Absolutely fuming at what I perceive to be lazy parenting causing my daughter to be injured today

[Blottedcopybook]

When I take my kids out anywhere, I can appear rude in company because I'm extremely easily distracted because I watch my kids like a hawk. I don't let them behave like little brats both because I want them to grow up and have respect for people around them, and I don't want anybody to be able to judge me as a lazy or bad parent. I don't consider the local soft play to be somewhere I can dump and ignore my little horrors as they rampage around the place with no consideration or care for anyone else, I actually watch what they're up to.

I'm just back from A&E with a concussed, grumpy and sore 22 month old DD. We were at the soft play this afternoon and she had come over to where I was sitting to get a drink. As she turned to go back and play, a group of half a dozen boys aged roughly 5-6 years old came running down from the SEATING AREA (not the soft play section) with such speed that when the ringleader hit DD (with his hands out, which was dreadfully kind of him) he knocked her off her feet and she flew a good three feet backwards before landing on the back of her head. Her eyes rolled back in her head and she vomited before starting screaming, I was leaping out of my seat at this point and angrily told the boy (without shouting, I might add) that he was running far too fast and should have more consideration for the other children. At this point, the group of adults with these little sh!ts were maybe three or four picnic tables behind me and not one of them moved until I gave this child into trouble. Not one of them asked if she was okay, or if they could help me. I'm 7 months pregnant and was there with my three children.

DD was BY FAR not the smallest kid there. We had to leave to go to A&E and getting our stuff together took a good 10 minutes during which time this group were in the baby & toddler section throwing balls at each other and generally being rowdy which is FINE for a soft play environment, but specifically why there are age-specific areas. None of the parents intervened, none of them apologised for DD getting hurt and none of them offered to help me get out to her car with one screaming hurt toddler, another screaming upset toddler who was frightened and worried about his sister and the 7 year old carrying my two bags.

I am so unbelievably angry.

Thanks if you read all that, I don't really have anyone to rant to tonight!

I kind of thought the same cat.

The ops dd was walking accross the seated area, of course children at soft play are going to walk around the seated area, the boys were running, in a gang and their parents didn't intervene after the accident happened. They then rampaged all over the toddler area, all without a flicker of intervention from their lazy arse parents.

Besides which older kids should have some awreness about being careful when there are little ones about because their parents should have done this, soft play or no soft play.

I hate them to, because of the dirt, the s**t parenting, the hooligan kids but take dd sometimes cos she's a bit slow with gross motor skills and underconfident and she does love it when we go on a quiet day

Cat - I don't know how to explain the seating at this place. The play area is an 'E' shape - the middle prong being where the toddler play area is and the forks between the prongs being the paths in and out of the soft play. The middle prong is at ground level, the outer prongs go upto 1st floor level. The seat I was sitting at was right beside the middle prong 'edge' against the boundary for the toddler play area so she had taken a step forward to clamber back over the boundary and into the toddler play area. There wasn't anywhere for her to cross. The kids were running at full pelt down the path coming from the seating headed towards the soft play, but were actually in the seated food area where every table was literally covered in cups of hot drinks. I totally don't expect them to calm their playing in the soft play, hence DD was restricted to the toddler area but I do expect that their parents hammer a little common sense into them about running in areas where they could really hurt themselves or other people.

I don't believe the older boys hurt her on purpose, but I do believe they chose not to stop when they saw her

"Soft play" places, sadly, are full of such thoughtless little gits charging about knocking small children over, and their fat mothers who sit on their arses eating cake and reading the Sun and ignoring them. Hope your DD is OK.

I love it when UQD comes on and posts exactly what a lot of us where thinking.

It was an accident. But it was shame that the parents chose not to register that it had happened and offer some apology or support.

I hope your DD is OK now.

uqd - I assume that was meant to be funny

OrmIrian - no, I wish it were. It's exactly what I have seen at soft-play places.

So you've been to one. That must make you one of the 'fat mothers who sit on their arses eating cake and reading the Sun and ignoring them'. Or was it too much of a generalisation perhaps?

I try to go to them as little as possible. But I like to think that, if my child knocked over a smaller child, I'd be right over there making him apologise and making sure the younger one was OK.

How awful for you DD I agree that it was an accident but am very very that no-one came to help you with your stuff/help you to the car etc.

Am thinking UQD has seen me at aoft play then - I often sit eating cake and read the paper (although I do have one eye on where DS1 is, I just can't follow him round as I have DS2 in a pram next to me) Plus I only go during the daytimes.

How awful for your dd and for you Blottedcopybook. And how awful no one helped or apoligised.

I would too uqd. But I am not fat, I rarely eat cake and would poke my eyes out with a red hot poker sooner than read the sun.

Actually last time I went to one DS#2 was about 2 so things may have moved on. Maybe it is all fat women with cake and tabloids.

hee hee uqd! The one nearest us is in fact in a very "bohemian" part of town, populated by middle class hippie types who believe their children should be free to "express themselves", they tend to sit drinking their non caffienated chai drinks, eating their organic seed slices and reading the guardian

not intervening when their kids knock a little one over still equally as irritating though. (fwiw I read the guardian, drink peppermint tea and eat organic but my dd does not "express herself" when it involves attacking other children, she gets watched like a hawk!)

minx - I obviously go to playcentres on the wrong side of the tracks...

Yes, I don't think you should be too hard on the boys for running around. Kids do have a tendency for over-excitement when confronted with big exciting plays areas.

But it's unforgivable that none of the mums at least offered to help when your little girl had been knocked over and thrown up. Didn't you say anything to them? Did you tell any member of staff? You'd think they'd have to write stuff like that down in an accident book.

Hope your dd is ok.

For what it's worth, I go to a very nice soft play area. But on on Monday mornings when hardly anyone else is there.

Please don't tar all parents in the soft play with the same brush. Those places are a godsend to me. I'm on my own with no family close by so, to me, spending a couple of hours there with a coffee and a good book (not a tabloid!!) is an absolute luxury. I may seem absorbed in my book but I keep an eye on my boys. They know not to go in the toddler areas. They know about not running in food areas. There have been odd occasions, not so much now but when they were younger, when they have been rough. They have been told off and made to apologise and I have apologised to the parents of the child concerned. Some of us don't abdicate all parental responsibility when we enter soft play but (and apologies for how smug this sounds) we may also have generally well-behaved kids who don't actually need that much supervision. So don't assume anyone eating cake and reading has a couple of hooligan kids rampaging round the place beating up toddlers.

As a matter of fact, the last unpleasant incident we had in soft play was when a two year old kept hitting my five year old. Not all toddlers are little angels!

We had two in a nearby town.

One was big, scruffy and smelt (not to put too fine a point on it) of toilets. The food was chips and chips and coffee in plastic cups. Clientele was of the shell-suited and sportswear kind. They were loud but more or less friendly. My DCs loved it because it was big and had scary slides.

The other was small and select with beautifully painted murals. It sold cappucino and pannini and organic fruit juice. The parents would smile thinly and apologise through gritted teeth for running over your toes with their Lucy and Eric (or whatever the latest posh pushchair was). And would sit and blah loudly at each other in Boden. And lauch themselves into the ball pit to rescue Lucinda whenever she cried, regardless of whose offspring they crushed beneath them DC hated it because it was too small and boring.

Neither was my idea of fun. And thankfully neither is it my DCs now.

IME they are populated by overexcited children with maroon faces and dripping with sweat. I stopped taking dd because, to be honest, I found she didn't really enjoy it. At 22mo, she is too big for the baby area, and too small for the general area. I found it impossible to have a conversation with the friends I went with as I was following dd around and found myself getting increasingly stressed by the amount of bigger children jumping about in the baby/toddler section.

No fun for anyone. But maybe when she is older and is one of the maroon-faced children, I'll reevaluate the situation.

Sorry your dd got hurt, it seems inevitable to me in these places. The parents should have apologised and at the very least made sure dd was OK.

this stuff happens in soft play. It's perfectly normal for those boys to be running around and NOT paying attention to where they were going.

Sorry your dd got knocked and I hope she recovers.

I would not have been getting drink though. You can't leave children that young alone for a second in soft play areas.

I avoid them

TBH - isn't the purpose of softplay to allow children to run around and play in relatively safety indoors? I think that is the whole point of them.

I personally don't think most soft play are ideal for little toddlers, well certainly not out of school hours. I never took DD when she was tiny unless it was term time and well within school hours as I knew there would be olde children running around and none of the soft play near us would offer her, as a toddler, a very safe play environment esp as the toddler area was so tiny.

Thanks everyone - and especially for UQD who has tested my pelvic floor control brilliantly this afternoon!

I really wasn't so annoyed at the boys, kids will be kids and I do appreciate that accidents happen - hell, I know that my three have been in the wrong plenty of times but I've always stepped up and made sure they calmed down a little. It was the parents I was really angry with because they were paying no attention whatsoever to their kids.

kittywise I'm not sure what you mean? DD had a drink at the table where I was sitting, right beside the toddler area. I hadn't left her alone at all (mostly because I can't stand the MAAAAAAAAAAAAMMMMMYYYY!! that she lets out whenever she can't see me!)

Sorry I thought you meant you'd gone to get a drink and there fore, turned your back for a few secs.

I never bother with tables as I'm never in a pos to sit down!