We took our older son to an arcade recently. We were playing skee ball (the game where you roll a ball down an alley way and it jumps into holes). This 1.5-2.5 year old came by and took one of the balls.

I didn’t know what the right thing was to do. At gym class I would totally just let him have the ball but I didn’t think we could finish the game without the ball so I tried to gently take it back from him and he was not having it, he held it really tight… I didn’t want to forcefully take it because it wasn’t my kid.

I was at a lost… then his 4-5 year old brother came and took the ball from him and gave it to me. Then the 1.5-2.5 year old fell to the ground and had a major tantrum! I was totally at a lost!! I had no idea how to comfort him.

The 4-5 year old ran off! At the time I was like oh my he left me with his younger brother. But it turned out he went to get their mom who showed up a few minutes later. She took her little one and walked away without saying anything to me. This is all me but I think she might have given me a dirty look! Which I would understand… I think I made her kid cry.

Luckily LO didn’t want to play skee ball anymore after that game and we moved on to a different arcade game.

Could I have done something differently? I kind of feel bad about the whole situation even though I will probably never see that family again but I do want to know if there is a better way if this happens again. What would you have done?