Up to the knocking down second, we'll never know what the guy had in mind. Either a kid targetting bowling terrorist or a half autistic self absorbed tunnel vision quickwalker. Both are perfectly credible.

But from the second of the impact, the guy has no excuse for such a behaviour. Let's say the benefit of the doubt ended as soon as he saw a child knocked down on the floor. That alone is enough to justify a thread in this section. Go ahead.

What would I do?
Remember my 3rd kid is as old as your first...
This means that i have seen "whatever the situation" twice before-
and i'm not pregnant (hormones and "the waiting game" playing havoc with your systems).

I would loudly tell my kid to watch out for the "strange man" that is coming straight at her, (in a language that both he and she will understand )

If they still collide, and she is hurt, I would get very very angry.
And you wouldn't like me when I'm angry

__________________
11. Knowing deep down that you gave your dreams a fair chance. – Most of the time the only difference between a dream that came true and one that didn’t, is a person who wouldn’t give up and one who did.

I would like to personnally thank you to give me the ok to go ahead and complain about this here.

I agree. Without being in the person's head, none can really know what was going on before the impact. Being witness of what happened give me a very good idea of the intention of the man. I saw it in slow motion like when you are having an accident but can't react on time to avoid it? The after impact showed me that yes, the guy was a prick just on this after impact reaction itself.

Should some others stop assuming what I did or didn't do and stick on this part itself to contribute to how one should react on this attitude itself.

My two centimes. The guy was possibly malicious, one will never know. Next time it might be an accident (someone who didn't see your girl). In either case, she could get seriously injured. So rather than thinking about what to do if the situation were to ever happen again, concentrate instead on how to avoid such a situation. Even if the area seems clear, I would keep her close to you, holding her hand, and not running around. She should only be away from you in a children's play area.

Come on, you look cute in green!

I told her to watch out, and I tried to grab her hand to pull her to me but the guy was enough close to hit her.

You know how it is: you walk, look ahead, look at your kid, look ahead again (you don't want to it a wall) see the guy's coming and looking at her, look at her again, look at the guy being much closer, tell your kid to watch out, try to grab the hand, guy walk straight into the kid, doesn't turn to apologise, you tell him something, he turns and bitch and keep walking.

If my comments help then all good.

I am 1.90m tall, built like a brick shit house. I walk with my head held high and my chin up. Although I don't have a long fringe I have never 'accidently' walked into any little boy or girl that is able to walk themselves.

I admit, I have nearly killed a little white dog who ran under my feet (about 10cm tall) but I have always managed a gentle sweep of my hand to help guide myself to the side of children who are nonchalantly playing in the path I am treading.

In a nutshell: no excuses let alone the shouting, this man needs to be shot.

I'm sensing over-reaction here.

Focus on the positive and put aside the negative. Life, in general, is being kind to you.

I will certainly make sure to have her on my side at all time. This time, she was next to me, following my path (straight) jumping (straight) without doing any left or right zig zag.... I wasn't holding her hand because in one hand she had her bottle of water and in the other hand she had her doll.

I always make sure she is close and I can see her. I always hold her hands when we are in a place with other people around (because I know she is not looking ahead and I know that people can't see a 3 foots tall kid between other people) You can call me helicopter mom on that matter but I always have to have her close to me in public area (I have been victim of abduction when I was young.)

My mistake: Assuming that a man who saw my toddler will step aside for my toddler who wasn't looking in front of her, on a 4 meters large hall.

I'm happy to help you overcome your natural shyness
Last time I knocked down a child on the Basel SBB Passerelle, I stopped, kneel down to its hight (my guess: 7 years old), talked in simple soft voice friendly German, message: my fault, are you all right, nothing lost on the floor, will look less up and more down in future. After I helped the girl find her tissue she had in her hands and that fell in the impact, after making sure the adult she was with took over and understood my lack of bad intentions on my parts, I went off, missed my tram and sat down on the bench thinking: It's impressive how visualizing the problem you'll face in 30min at work while walking totally blocks off visual field and becomes dangerous.

Short version: Nil, it wasn't me.

__________________
Es wird nichts ausgelassen, um mich hier herauszuekeln. Ein Lehrbuch. False accusations and attacks continue. There is no stopping righteous people when they are wrong.

Whilst those are valid points that public places arent play areas and your child should be walking next to you, not jumping around, and you should have called her away when you see the man approaching blah blah blah, that arsehole shouldnt have barge his way through, knocking the child and causing her to fall. With that act, he has crossed the line in my books. WTF!

I would have been livid and caused a scene as well. If I, as a parent have been stupid, fine - tell me off but dont ever, EVER (!!!!!)take it out on my child. Some parents (not you Nil!!!) have zero common sense and think that the world revolves around their child, you are even more stupid if you stoop to a lower level just to prove your point. Knob!

__________________
Remember when someone annoys you, it takes 42 muscles to frown, BUT it only takes 4 muscles to extend your arm and b****-slap the mother-f***er upside the head.

nil i suggest you move to asia until your kids are at least 6 years old! that's where i spent most of my time when my son was young and the attitude towards children is that they are welcome everywhere and not an inconvenience which should not exist, which can sometimes be the attitude in the west

Brilliantly said.

If I was chillin' in a park, walking slowly my 9mo prego duck walk, the park was large and roomy, would I expect perfectly normal, older gentleman to ram into my little child, knock her down to have her head hit? Things like that happen in split seconds. And honestly, this place is the only place on the planet where openly aggressive behavior against tots like this is extremely tolerated.

If he got his nose punched one single time by a dad standing nearby, he would change his mind about being aggressive towards a little wobbly kid. I totally see the point of people who say having dads around protects women and children against this kind of aggression. The kid can get seriously hurt being pushed on ground and hit in the head. When tots get hurt playing silly with other kids, it is expected. When they get agressed by adults, it gets serious. What he did was absolutely inexcusable. No matter what people are saying. No overreaction at all, Nil. Bastard.

I got hit a number of times, my child did a number of times, even teens here walk into you and hit my child with their bags, ladies do, anybody, if you do not have a guy walk by your side.

I recommend heels. They felt real good accidentally pushing through that guys shoe when he almost knock my child down on market a few weeks ago hitting her hard. And I looked sooo apologetic. Oooooooppppppssssssss

Nah, it's here too.

Right.

I don't get why a parent expressing concern over how much aggression is actually allowed here (not only playgrounds with kids who cause riots even with their parents present), gets patronized. Life might be kind to Nil, but hasn't been too kind to her child when she got pummeled down by some old aggressive fart with no manners.

__________________
"L'homme ne peut pas remplacer son coeur avec sa tete, ni sa tete avec ses mains." J.H. Pestalozzi

“The only difference between a rut and a grave is a matter of depth.” S.P. Cadman

"Imagination is more important than knowledge." A. Einstein

A friend of mine gets a lot of bad reactions because she takes the tram during rush hours when she goes back home with her daughter after a day of work.

Once her child was crying and a woman began to scream at the poor kid to stop crying..... very effective technics.

I don't like to see kids running free for all, all over the place either. I hate to see kids running like the whole place is a playground. But even when they are doing it, it is not a reason for an adult to knock them to the ground. Give a speach to the parent, don't touch a child.

Nil, I feel sorry for you and your daughter. I do not want to find any excuses for the behavior of that man, but there may a possible explanation. He may use the same bump-avoiding technique I have been using for more than 40 years. Sounds contradictory, but let me elaborate.

When two people walk in opposite direction, roughly heading for but actually intending to get past each other, there is that strange phenomenon sometimes called sidewalk dance. Jokers suggested to call it juggleftulation, ambiambulation, awkstepping, avoidancing etc.. You know what I mean: both persons try to dodge each other, but in most cases that results in simultaneous actions on both sides, causing a probability of next to 50% to eventually collide despite all attempts to avoid it.

It's a matter of the way the human nerve system works, and it happens not only in crowded places. You can get bumped into in the middle of a desert for the very same reason.

But then, as a young adult, on early Monday mornings at Zurich Main Station, trying to make my way from the train to the tram to the university through Shopville, I found out that the only way to avoid collisions is doing exactly the opposite, i.e. absolutely strictly sticking to my direction without the slightest attempt to avoid a collision. Actually, my discovery was based on things I had learned in neurophysiology lectures.

Since the other person most likely does their avoidance routine anyway, the probability of collision is lowered to way below 1%. I kid you not. It does work almost always. The only, very, very few, occasions I bumped or got bumped into all the same, obviously were opponents who used the same technique, were half blind, drunk, stoned or downright weird. The obviously physically handicapped individuals can be spotted and dodged.

I never tested this method on toddlers, though, and I wouldn't even try to do such. Since their nerve system is not fully conditioned yet, I figure that your daughter reacted in a way that just did not comply with the keep-the-direction trick of that guy. In my opinion, toddlers should be treated like the exceptions mentioned above, i.e. dodged. Simple.

Since said technique usually works a treat, I'll stick to it despite the minute risk that I may look like an idiot or a bully once in a blue moon. Those countless collisions avoided make good for that.

Needless to say, this explanation of mine is not the slightest excuse for the fact that guy did not even bother and just rushed away without an apology. Yet another case that proves that all Swiss bump into people and never apologize. I really do not seem to be a good Swiss. Guess I have to hide my passport so our authorities cannot confiscate it and annul my citizenship.

__________________

"This is AMAZING! I have the exact amount of money Joe Biden has cost us playing golf in my sweatpants pocket!" — Kona Lowell

Why?
- Because life isn't perfect and things happen,
- because Nil's child was probably less traumatized than Nil herself
- because Nil is making a mountain out of a molehill for whatever reason.
- because nothing of any consequence really happened

Last night, I spoke to a woman who's first child died at birth and her second has Down's Syndrome.
I also spoke to another woman who used to take care of young children whose mothers were suffering from post-natal depression.

Yeah, I need to walk away from these kind of posts. It's OK to whine a bit but just keep it in perspective please.

__________________
Faith isn't about everything turning out okay. Faith is about being okay no matter how things turn out.

Lets post a thread about a poor puppy kicked by someone. And we'll see.

Sure, I get your point. And, understand the logic. But the existence of Down syndrome, PPD and world wars does not really excuse random stranger being aggressive towards a 2yr old.

So, there is a sympathy-worth meter? If you can go to Africa and work with AIDS patients why would somebody help an aging neighbor, right? We will just tell her/him to HTFU. Same kind of logic.

My child has been through this so many times, me too, being hit in pregnant belly is not nice. If somebody told me to suck it up since there is a large percentage of Down syndrom babies here...uhm, naw (by the way, have kids earlier, darn it, CH is a country with oldest 1time moms in Europe I heard on the radio the other day).

My 1st child couldn't live either. Am I gona become a punching bag for random ill mannered strangers? Or my child? Why wouldn't I feel for a fellow mom? There is enough heart for all here. That guys sucked.

__________________
"L'homme ne peut pas remplacer son coeur avec sa tete, ni sa tete avec ses mains." J.H. Pestalozzi

“The only difference between a rut and a grave is a matter of depth.” S.P. Cadman

"Imagination is more important than knowledge." A. Einstein

See? So what is your point? Something worst happen to other people, yes, I am lucky. Those who get it worse have other people who got it even worst than them. Let's close down the Complaints Corner because in that case, it is totally useless to use it since someone will always be in worst situation than you and me...

MusikChick: You changed your last post a bit and took out a sentence that I could relate to. Enough said.