I went with a friend to an indoor playground.

We both have 3,5 year old boys.

I am usually a pretty hands off kind of mom. I feel that they need to learn social interactions from experience and I would only interfere when necessary.

I am constantly keeping an eye on him though.

Now he was sitting in an electric car that needs a coin to function, now he's just sitting and I notice 2 young girls, about 8yo going over and they are making some nasty faces towards my 3yo so I'm looking at it and when I notice their behavior is starting to look like bullying, I go over. I ask them what the plan is, they say they want to play on the electric car. I ask them if they have a coin - obviously if they had, I'd taken my kid out, that's the vendor's income. They didn't, they just wanted to pretend. I told them that's exactly what he is doing and to wait their turn. He had just climbed in when they came over so it's not like he was keeping it occupied for a long while.

They walked away with a bunch of mean girl attitude and I walked back to my table with my friend.

When I sat back, I notice they're going over again and at some point one of them grabs my boy's hair (he has 3 mm hair) and she grabbed his whole front section and I see her dragging my kid's head like 20 centimeters forward. I am looking for their parents at this point.

I go over and console my kid, when they see me coming they RUN hard. So when my kid was consoled he wanted to play elsewhere. - I'm still looking for these mean girls' parents but end up never locating them - and a few moments later I walk by them they're now on the electric car and I tell them pretty sternly like "I understand that waiting can be hard, but bullying someone to get what you want is absolutely not ok" one girl was almost crying and nodded but the "Queen" she just snapped me another nasty face.

My kid, who usually sleeps without any issues woke up that night every hour and needed consoling because he was upset. He tends to have that when someone "wronged him" during the day, usually when someone hits him with no reason.. like a baby trew a ball in his face once 😅 things like that.

@Sarah

We're in Belgium.

There were only 2 people there manning the entire playground and they barely managed the bar. I must say, my partner always says I overreact and that I'm being "a Karen" or "Thát mom" so I honestly thought I was overreacting.

I am genuinely thankful that you guys aren't invalidating my feelings here tbh. ❤️