Choose Your Playground Battles Wisely

Since Spring has finally arrived here, we have gotten in a nice groove of an early dinner and then some time in our neighbourhood park before bath and bedtime. It is good for all three of us, Max burns off some energy and DH and I get some time outside and not staring at our respective computer screens.

Now this is the first Spring that Max is big enough to really enjoy the whole park and he loves it. Going down slides, the swings, playing in the sand you name it he goes crazy for it.

Since the weather is so nice the park is super crowded and that means tons of kids who are still learning the meaning of personal space or waiting their turn. So Max, was playing in the sand and another kid takes his shovel. Luckily Max had more than one so he kind of gave the kid an odd look while I trilled " That's ok Max, you can share." Then the kid takes another one of his toys., and another, and another and so on. I look around for this kid's parents and I see a dad pecking away at his blackberry.

Finally I say firmly to the toy stealer/other child "Now, now we have to share" and take 1/2 the toys (I think I was being uber-nice considering the situation) and give them to Max. Does this kid not start screaming bloody murder which finally makes this dad lift his head from his Blackberry, come over and huffily say "What the F*** (no lie) is going on?"

Ok so first my head exploded by being sworn at by a stranger and then I calmly said "First, easy with the swearing in a park full of kids and second your kid is stealing my kids toys" He looked at me with a strange look and said "Kids need to work things about by themselves"

Umm, these are toddlers they have the conflict resolution skills of a 6 month old puppy. Here is how I think Max's brain works ; "Hey, what's that? It's shiny and moves, I'm getting it, what no I want it, what do you mean no?, WHAAAAAAA"

So in response to this father I simply said "In our house we share, and since you were too busy texting to step in and take control of the situation, if you had a problem with that you should be paying attention to your kid in the park"

So the dad then realized the silence in the park meant everyone was waiting for his response and got all huffy and left, muttering "It's a park, kids should get to do what they want" or something like that. I immediately felt like a helicopter mom and had visions of my going with Max on dates and his first job interviews.

So tell me readers, was what I did a classic helicopter mom move Max is now doomed to live with me forever or did I handle the situation correctly?