The encounter went something like this.  Joey, age 4, and his two year old brother Josh were playing in some small pools in the sand.  These were the hot spots for the two to six year old crowd as the waves were pretty high and it was a little windy.  DH and I were taking turns watching the boys and going into the ocean or "the big water" as my two-year old was calling it.

While I was in the big water and DH was watching the kids, an approximately five year old girl started singling out Joey.  According to my husband she started into him by saying "Someone here is a nerd" and started describing Joey.  Two other boys in the pool started chiming in with her until their embarassed mother shooed them into another pool.  To my husband's amazement the beach bully did not stop.  Even though he was standing right there, she kept up with it this time lumping my husband's description into Joey's.  Apparently, along with whatever else she was sayin about him my son was then "hairy and wearing glasses."

The funny thing about this is that my son is a little too innocent to  understand that she was being mean.  At one point she may have said something about poop so of course he just started repeating poop because it's a very funny word when you are a four year-old boy.  After she left, my husband decided to make this into a teachable moment about how the little girl was a mean person and how we should never say mean things about others.  One thing he mentioned to me was that she had a large birthmark.  Maybe she heard a lot of the stuff that she was saying directed at her at one point.

I was upset with my husband for not putting an end to it while she was doing it.  He was enjoying watching the other mother present squirm.  If I had been the parent in charge at the time, I probably would have put an end to it somehow.  But then again, what does a parent say in this situation without running the risk of a huge confrontation with the girl's parent(s)?  I'd like to think that I would have the presence of mind to start on her "Someone here is" and then talk about how she was saying mean things and how people who say mean things don't make friends-except may be she was with the other boys.

What would you do in this situation?