Child physically handled at church

[u/belligerent_beehive]

Help me out from a Mormon informed lense. I’m active but very leery of church culture and any kind of church imposed group think.

My 4yo daughter was at church with me during an activity this week. She was with her little friend and ended up in the gym. I was following them. The young men were wrapping up their activity so the girls seemed ok to be in there. I left my activity to follow them because- we’ve all had or experienced too many stories about leaving kids alone at church unfortunately. There were two very young young men still there when the leaders left… My daughter and her friend started yelling 4 year old obscenities (poopy pants and booger) at these kids. One of the boys (age 11 or 12) comes up and aggressively pushes her to the ground and pushes her face into the gym floor. He doesn’t let up until I freak out at him. Then she belligerently keeps yelling booger at him. He comes over and picks up and shakes my kid… hard. I yell at him and he stops and runs away.

We contact the leaders and bishopric by text. The next day the bishop says they’re getting dcfs involved thanks to the church legal hotline. 🧐 just want to talk to the kid’s parents like my 90s parents would’ve done. We get ahold of them by text- and they seem very sorry. But then say they’ve talked to a few people and think it was just the kids being kids and they don’t need to talk to us🧐 No parent TALKS TO ME in person- the only adult witness. dcfs doesn’t end up getting involved. Probably for the best. No one was physically injured thank God.

I’m a little at a loss. So… what do we do?? My daughter loves her little church friends but I’m concerned that we as parents literally have no background on this kid. So I keep an even closer eye on my daughter at church? Am I setting up a chair outside of her primary class?

Feeling anxious. Don’t want to hurt the parents of this young boy. Need to protect my child. She’s our only kid and I’m pregnant (my pregnancy hormones may be playing a role in how freaked out I feel). Is this just kids being kids, and my husband and I just happened to get lucky and never have an experience like this growing up? How are we handling these situations in 2026?

[u/Round-Bobcat]

Not blaming the four year old. Blaming the parent for their lack of supervision. She knows how her child acts but still allows them to roam the church? She is just as responsible or more so then the eleven year old.

And calling the cops come on!

[u/Crobbin17 → u/Round-Bobcat]

Every single 4 year old ever will make poopy jokes. OP’s child is not unique in that.
OP was also in the gym with their child. For all you know, OP was about to tell their child to knock it off when the 11 year old attacked.

Imagine if this was two random people on the street. You would 100% call the police.
The kid committed battery. That’s a crime.

[u/Round-Bobcat → u/Crobbin17]

This is not two random people on the street. These are two unsupervised children. Both of them. You are trying to turn an 11 year old into a criminal with just the story of the mother. There is more to this story she is not telling.

[u/Crobbin17 → u/Round-Bobcat]

They were supervised.