Was my DH being mean to DS or am I soft?

Your dh is a dick. The child is 5 not 15 and kept going for all that time, he should be rewarded for that alone

Yeah probably not the greatest move by your DH but what does ‘He went up my top and was there for ages’ mean?

Nobody said it was mean...

But do we really think that the Dad would approach this in exactly the same way next time?

Yes I think 45 minutes was too long before either of them intervened.

but DS figured out a solve for his slippery hands which was smart. And DH said he will try again tomorrow.

he still got ice cream and play time and by all account is and was fine.

someone should’ve steep in before he got to meltdown stage but offering an incentive to do something tricky is not mean or horrible to a child.

Very poor on your dh and glad you called him out. It's everything wrong with behaviourist approaches with children in a nutshell, incentives only help to encourage behaviour we can manage, when they're not reachable it causes distress, shame, withdrawal and giving up. The opposite of teaching resilience. Have him read some stuff on growth mindset and parenting as his current approach is crap.

He’s 5 FFS 🙄

Jeez. He’s five. And he was evidently not going to do it with sticky sweaty hands. Your DH should have stopped it after a couple tries and said as suggested above ‘that’s ok mate let’s go spend it in ice cream for all three of us - I know you can do it next time’.

A few comments here are pointing to a lack of resilience amongst the youth of today, with this showing up in workplace etc.

I guess this is hard to measure objectively, but it isn't my experience where I work or in life in general. We have people from university graduate age to near retirement and the resilience/lack of resilience variation amongst people seems to be the same across all ages.

There are plenty of older people who were raised the old fashioned way who I would consider as lacking resilience, putting more energy into moaning a lot about work stuff than finding a way to adapt to non-perfect realities, or not being to accept someone parking on a public road outside their house or shouting at doctors receptionists or shop staff etc.

Plenty of people I know were raised by harsh dads just ended having short tempers and inability to stay calm under stress rather than being resilient to anything life throws at them.

The way of men is to try to bribe a 5 year old to do something he struggling with . To the point he got really upset ...yeah thats definitely how to teach children how to be resilient.
Its not just a grown man being a bit of a bully .
Dont get me started on why a 5 year old is already swayed so much by money.
Mine didnt have a clue about money or care at the age of 5 .
Sounds like a really fun day at the park .

He should have said “you didn’t do it, BUT you kept trying so you can have the money because not giving up is a just as important as succeeding”

DH is a bellend on this one.

Yes, there's "you'll get the prize when you do the thing".
But this wasn't it...
there's OP husband who is setting him up to fail (slippery hands etc)... 45 minutes if sheer frustration trying to do an impossible task.

The resilience lesson would have been just as effective had, once Dad realised the boy couldn't accomplish the tasks due to external factors, he should have called an end to it and said "ok buddy, I think the sunscreen is making it slippery... Let's try again tomorrow, see if we can't get the £5, we can think about what to do next time.".

That's a much better example and reached the same thing without a frustrated, exhausted and overwhelmed little boy.

This wasn't a lesson in resilience. This was a lesson in - you tried really, really hard but you still weren't good enough no matter how hard you tried. And that is a shitty, shitty lesson to teach a 5 year old autistic child.

There was no need for a £5 'prize' to be introduced on a nice day out at a park either. Another poor lesson - when you go to the park you're there to try to get money. Not there just for innocent childhood fun, nope, now it's about doing stuff good enough to get yourself money. His dad could have played a lovely game with him, had some fun, been silly. But no he had to teach him a lesson.

People seem to really not understand how resilience is learned. Resilience is learnt when you feel secure, when you feel secure you can go out and face challenges. When you feel secure you have the confidence to know it'll be ok if your challenges don't work out. If you want a child to be resilient then make them feel secure. Don't set up fake events that they fail at and that leave them miserable at 5 years old to 'teach them a lesson'. Remember also that resilience is partly genetic, some people will naturally be more or less resilient.

Your husband clearly knows fuck all about raising kids. Is he autistic too? Is that why he's so lacking in empathy and so keen to teach lessons? Because you're sons autism will have come from somewhere. It's not an excuse but at least it might be a reason.

My son is 5 with an ASD profile.
This is not cool for NT 5 YO never mind ASD. Shocking. Poor little one. Dick move husband.

That is awful. The thought of someone doing that to my ND nephew makes me want to cry.

5 is a perfectly reasonable age to learn in safe environment with his parents.

arguably it could’ve been ended sooner but if he was determined to keep going…

I think most children autistic or not would’ve had a meltdown if they failed. That’s ok and frankly the socks on his hands as problem solving is pretty smart!

This 100% plus your ds is Autistic!
Both of you should be embarrassed, I can't believe your admitting to treating your ds like this.

Poor kid tried so hard , id have given it him anyway for the effort. That's amazing for 5 years old. Your husbands a dick for ruining the day.

This.

it’s ok that you didn’t get it. But people parent and teach resilience differently.

when he accomplishes it and gets his £5 it will mean more rather than just giving to him because he was upset.

you don’t always win or win the first time. That’s ok.

it’s also ok for him to be upset and flustered. But next time he will be less upset. If he plays games with others at school he will be less upset if he loses because he lost and he was ok.

Change some of the wording in this and it does make sense.
As OP said resilience is important, it's good that DC was challenged. It's fair that he didn't get the reward when he didn't complete the challenge.
It went too far allowing him to try for 45 minutes, it would have been best if mum stepped in after 20 minutes and said this is really tough in this heat, let's go and get an ice cream and try again another day.
Position held on the reward, DC appropriately challenged, DC shown some compassion, encouragement and empathy and his parents have taken control before he reaches the point of meltdown and end the day out on a positive.

Not the point I know but the "covered in suncream" bit really got to me! I hate that feeling, for an Autistic child that could well have been very unpleasant.

I know he needs sun protection but no young child would enjoy being slathered to the point of it inhibiting what they do or making them hot and sweaty.

My preference now are the very light aerosol sprays, high factor, quick to apply and not at all heavy feeling or sticky. Just a thought.

So
Dad says I'll give you a fiver if you can do x.
Kid cannot do x despite trying. Gets upset and frustrated at not meeting the challenge.
According to many suggestions, dad then gives fiver to kid anyway.
And according to some, if he does not do this then he is abusive.
🤔

Wtf is wrong with people????

Yep, as soon as I see a post about children being or not being resilient I ignore them as it shows they don’t know anything about child development.