my child inevitably does something like that boy did, think ‘huh I guess it happens to all of us’ and move on.

Not sure I’d class an excited 6YO trying to start a pillow fight as ‘hitting’. I just would have told DD that if she doesn’t like the way the boy plays or doesn’t want to play that game then she doesn’t have to play with him and then redirect e.g. let’s go play in the ball pond over there. Then forget about it and move on.

She was playing with a child twice her age who hit her once with a pillow.

He probably didn't realise it was going to hurt her, but he should've said sorry.

If he didn't and he was my child, I would've told him to go and make sure she's ok.

Yabu to say that he didn’t do it on purpose because he obviously did. You should have told him that dd is much smaller than him (physically) and doesn’t like having the foam thrown at her so he stops doing that and plays how she likes. It’s easy to get over excited at soft play and forget that the other child might like things more gentle and that as the bigger child he’s stronger.

It’s not weird of you to talk to a stranger’s child to stick up for your dd. Hoe can you expect her to grow up and deal with problems herself when you’re too scared to do so ? As long as you do it gently like a teacher might then it’s fine. It might be good role modelling for the other parent too. Too many are scared to tell off their kids when they could do with a gentle reminder that small kids like gentle play

Mmmmm maybe a bit weird yes. But I still do it. I also like it when people pull my kids up on poor behavior that I have missed. I think it takes a village.

But mainly, it's extremely important to me that my child knows I have her back, and to stand up for herself if she doesn't like others behavior. I try to model it even if I'm cringing inside.

No, actually they were soft play pieces. I just was not sure how to call them.

That's what I thought about the mom - strange that she did not say anything so I was debating on raising it as it could just get worse.

I do get your point re supervision but the kids were just literally in front of me, everything happened very quickly.

If she'd done it there is no way I would have not said anything to the child or his mom. And I would tell her to say sorry.

Thinking about it he might have done it because no one ever told him that was wrong.

I don't think the issue was that the kid was older though... DD has older cousins, occasionally plays with older kids, etc.

I just think in this case he did it because clearly his mom did not mind.

Well yes, it's quite important to me too. I probably should have said something to them, even a very brief 'that's not ok'

Honestly this is just one of these things that happens in the battleground of soft play (and sometimes if you have more than one child your own kids are both perpetrator and victim). I would have said something like 'Oops, you're maybe a bit small for this' and then just taken her away to play somewhere else. No need for it to be a big deal, this kind of physical stuff does happen sometimes at soft play when they're so little and there are much bigger kids. Sometimes older kids don't think much about moderating their strength downwards when there's a little kid around, which is why some places have under 2 or under 3 areas for the littler ones, or they are used to physical play with friends or siblings and don't quite realise how it can affect smaller kids.

DD2 managed to do a somersault off the end of the slide the other day and had to be scooped up crying, 30 seconds later she was off up there to do it again 🤷‍♀️

He chatted to me occasionally (in front of his mom). He generally seemed like a friendly and outgoing kid. We absolutely did not expect what happened.

These situations can be awkward.

In your position I would have said something along the lines of 'oh don't do that please, she's littler than you and it's a bit too rough.'

The other mum should have said something.

I would have just said gently, ‘I know you didn’t mean to hurt her but you must remember she’s littler than you so we need to be a bit more gentle, ok? Then switch back to upbeat with a Let’s go play!

I don't have any problem saying to a kid 'Careful, that's a bit rough' if I think someone is at risk of being hurt, but soft play by its very nature is physical, and I think it's often quite important to let kids work things out for themselves where possible.

But I'm one of those terrible mothers who doesn't spend the entire time crawling around inside the soft play apparatus with my kids and instead has a cup of tea

Same. If it happened again I would have looked to his mother as I was saying "that's not OK etc"....

I’d have picked her up and said quite pointedly “oh that wasn’t very nice was it? Let’s play somewhere else where children won’t hurt you…” I wouldn’t give a shit about being polite to arseholes who would watch their child bash another one and not say something! Why do people do that? It baffles me. If my 6 year old son had done that he’d have got a telling off.

I don't agree, sorry. It's not ok to see that your child makes another child cry (even if he does it on accident) and not to say anything.

Why not apologise, or teach your kid to?

Tbf OP has clarified that they were soft play pieces, not pillows.

I spend too much a lot of time in soft plays and it's bad form for children to hit each other with these. Most parents would stop their children from doing this, especially if it's a younger child they're hitting.

I would have said “no, no that’s too rough” directly to the boy, picked dd up for a hug and moved her off somewhere else and played with her for a bit. 6.5 is still very young but it’s too old to be playing with a smaller kid like that if you don’t know them or anything. I wouldn’t bother saying anything to the parent for that personally.

I’d have told him off