Disciplining other kids at the park

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I know there are so many different opinions here, but would love to know if others think I was in the wrong.

I was at the park with DD (3.5) for an hour this morning before taking her to a class. She was playing in the sand box with other kids, and a boy came up to her who was around the same age and started pulling her hair. My DD asked him to stop and moved away. She came over to me and was upset because she didn't like it, so I helped her find a new spot to play away from this boy, and then I sat closer by to keep an eye on things. Well, a few minutes later the boy came over again and grabbed DD's hair. She started crying and so I got up and went over to him and asked him to stop. He didn't and was really pulling hard so I grabbed his arm (gently) and opened his fingers so he would stop pulling her hair. Then I said to him sternly - we don't pull other people's hair, it's not nice and it hurts. I guess this caused a commotion, probably because my DD was crying so loudly, and the boy ran over to him mom and said I was being mean to him. So then the mom gets up (she was on her phone the entire time so she didn't see what happened - no judgement since I am often on my phone too but I do try to keep an eye on things too) and starts yelling at me to mind my own business and that I shouldn't intervene because kids need to learn how to work things out on their own. While I agree to a certain extent, I draw the line when someone is physically hurting my child. I calmly explained what was going on - and another mom jumped in to corroborate my story - and the bully's mom just kept giving me attitude and said if my child is so sensitive maybe she shouldn't be playing in the park around other kids who might touch her. I mean, really?

DD and I had to leave anyway so it's over, but curious what would others have done here? Hope we don't see them again anytime soon.

I don't even think that what the OP did counts as "discipline.'' The kid was physically hurting her child. She told him to stop, then she physically stopped him from hurting her.

I'm one of the parents who generally likes to let kids "work it out," where "it" is something like sharing toys in the sandbox or taking turns on the slide. One kid hurting another kid, or putting another kid in danger, requires adult intervention. I'm pretty sure that if your daughter had hauled off and punched the other kid in the nose, his mom would not have chalked it up to "kids working it out."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It is fascinating to me that there is one person on here who thinks a kid should be able to keep pulling a girls hair as long as he wants and that that the girl's mother shouldn't be able to pry his hands off of her. And yes that might involve squeezing his hand to get him off of her so he might find that uncomfortable - um....he is pulling her hair knowing he shouldn't, right?
What is the alternative? Should she allow the hair pulling to get worse, witness her daughter in pain, and go running to look for the other mom so she can pry the boys hands off her herself? Unbelievable to me.
Bring on the yelling and the lawyers I suppose if that is where it goes. But I am not going to allow someone to continuously hurt my child because I am restricted to words only with a stranger's kid who wont listen to me. I would speak sternly twice and then remove his hand. Sometimes you do have to touch another person's kid. Just sometimes.

Once again: read. Obviously it's ok to physically remove the child. It's the gratutious "squeezing very very hard" and the lecturing/disciplining that's likely to raise other parent's ire. Do it if you want, but don't complain when you get something back.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Amusement park pp-are you talking about those old-fashioned cars at kings dominion that go about 5 mph? You way overreacted.

It was 6 Flags, but I assume they're the same thing, unless the KD ones have better back support. Have you ever been rammed by one? It does hurt, although obviously it's not like you're going to end up an invalid or something. It only turned into a big thing because this woman kept yelling at me about how there was no way to stop the car. Clearly there is a way to stop the car, and her rabid insistence that there was no way to stop the car was really weird. If there was an easy way to stop the car so that you would not ram into someone, wouldn't you want to know it? Because she said there wasn't a way to stop the car, I told her that the car would stop if you pulled up on the brake. She just kept yelling that there's no way to stop or slow down the car. (She plainly thought it was funny to ram into our car, because she was laughing really loudly about it until I said "No bumping!" She was so loud and belligerent that if it hadn't been 10:30 on a Sunday morning, I would have thought she was drunk.). They do have bumper cars in another area of the park, so if you want to bump and be bumped, there is a venue for that.

If we really live in a world where you can't tell someone that they should follow posted rules and not run into you and your kid, then that's just depressing. Can't people just respect each other? Would it have been so hard for her to say "Whoops! Sorry!" (like her husband did)? Or even "Oh, thanks for showing me! I didn't know how to stop it!"

All you really had to say was that you were at six flags in MD, and someone was acting ridiculous. Everyone knows how ghetto that place is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would love to actually witness one of these interactions.

+1. Me too. These stories are always so absurd and unbelievable. And as the parent who has been on the other end of this conversation (and is constantly at risk of it, if I weren't on my kid like a hawk), for every parent of a rotten 4 year old at the park, there are some nutjob parents of oversensitive kids at the park. The parent who yelled at my son for going face first down a slide. The parent who cautioned my son for inadvertently splashing their six month old at the splash park.

When OP says the other parent told her her DC was oversensitive, I'm going to guess there's more going on to this story.....

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is fascinating to me that there is one person on here who thinks a kid should be able to keep pulling a girls hair as long as he wants and that that the girl's mother shouldn't be able to pry his hands off of her. And yes that might involve squeezing his hand to get him off of her so he might find that uncomfortable - um....he is pulling her hair knowing he shouldn't, right?
What is the alternative? Should she allow the hair pulling to get worse, witness her daughter in pain, and go running to look for the other mom so she can pry the boys hands off her herself? Unbelievable to me.
Bring on the yelling and the lawyers I suppose if that is where it goes. But I am not going to allow someone to continuously hurt my child because I am restricted to words only with a stranger's kid who wont listen to me. I would speak sternly twice and then remove his hand. Sometimes you do have to touch another person's kid. Just sometimes.

Once again: read. Obviously it's ok to physically remove the child. It's the gratutious "squeezing very very hard" and the lecturing/disciplining that's likely to raise other parent's ire. Do it if you want, but don't complain when you get something back.

Go back and read the responses. Someone suggested that putting a hand on a child to intervene was asking for a lawsuit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Removing the child's hands - fine. Giving him a lecture - you're opening yourself up to be criticized in kind. Like it or not, we don't discipline other people's children in this culture, although of course you need to do what you need to do to help your own child in the moment.

Maybe in your culture, whatever that is. But in every social circle I've belonged to (my children are ages 4, 8, and 12), we have always disciplined each other's children in situations such as the OP described. No spanking, of course, but certainly a firm reprimand and, if necessary, removal of hands (or of the child) from the situation.

You can choose to let this sort of behavior go on, or you can choose to not to do anything. Think about the example you are setting your children.

Very different to discipline a stranger's child in the park, vs your friend's child (when you know your friend is ok with it). Not saying that OP did something totally crazy; just that she crossed a boundary, and had her boundaries crossed in return.

PP here--by social circle, I also meant neighborhood playgrounds, where I have disciplined young children whom I did not know. I don't think that OP crossed a boundary. I think that OP behaved in a rational manner that, frankly, I think more parents need to adopt. We have lost a strong sense of the village.

You're not part of my villiage. Lecture or yell at my kid in a way I don't like, then you might get yelled at in return. That's just the way it is. Of course you need to physically protect your children. But if you feel you have the right to correct other children, then you are stepping into the dynamic where you yourself might get corrected. If you don't want to get corrected, then MYOB.

If the little boy had come up to Op's daughter and snatched away her toy that she was playing with and then the boy wouldn't give it back which caused Op's daughter to flip out and cry....yeah, I would have less sympathy for the situation because Op set her kid up for that by bringing toys to the park in the first place. Something like this happening would be fairly foreseeable.

But this boy just walked up to Op's daughter and grabbed her hair - TWICE - and would apparently not let go even when asked to let go. Op was absolutely right to step in and pry that kid's fingers off of her daughter's hair before he hurt her any worse than he already did. And since the boy's mother was so completely off in LaLa land, I think it was fine for Op to scold that kid. Why? Because - I don't care who you are - it is not o.k. to hurt another child at the playground intentionally.

The boy's mother should have been appalled and apologetic to Op and her daughter, instead the woman was defensive and argumentative "Don't yell at my kid lady!". Rarely you will run into a crazy person like this. Op handled a bad situation as well as anyone could have given the stupidity of this mother.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Amusement park pp-are you talking about those old-fashioned cars at kings dominion that go about 5 mph? You way overreacted.

It was 6 Flags, but I assume they're the same thing, unless the KD ones have better back support. Have you ever been rammed by one? It does hurt, although obviously it's not like you're going to end up an invalid or something. It only turned into a big thing because this woman kept yelling at me about how there was no way to stop the car. Clearly there is a way to stop the car, and her rabid insistence that there was no way to stop the car was really weird. If there was an easy way to stop the car so that you would not ram into someone, wouldn't you want to know it? Because she said there wasn't a way to stop the car, I told her that the car would stop if you pulled up on the brake. She just kept yelling that there's no way to stop or slow down the car. (She plainly thought it was funny to ram into our car, because she was laughing really loudly about it until I said "No bumping!" She was so loud and belligerent that if it hadn't been 10:30 on a Sunday morning, I would have thought she was drunk.). They do have bumper cars in another area of the park, so if you want to bump and be bumped, there is a venue for that.

If we really live in a world where you can't tell someone that they should follow posted rules and not run into you and your kid, then that's just depressing. Can't people just respect each other? Would it have been so hard for her to say "Whoops! Sorry!" (like her husband did)? Or even "Oh, thanks for showing me! I didn't know how to stop it!"

All you really had to say was that you were at six flags in MD, and someone was acting ridiculous. Everyone knows how ghetto that place is.

There's a collective "OH" from DCUM. Carry along, you were right to say something.

[Anonymous]

Six flags on a Sunday morning? She was probably still drunk
from the night before.

[Anonymous]

I think it's of note here that the OP DID try to let them "work things out." I'd be proud of my kid if she said "I don't like that" and walked away the first time. That's her kid "working it out." After that, (if we're talking physical injury/pain territory), you bet I'm stepping in.

[Anonymous]

Generally, you don't touch other children, but in this case it was the right thing to do.

Be forceful and firm. "You WILL stop pulling my child's hair RIGHT NOW."