Children Should Be Seen and Not Heard

And some children should not be allowed to leave the house. Am outraged. My darling M, 3 years going on 13, has had her first experience of bullying. Actually, correct that - it should be renamed Downright Thuggery.

Parents across the universe will be familiar with the perils of the playground but when is it acceptable to step in and stick up for your little ones, without destroying their street cred? Mr H would probably argue that it's okay to do this up until M reaches 36 years of age (when she's allowed to move out, apparently...) but I've always been slightly hesitant to get involved in child scraps. Not that this particular incident was a scrap. It was a case of Big Child Who Should Know Better versus Small Child Who Didn't Stand A Chance.

M is now sporting a black eye, courtesy of being punched in the face by said Big Child AKA Little Shite. She took it well - one cold patch and a chocolate mini-milk later, she'd all but forgotten about her first proper brush with violence. But me, I was stewing on it until the early hours. What made it worse was me telling Mr H about the incident and watching him positively explode in anger. 'He did WHAT??!!'....followed by 'What did YOU do??!!'. Erm, actually, nothing. Except for administer love and cuddles and the promise of lots of ice cream for being such a brave soldier. The trouble being, that in this particular play area (indoors, about 100 children of varying ages, running around like mad, caged hyenas on ecstasy), I couldn't see the Little Shite who did it. M's description of 'horrible big boy' wasn't quite enough for me to reprimand every single lad in the joint, athough it was tempting. The other problem is that you also don't know how the parents are going to react to you telling their kids off. They might shrug their shoulders, carry on reading Take A Break OR they could give you a matching shiner. You never know.

I had another experience of this when M was about 18 months old. In an outdoor playground in a not-so-nice-area (that should have been a very big warning in the first place), she was happily playing on a pirate playship when I heard a little boy screaming, telling her to 'GET OFF MY SHIP'. When I actually made it up the tiny steps of this vessel (not easy when your bottom is wider than the entrance), the little boy was pinning her against the wall and shouting obscenities about 2cm away from her face. It's the kind of parenting moment that you dread - (1) your child is in danger of being hurt/mentally traumatised, (2) you have a split second to react and (3) you are in public and hence must take full responsibility for your following actions.

In this particular case, point (3) went out of the window as I saw red and hollered at the top of my voice, for all of Surrey to hear 'WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING??'. The look on the little boy's face was one of sheer terror. I didn't have time to look around to see if his mum/dad/carer were approaching/preparing for a fight. I had only one mission - get my poor child off this goddamn thing and make a dignified departure without incurring burn marks on my hips whilst trying to get through the very narrow exit. Luckily, the parent wished to remain anonymous. He/she was either too embarrassed at the son's outrageous behaviour, or unwilling to take on a very angry mum who at this point, must have looked like a wild protective animal.

I do however, have a solution for all of this. Enrol your children on a martial arts course. We are lucky to know a Tae Kwon Do instructor who teaches girls and boys from the age of 5. It sounds like desperate measures but actually it will achieve lots of things - discipline and fitness to name a couple. The added advantage of her being able to ninja kick any threatening boys will also be handy and with that, I expect to be able to sleep a lot better.