Dealing with other people's Children

I experienced something today that made me feel guilty, angry and upset. It was a situation that I wasn’t entirely sure how to handle, yet one that I knew I’d have to deal with at some point. No one hands you with a rule book when you become a parent, we have to make it up as we go along.
 
I took J swimming today, it’s become ‘our’ time – no daddy and no baby. Its only the fourth time we’ve been and each week his confidence is coming on in leaps and bounds. The last time we'd been swimming he was only 9months old.

There was another little boy swimming around today, full of confidence and able to actually swim. As time progressed he was getting increasingly closer to my boy, but only when J was feeling brave and tip-toed away from me. The first time this boy got to J he attempted to shove his finger up my bewildered child’s nose. Seriously why? I gently removed his hand and said ‘nicely’, before moving Joshua away from him.

The second time he walked over to Joshua and started pushing him backwards with a float. Joshua ended up pushed back to a step and was looking at me with a face that said, ‘what on earth is going on?’ J is a sweet natured little boy and is always very gentle around other children, (especially younger children) so it confuses him when someone is mean to him. I glanced around for the mother of said child hoping that she would remove her child from the situation, but she was nowhere in sight. So I was left with no option but to intervene. I said something along the lines of ‘Stop that and be nice please.’


I don’t feel it’s my place to have to ‘tell off’ someone else’s child, I’d always remove Joshua from a situation and discipline accordingly if he was being naughty. To be honest I’d probably hate it if someone else told my child off in such situations. Now don’t get me wrong if I’m at someone’s house with my children and they are touching something they shouldn’t be, then I encourage them to let my child know they shouldn’t touch because children tend to listen to other people better than they do their parents. However when we are in a public place I take full responsibility for my children, I appreciate you can’t always see everything they do 100% of the time, certainly not if you have more than one with you. However if you are swimming and have only one small child then shouldn’t you be playing with, swimming with and keeping an eye on them 100% of the time?

Why the parent was not watching said child I have no clue, or maybe she was and didn’t feel the need to remove her child from a younger, smaller child. It makes me a little angry; water is a dangerous place, why can’t parents keep an eye on their children? It’s a baby pool for crying out loud, there are going to be small children in it. The last thing I want is for something to happen to knock J’s confidence and make him scared of water. I don’t let him splash near other children in case they don’t like it. It's common sense isn't it? Or maybe I’m just slightly paranoid, but I hate swimming, I am scared of deep water and that’s the last thing I want for J as it’s horrible. I used to feel left out at swimming parties when everyone else was jumping in and splashing around in the deep end while I clung to the sides.

I feel guilty for telling this child off. Even though I didn’t exactly tell him off, I spoke very soft and gently, just in a firmer voice. What would you have done? Are there any rules for situations like this?