to think DS should apologise?

[cakedup]

Ok, on the face of it, this is quite trivial and I feel a bit silly for posting. But I'm feeling hormonal and there's no DP to offload to and...in honestly, I'm a bit hurt by what DS said. Tearful even . Even though I know I shouldn't be.

DS (10) has form for being over sensitive and sometimes finds it hard to take a joke. So DS was putting away the socks and after I expressed doubt over something he said, he threatened to drop a pair of my socks in the cats' water bowl. So, in a jokey manner, I told him if he dropped my socks, I would hide all his pants so he'd have to wear his pink ones for swimming tomorrow (he avoids wearing his pink pants for swimming as he thinks the other boys will make fun of him). He then proceeds to drop my socks in the bowl of water.

He then starts getting all huffy about the pants comment and says he won't sort the socks. I say well if doesn't do the socks then he can't watch TV. He huffs and puffs and slams his door while my mum follows him in to pander to him.

He then fetches a drawing he did for me at school today, with the words "I love you" which i'd made a huge fuss over because I can't remember the last time he drew a picture for me. He dangles it over the bin saying "fine I'll just put this in bin then, after all that effort I made for you" etc. so I tell him to calm down and stop being so over dramatic. He said "Well I made something nice for you and get nothing in return." I told him that you don't give presents to expect anything in return and that anyway, I'd done loads of nice things for him. He says "like what?!" . I tried to make it jokey and light-hearted again and said "well if you've got five years I'll list them all for you shall I!" He says "ha, you see, you can't even name one!" At this point I told him, that's enough and reminded him that I'm his mother not his flat mate.

He then went into the living room with my mum where they both had a right old laugh.

AIBU to think he owes me an apology or shall I just let it drop? I know he'll say that he didn't like me joking about the pink pants but quite honestly, even though I love his sensitive side I do think he needs to develop a bit of a thick skin as this has caused problems in the past (and he's going to secondary school in September!)

[hiddenhome2]

I think your mum owes you an apology

[GruntledOne]

Carry through your threat about the pink pants.

[BaronessEllaSaturday]

Pull your mum up for undermining you and then hide all but the pink pants. You will not get respect from your son while you let him and your mother walk all over you.

[Wolfiefan]

Your mum is out of order.
My kids can't cope with this kind of jokey discipline. It tends to lead to the sort of spiralling behaviour you describe.
In this house it would have been "don't you dare do that to my socks or x will be the consequence". The joking thing doesn't work on mine!

[cuntycowfacemonkey]

Your mum sounds like a pain in the arse I'd be having words with her first. He should have had a bollocking for dropping your socks in the car bowl and then I would have ignored any further nonsense about the picture. Sounds like he's a bit to used to everyone pussy footing around his sensitive nature.

[Dollymixtureyumyum]

He needs to learn to be a lot more un-sensitive if he is going to get through life. Otherwise people are just going to think he is a bit of an arsehole

[ManneryTowers]

Lay the pink pants out neatly for him for tomorrow morning. And tell your mum to back you up or back out

[TrinityForce]

Pink pants for him tomorrow...

Nice ones if he apologises maybe

That might be a bit mean though.

[cakedup]

I think your mum owes you an apology Well that would literally be a first! I can't talk to her about these things, honestly I can't.

I must admit, I find it harder to be sterner with DS when my mum is around. I'm not sure why.

See I would never have gone as far as to actually hide the pink pants! Anyway, my mum and DS were sort of sniggering and saying they'd come up with a solution (obviously they'd hidden a pair of non-pink ones somewhere).

cuntycowfacemonkey and Dollymixtureyumyum you are right, I just don't quite know how to go about 'de-sensitising' him a bit! I try to pull him up on it, I told him tonight, he needs to learn how to take a joke.

[pod78]

YANBU to be upset by this!

But by your mum's behaviour more than anything.

I think your mum is really undermining you with this pandering as you say. Really rings alarm bells for me. It sounds like your mum is ganging up with him against you, and maybe feeding his self doubt/ paranoia and/ or validating his resentment in some way, rather than it being a case of your mum helping your DS lighten up and find the joke. I'd be really very unhappy with her behaviour - she should be backing you up.

Stop your mum from any further scheming about this and other things right now. With her behaviour, she could be having more of a widespread negative affect on your DS & your relationship with him than you realise.

Perhaps your DS feels very insecure and lacks self confidence for some reason and he needs the extra reassurance that his mum loves him and that you are on his side. Could even be some level of bullying at school as this reminds me of a situation I am aware of where a child developed chronic self doubt and huge over-sensitivity after experiencing serious humiliation at school but couldn't tell anyone. It manifested in a similar way to your DS but the cause didn't get dealt with sadly. Could be something really troubling your DS... I hope not of course.

For what it is worth, I think you need to try to stop the teasing/ banter if he gets a bit sensitive, as he plainly cannot cope with that kind of banter for whatever reason. If you feel him getting upset, I'd suggest stopping further tit for tat straight away, and instead giving him a really big hug and telling him you love him. If he's genuinely confiednt he'll learn to laugh things off/ laugh at himself.

I agree with you OP and not other posters about making him wear the pink pants and I'd not tease him again about it. It would only prove his suspicion that you would or might hurt and/or humiliate him. He is genuinely fearful of that I think (for whatever reason). Reassure him you were only joking in that respect and would never really do that. But he does need to apologise for being nasty and realise that escalating things in this way is not acceptable. Then you can work together to avoid it happening again.

If there is an underlying issue, hopefully he'll lighten up naturally if can be dealt with and he feels less threatened and more secure.

[TheWitTank]

Pink pants it is then!

[pod78]

BTW OP, I don't mean to suggest your DS is scared of you, or that you have scared him/ hurt him. I'm sorry if it reads that way.

I just meant he might be fearful/ lack self esteem in general or because of something else and so can't bear that you his dearest mum 'might' be against him or doubt him too.

[Northernparent68]

I'd stop making jokey threats to humiliate him

[FaceTheFace]

I agree with Pod and Northern - for whatever reason it sounds like he needs some extra reassurance from you these days. I agree as well that having a talk once this has cooled off would be a good idea. Poor you guys - I'm sure neither of you wanted anyone's feelings to be hurt.

[Higge]

I think you are acting like his friend not his mother and then when the tension escalates you pull out the mother card. You were being all jokey to start with - then your Mum acts all jokey with him at the end - the adults in your house are sending very mixed messages - your poor ds won't know how to behave. Is it a popularity contest between you and your Mum over your ds?

10 years cannot easily control their emotions and they tend to fly off the handle saying hurtful things to try and get back at you - stuff like I hate you doesn't deserve a response.

Take the fire out of the situation, do not inflame by upping the ante. Your mum is behaving like a 5 year old....so treat her like one, call your ds out of the room to have your chat in private, ignore her jibes if you can't confront her - she is attention seeking. Walk away, wait till he has calmed down then explain what you expect of him - keep it short - lectures don't go down well. Saying sorry is a social norm - it doesn't mean much if there is no feeling behind them - you need to calmly explain why you are upset.

[QuietWhenReading]

Does your Morher live with you? If not I'd have sent her home the minute she started undermining you by pandering to a naughty child.

I'd have been very angry about the socks and a very firm telling off would have been given. I'm not my children's friend, I'm their Mum, they don't get to argue with me. Whether he recognised it as a joke or not any 10 year old should know that he crossed a line with the water bowl. He was incredibly disrespectful and absolutely he should apologise.

Sorry to be harsh but the stuff with the picture shouldn't have happened, you should have shut down the situation prior to that- you need to be firmer from the sound of it.

Re your Mother - it's not her house or her son - you are in charge. Your son will have to live with the consequences remember.

Finally, I'd quietly bin the pink pants if he hates them so much that it causes this reaction.

[Costacoffeeplease]

I think it went wrong from saying you'll make him wear the pink pants - you went down to his level re the socks in the water bowl, it's not acceptable for him to do/say that so why is it ok for you to respond in kind? You're his mum, a look or an admonishment should have stopped it there

Why does he even have pink pants if he hates wearing them?

[Costacoffeeplease]

And yes, your mum needs to butt out, colluding and whispering with him against you, no wonder you find it tough to know where to draw the line if she's undermining you all the time. Do you all live together?

[easterlywinds]

I think he's at a difficult age. Ds is year 6 and I have learnt that some things are best ignored otherwise they do spiral out of control. Wearing pink pants would make him to be a laughing stock at school and it's fear of this which caused your ds to over-react.
Whilst your mum was being unreasonable for laughing about the situation, maybe she could see that he was upset and needed some reassurance. You should have called her to one side and talked to her.

[SavoyCabbage]

If he finds it hard to take a joke, stop with the jokes. To me, it sounds like he was trying to join in with the concept of (dare I say it) 'banter' but he can't do it. Then you switched from banter to telling him off so he was even more confused.

I would just try to be more straightforward with him. Don't pussyfoot around him. If he's already sensitive he will probably prefer it if he knows where he is with you. And try to find a new way of having a laugh with him.

I think he was just confused.

Your mum sounds like she has no confidence in her relationship with him if she has to make you look bad in order to gain his affection.

[SelfRaisingFlour]

Don't make him wear the pink pants. That's just mean and unnecessary.

[Ameliablue]

I would let it go or both apologise as it sounds as if you upset him first.
Also I don't get the jokey threats it sounds confusing to me so probably even more so for a10 to.

[Katenka]

I don't find the 'jokey' approach to parenting, works in general.

It clearly doesn't work with your son. He doesn't really get it and it escalates.

If you can't parent effectively with your mother there don't have her round so much.

I think you should both apologise.

[BillSykesDog]

Don't do the pink pants. You would lose the moral high ground if you did that. What did you express doubt over?

[cakedup]

Thanks for your responses, it's helped me think about things. Sorry for this LONG and indulgent post!

No, I don't live with my mum thank goodness! She comes over once a week to see DS. It's a weird one with my mum. I spent all my childhood thinking she disliked me. I lived with my dad from the age of 10, fell out with her and went NC when I was 16. At 17 I tried to commit suicide and we started contact again when she came to the hospital to visit (never once mentioning the suicide). Would see her occasionally after that and then I had DS in my mid 30s and then - BOOM! Suddenly, she became a regular feature in my life, I've spent more time with her in the last 10 years than I ever remember. And after being a cold, overly strict, sometimes cruel, agressive mum she turned out to be the most doting and affectionate grandparent you can possibly imagine. I think she thinks she loves DS more than I do.

Don't worry, I know what you mean pod78. But I don't think that's the case, he talks to me a lot about stuff he's worried about at school and is quite open about his relationships with his classmates. It's just his nature. He's never really been able to take a joke and takes things very personally. On the plus side, he is (aside from last night!) very thoughtful and considerate of others. He finds it hard to understand why someone might say something hurtful to him because he would never do it to anyone else. He won't go out and play locally anymore because this little kid swears at him. He stopped trampolining because a couple of the girls giggled about him. On one hand I try to tell him that you can't avoid annoying people and that he can't let annoying people stop him from doing what he wants to do. On the other hand, I think, why should he put up with people treating him like he doesn't want to be treated?
But yes, he has had self esteem issues in the past, more due to the fact that he is severely dyslexic.

I appreciate what many of you are saying about the 'banter'. It makes me think that instead of carrying on with the jokes, thinking that it might do him good in the long term in preparing him for the outside world, that actually I need to be the one person who he does feel completely safe with. It didn't occur to me that he would actually think I'd make him wear the pink pants. Or maybe it was just me threatening it. He said I was being 'mean' and that's why he threatened to bin the picture.


Higge you're right about children not being able to easily control their emotions and I do need to remember this, and also how to handle it as you suggest. For some reason, I am better at parenting when my mum isn't around. I don't know if it's maybe because my mum is a very banter type of person and also because I'm aware that she thinks I'm too strict with him!

What did you express doubt over? BillSykesDog I came into his room to find him fussing over the cat and asked him why he wasn't sorting out the socks like I'd asked. He said that he'd thrown himself onto the bed, not realising kitty was under the covers and did a 'full bodyslam' right on top of him. I looked confused as kitty was still half asleep and looking very undisturbed so I just said "I don't think you landed on top of him, he looks fine" to which DS replied "fine, you carry on thinking I'm a liar then". I then jokingly kicked his bum and he chased after me, flicking me with my socks. Then came his water bowl threat. I did say "don't you dare" in a serious tone to begin with, and I should have kept that up instead of turning it into a joke.

I think I perhaps need to be more 'in charge' and not give DS the opportunity to answer back as much.

A note on the PINK PANTS. They are actually grey with just a pink waistband/trim!!! I am very much against, and very vocal, about gender stereotyping and so DS has been well informed of this since he was small. So I was quite surprised when he told me about not wanting to wear them (pink was his favourite colour for many years) but when he told me the other boys would make fun of him, I could understand that. I'm quite happy for him to bin them if he wants to.