Confused about this behavior

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There was a little girl who had Downs Syndrome and she was dancing by a swimming pool to the music blasting on the speakers. It was on a cruise ship. The girl was probably between 6 and 9 years old, so what she was doing was certainly age appropropriate.

What wasn't appropropriate looking was her mother, or caregiver, jerking her by the arm and demanding she stop what she was doing.

My question is, was it necessary to use that much force to restrain her even though she wasn't in any danger? Parents of children who have Downs Syndrome, would you have acted this way if your child was doing the same thing?

Just wondering.

How close was she to the pool? It's possible that this little girl might have some balance or coordination issues and the mom was trying to keep her from falling in the pool--kinda like my mom would ask us not to run in the house or around the pool. I wasn't there, so I don't know...

that's what i was thinking when i read that too. dancing by a pool....sounds dangerous to me. even if she wasn't that close to the pool the ground could be slippery, or perhaps she had something she was supposed to be doing and chose to ignore that and the parent was trying to get her to get on task. who knows. i know i have dragged my AS child by his arm many times and yes, i'm sure it looked quite inappropriate to outsiders. BUT the truth is if he isn't listening and has a tendancy to run off on me it is much better to be safe then sorry.

It's awful behaviour to witness and it feels even worse to do. I know this from personal experience of having to remove Deborah from unsafe places when she is having a meltdown. The last awful episode looked like I was throwing her on the pavement - I wasn't but the poor child had gone completely unresponsive and I figured she was safer there than on the road where she was with the car driving straight at her. I still feel guilty for not handling the meltdown properly (this was about 3 weeks ago).

Sometimes you have to do what you have to do, even if it looks bad. That falls under the "Im your mother, not mother Theresa" as my mom once told me after ruining her new bath mat with fingernail polish and she was so mad at me and I told her that the bath mat was more important to her than me. I have to say she is the best mother I could ask for though.
I think linebacking her out of the road when a car was coming was probably alot better than letting her get ran over. I ran out in front of a car as a kid, she ran out there, and grabbed me up and beat the fire out of me.