I think you definitely need to speak to the mother. As long as she knows that you're still her friend, but that you need to stand up for your child's rights then she should be understanding. I feel like I've been in your corner quite often too. In many situations, the mother or guardian wasn't even around. There was one little girl that kept trying to push my daughter under the water in the kiddy pool last year. In that case, of course, I had to step in whether her grandmother noticed or not. Another time, I was waiting at the claw machine at HEB, when some kids just plowed over my children and a bunch of other children to cut in line with their buddy bucks. I'm not sure what the "perfect" situation is in that case, but I've gotten tired of just letting it go when I see kids act like that. Either their parents aren't watching close enough, or these kids have become such a handful that their parents don't know what to do with them. The last time I was at HEB, a kid didn't want to use the other claw machine, and tried stealing the balls out of the machine that my little girl was playing at. I finally spoke up, and told him that this was uncalled for. The other machine was in perfectly good order, and he just wanted to be a nuicance (sp?). His mother caught the tail end of what he was doing, after she left from the checkout, and disciplined him for it (at least spoke to him). I don't know what the perfect thing to do is, but I finally felt that I had to start saying something. We need to model appropriate ways to speak up, in front of our kids, so that they can learn to speak up for themselves. Anybody else have some great ideas for how to handle this. I know that this is a little different than what happened, because there really wasn't a parent around. I've gotten so fed up with others not disciplining their own children. It's like they give up and expect everyone else to do the job for them. I've seen it too much as a teacher. I do think we all need to watch out for, not only our children but other's as well. It really does often take a village to raise a child. When they hear that it's not okay to walk all over another person's rights - - and they hear it from everyone, I would think that would speak volumes. How to go about it the most effectively is another question. I will keep my eye open on this forum and see if anyone has any good ideas on what to say to these kids. I just simply told this last little boy that what he was doing was rude and inappropriate. I also told him that he could either go to the other machine or wait in line like everyone else. I just simply told it like it is.
