Technically, we weren't in the playground, we were at a pumpkin patch. After an hour of "swimming" in a corn kernal pool, maneuvering through a mini maze and checking out pumpkins in a real pumpkin patch, we were happily heading to our car with Soluna in a borrowed wagon. In the corner of my eye, I see a little kid run up behind her. I turn just in time to see this little kid grab Soluna's hair with force enough to jerk her head back. Ben saw also, and we still are unsure of the kids age. He says 4, I say 5-6. And he remembers the kid kinda yelling at her before doing it.
Ben and I now realize our mama and papa instincts became heightened. He sized up their family pretty much in a second and realizing there was no male with them to growl at tried to walk away as quickly as possible. I think he also puffed his chest and grunted. I grabbed Soluna immediately cradling her head and making sure she was okay. Luckily, she was more shocked then hurt or scared. But both Ben and I kept walking, not really wanting to acknowledge the kid hair-grabber or mom trying to apologize. We were shocked and safety/distance was on our mind. We think that maybe if they tried to get any closer, we may have been a lot more offensive.
On the walk to the car, I told Ben that the kid probably had some kind of mental illness or chemical imbalance. I mean, it wasn't like the kids were playing and things got rough. I feel like hair pulling comes with the territory when kids play. But to run up to a random much smaller kid that you don't know, yell and pull hair with force, that I have to say is in a very different category then normal rough housing.
So really, what should they have done as parents? What should we have done? Should we have made the little hair-grabber apologize? And, if this kid actually had some kind of disability or not, at the playground if a kid is randomly violent to another kid then what do you do?
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Without a huge blog following, I decided to post the question to ColorfulMamas, the mamas group I am a part of. Surprisingly, the responses that came back were about how their kids were on the side of the hair-puller as biters, bullies, etc. It's all part of children's development. I realize now that we should have stopped to talk to the parents, to not assume that the kid had disabilities, to give the mama and the kid a chance to apologize. It's a more communal way of handling problems that arise between kids. By leaving, we didn't really teach Soluna anything about getting a long better with other people or about living in a real community.
