Husband shouted at child for hiding something.

great post 👏

Who could possibly argue with this?!

great post 👏

Who could possibly argue with this?!

@SwingTheMonkey

but what if he is to blame?

oh dear lord, I can't believe the number of people saying that as a parent you shouldn't even express disappointment with your child because it will scare them. Becoming dysregulated, expressing emotions, handling things badly - these things are not abuse, and they are things that every parent on the planet has done at some point to a greater or lesser degree. It's important for children to have feelings in response to their own actions and their parent's reactions - it's how a conscience is formed and maintained. If the kid doesn't feel bad, they will keep doing whatever they want to over and over again and not care about anyone else. It's also important for kids to see that parents have emotions, so they know that they have an impact on others too and that we are all human. The important bit is how it's all dealt with afterwards - can there be conversations, give and take, apologies for any less than ideal parental behaviour, an acknowledgement of the child's feelings. These are the things that help a child grow and develop resilience and self esteem. Protecting a child from ever being upset, ashamed, sad, angry is likely to lead to a range of developmental difficulties including anxiety, entitlement, and even narcissism. If parents are having strong feelings but try to hide them, the kids will pick up on it anyway, they are remarkable sensitive to unspoken atmospheres. It's much less frightening to know in an age appropriate way what the feelings are and why the parents are feeling them. Having difficult experiences, including difficult interactions with our loved ones, is basically what life involves and learning how to name, understand and deal with those in childhood in a loving, but imperfect, family is a good start in life.

A calm discussion, with no blame. Which doesn’t ‘stress’ the poor love in any way.

@CheekySwan

Stepchildren are 17 & 19 and have both vaped. Unsure if one of them still does. We couldn’t find the vape anywhere, not in suitcases, bags, under bedsheets, under bed or bins. No where to be found when we checked out. We let the receptionist know and they would pass it onto housekeeping but said, if we couldn’t find it in the room, then it’s probably not there as there are not many places you can put something in the hotel room without finding it. Exactly, these comments excusing a grown adults reaction, when he has previously acted like this before is shocking. An 8 year old is still learning how to manage impulse control. Yes, it might start around 4, but still hard for an 8 year old to manage. Even teenagers still struggle and have difficulty with it. Scaring a child into doing something is unacceptable. It’s 100% unacceptable to steal things. He has stopped stealing things from school so clearly what I have been doing is working. He still does it at home so still working on that. Doesn’t help when your husband tells family/friends when our son does this and laughs to them about it. I ask him not to but just says, son don’t care if he tells them.

I really don’t understand this. It IS, and SHOULD be, stressful being caught out behaving badly. As other posters have pointed out, in a couple of years he will be criminally responsible for his behaviour. It’ll be much more stressful being interrogated by the police, no?
Kids NEVER being under “stress” or in uncomfortable situations has created a generation of kids with no accountability or resilience unfortunately.

A calm discussion, with no blame. Which doesn’t ‘stress’ the poor love in any way.

Do you have a young child you shout at - if so, I am sorry for you both.
When you do something wrong or inadvisable, should someone take your mobile away as a punishment (as you imply should happen to the child)? Presumably you think that is a reasonable thing to do from your comments. I am sorry to repeat myself but we are talking about an 8 year old and the OP even suggested some element of concern about her H shouting as the son. The child is 8.

What do you suggest?

Do you have a young child you shout at - if so, I am sorry for you both.
When you do something wrong or inadvisable, should someone take your mobile away as a punishment (as you imply should happen to the child)? Presumably you think that is a reasonable thing to do from your comments. I am sorry to repeat myself but we are talking about an 8 year old and the OP even suggested some element of concern about her H shouting as the son. The child is 8.

Shouting isn’t great but fairly normal once in a while. Losing your temper and continuing to shout and kicking something is frightening, particularly for a child. Done over and over it is hugely damaging.

No wonder there are so many poorly behaved children these days. When having a parent shout at you or removing a child’s entertainment as a punishment is deemed unacceptable and even ‘abusive’.

@Contrastinggrassstates

he is abusive because he shouted.

So what is his punishment?
You don't shout in case it stresses him out.
You don't remove his devices?
What do you do when he steals things?

I cannot believe you took your child to GP because they steal things! You know that you are the parents?

@Livelovebehappy Definitely but we’ve never had to remove one of his toys/devices as he’s always handed the item back over or we’ve found it straight away as he doesn’t hide them in a very good place.

Define ‘a thief’.

My point is that this is a child that needs support to learn. Not vilifying and an angry abusive man let off the hook.

It is definitely at least partly her husband's fault as when her son does this to other people, his dad just finds it funny. It's only when it's his stuff going missing that he gets angry.

You're determined for this to be your husband's fault, aren't you?

Your gentle tactics to deal with this horrible behaviour by your DS clearly aren't working, so you're going to have to try a different approach.

So clearly we all have a different meaning of being in trouble. In our home, we mean he won’t get shouted at etc. He gets told off, we explain to him that’s it’s not okay to take things that aren’t his. Shouting at children just stresses them out and doesn’t solve anything. He gets disciplined. No, me saying that our son wouldn’t get in trouble wasn’t what caused my husband’s reaction. He also told our son at the start that he wouldn’t be in trouble, again we clearly do it differently to some people. Son has done this since he was about three. He has taken toys etc from nursery and school. Every single time, I made him take them back and return them to the teacher so he knew what it felt like having to hand them back. He has mostly outgrown this. He also took a you form the shop when he was around 5. I made him take it back to the shop and return it. Husband still laughs about it and says I wouldn’t have take him back to the shop with it, that would be embarrassing. I told him, no we have to teach him it’s not okay to do that. School have helped with him taking things from there. GP wasn’t much help and said he would outgrow it, which he is, slowly.