"A boy punched my daughter in the stomach. This is what his dad did."

A nasty encounter in a small-town playground left this mum fuming.

It was a playground in a country town. We were just passing through during the school holidays. My daughter and son were playing on a train, and so was a boy called Lachie, who looked like he was about three or four. I knew he was called Lachie because his dad was standing close by, and I heard him say his name.

My daughter and Lachie were both up the front of the train when Lachie suddenly punched my daughter in the stomach. She screamed out to tell me what had happened, then said to Lachie, “Say sorry.”

I always make my kids say sorry when they hurt each other, whether deliberately or accidentally.

Lachie just grinned and said, “Nuh!”

I looked at the dad. He wouldn’t meet my eyes. He was standing even closer to the train than I was, and must have seen the whole thing.

“Well, he should say sorry to you because he hurt you,” I said loudly.

The dad was silent. Still wouldn’t look at me. Lachie kept grinning.

In the end, I took my kids away from the train. I didn’t know whether Lachie was going to hit out again.

Okay, so he was only three or four years old and probably didn't punch very hard. My daughter, who is a couple of years older, was over it within a few minutes and kept playing.

But I was fuming.

Why didn't the dad make the kid apologise and tell him that hitting was wrong?

I'm not suggesting my children are angels. My four-year-old son hits his sister sometimes. But I never let him think it's okay. If he punched another kid in a playground, I'd be mortified. I'd apologise and I'd make him apologise. I'd take him off the equipment and have a serious talk to him.

If Lachie's dad hadn't been around, I'd have told the boy off. I have no hesitation telling off other people's kids in a playground if I see them getting rough. I've also had a quiet word to another mum when her kid has been violent and she hasn't seen it. But this was different. Because the dad was standing right there, I didn't feel comfortable telling his son off. It wasn't my job, it was the dad's. And, to be honest, I was a bit worried what the dad - a big burly bloke - might do if I pushed it too far with his son. I didn't want to get into a fight in a strange town with a man who obviously had very different ideas about parenting.

Maybe there was something I didn't know about the situation. Maybe the bloke wasn't Lachie's dad, but an uncle or a friend of the family, and didn't feel responsible for his behaviour. Still, I think Lachie learnt an important lesson that day.

If you hit someone, you can get away with it. And you can get the train all to yourself.

As for my daughter and son, I just had to explain to them that some kids are badly brought up and will probably end up running into trouble later in life.

We got in the car and drove away from the town. My daughter was fine. But I kept wondering if I should have done something more. Was it worth getting into a confrontation that could have turned nasty, which would have been upsetting for my children as well as me?

A similar thing had happened once before. A boy on a bike ran over my daughter in a playground and didn't even stop to see how she was. The boy's grandmother ignored my daughter's cries, even though it happened virtually right in front of her.

Seriously, people - we don't exist in our own little worlds. We're all part of a community. We should care about other people's kids as well as our own, and we should teach our kids to care about other kids too. It's such a shame when something like this happens because most parents that I meet in playgrounds are absolutely lovely.

What would you have done?

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