gcvmom
Here we go again!
We had difficult child 1's birthday party tonight at a laser tag facility. I had originally booked the entire two-hour slot as a private party so that we wouldn't have to share the time with other people. The last time we had one of these parties, there were some older teens that went in with our group and they took advantage of the younger kids, which was upsetting for some of them. When I got there, I discovered they had in fact booked other parties during our slot! Although they didn't charge me for the private rate and gave me an additional small discount on top of that, it did not really make up for the privacy we really wanted and didn't get.
Once again, there was a group of older teens lumped in with our kids (most of which were about 12-14 years old), plus a group of even YOUNGER kids (cub scouts, I think). A couple of these older boys targeted difficult child 2 and followed him around constantly hitting his light targets (and once you are hit, you are disabled for 10 seconds; and as soon as he became "live" again, another teen would zap him so he couldn't do anything). I wasn't aware this was going on until the game was over and difficult child 2 was back in our party room sobbing hysterically. Turns out, the older boys also hit him with their gun and gave him a big bruise on his arm along with some scratches.
husband and brother in law and my 18yo nephew were also in the game, and when they found out the extent of the harrassment, they decided to "protect" difficult child 2 for round 2 of the game. This time, they huddled around him so no one could zap him and they took the hits instead. Plus they gave the older teens a taste of their own medicine and followed them around zapping them just as they had to difficult child 2.
Well, apparently the biggest kid, who was also the biggest offender, went crying wolf to his dad at the end of the game. So his dad, who looked to be about 6'5" or 6" easily, but was clearly out of shape and at least 10 years older than husband (who is a respectable 6'1") comes barging in our party room and goinging chest to chest with husband and pointing his finger in his face and starts telling him off essentially. husband pushed him away, and I thought for sure we were going to either have a fight or the cops called. The guy got really loud (husband got louder) and you could see this man was clearly surprised that husband was getting right back in his face -- you could see he wasn't used to people responding this way to his intimidation tactics. He threatened to call the police "next time" (like there would ever be a next time?) husband touched his kid (first of all, NOBODY touched his kid -- and we had witnesses). Meanwhile in the background, the kid who was all cocky with his buddies after the first game was looking mighty pouty and not liking it now that the shoe was on the other foot.
Not that I'm happy about the way husband handled it -- he has a hard time being diplomatic anyway, but when someone is beligerent, forget all hopes of diplomacy. I'm just glad there was no violence and the police weren't called... sheesh. All this for a friggin' birthday party!
Once again, there was a group of older teens lumped in with our kids (most of which were about 12-14 years old), plus a group of even YOUNGER kids (cub scouts, I think). A couple of these older boys targeted difficult child 2 and followed him around constantly hitting his light targets (and once you are hit, you are disabled for 10 seconds; and as soon as he became "live" again, another teen would zap him so he couldn't do anything). I wasn't aware this was going on until the game was over and difficult child 2 was back in our party room sobbing hysterically. Turns out, the older boys also hit him with their gun and gave him a big bruise on his arm along with some scratches.
husband and brother in law and my 18yo nephew were also in the game, and when they found out the extent of the harrassment, they decided to "protect" difficult child 2 for round 2 of the game. This time, they huddled around him so no one could zap him and they took the hits instead. Plus they gave the older teens a taste of their own medicine and followed them around zapping them just as they had to difficult child 2.
Well, apparently the biggest kid, who was also the biggest offender, went crying wolf to his dad at the end of the game. So his dad, who looked to be about 6'5" or 6" easily, but was clearly out of shape and at least 10 years older than husband (who is a respectable 6'1") comes barging in our party room and goinging chest to chest with husband and pointing his finger in his face and starts telling him off essentially. husband pushed him away, and I thought for sure we were going to either have a fight or the cops called. The guy got really loud (husband got louder) and you could see this man was clearly surprised that husband was getting right back in his face -- you could see he wasn't used to people responding this way to his intimidation tactics. He threatened to call the police "next time" (like there would ever be a next time?) husband touched his kid (first of all, NOBODY touched his kid -- and we had witnesses). Meanwhile in the background, the kid who was all cocky with his buddies after the first game was looking mighty pouty and not liking it now that the shoe was on the other foot.
Not that I'm happy about the way husband handled it -- he has a hard time being diplomatic anyway, but when someone is beligerent, forget all hopes of diplomacy. I'm just glad there was no violence and the police weren't called... sheesh. All this for a friggin' birthday party!
