Bully or Be Bullied, Part II

This Wednesday, when I went to pick my daughter up from daycare, she was happily pushing a cart around. When she saw me, she smiled and said “Mama!” I walked over to her, crouched down, and said hi. She then proceeded to push her cart around some more. Then, one of her daycare mates, “Missy”, came over and tried to commandeer her cart. She resisted and I told her that it was ok. So she went around the cart and tried to grab the shovel and small toy that she had in her cart. (She’s been obsessed with shovels the last two weeks.) Right when she did that, “Missy” lost interest in the cart, walked around and grabbed the shovel from her. The look on her face was so sad. She looked at me and cried as she struggled with “Missy” over the shovel. I felt helpless so I told her that it was ok for “Missy” to take her shovel. She came over and embraced me and I scooped her up, all the while, telling her that we can go home and play with our own shovel. I felt so bad that I didn’t do anything to help her. At the same time, I didn’t feel like I had a choice. What was I supposed to do – take the shovel back from “Missy” and give it to her, in front of the daycare providers? That would’ve made me the bully. So what am I supposed to do when my child is wronged in some way by another child? Is it my place to “right the situation”?
When we have playdates, there are invariably fights over toys. Like the other mommies, I usually intervene and either take the toy away (to make it fair), tell them to share (which they don’t quite understand anyway but might as well start teaching them now), or tell them to take turns (which they don’t quite understand either). But a few times when I’m visiting daycare, I’m at a loss as to what the proper action should be when I see Scarlett being shoved by another kid or having her toy taken away from her. Usually, no one else saw what has happened. When Scarlett is being the aggressor (in taking someone else’s toy), I’m pretty good about taking it away from her and giving it back to the kid who just lost his/her toy. But that’s because she’s my child. So when she’s the agressee, what am I supposed to do?
So last night and today, she mentioned a few times, “sha-vol”, and then “missy”, with a sad face. So I said to her, “did Missy take your shovel?” I think she still remembers the incident, which made me feel bad for not “righting the wrong” for her.