My children have ruined my birthday.

No I have very naturally defiant kids- and had to adjust my methods for this. I also realised that traditional punishments resulted in me punishing myself without changing their behaviour.

The point of “punishment” is to change the unwanted behaviour- OPs methods didn’t do that. It’s a Friday night, the kids were tired and had arguments. As it happens, my similarly aged children had a fight with each other last night before we left the house for our evening plans. So they lost 10 minutes of their 1 hour game time privileges today (but know know they always have a chance to earn it back by going above and beyond), which sorted the arguments and made sure they behaved well while we were out to avoid further punishment.

As it happens, my 9 year old has brought me a cup of tea and croissant in bed this morning - because they’re trying to earn back the lost 10 minutes of game time for today 😂 I’m over punishing for punishments sake. I only impose consequences that actually improve their behaviour, while also teaching them values that are important to me. So no, we don’t cancel events. Yet my children don’t have 2 hour tantrums. To be fair, they lose privileges for slamming the door too hard/ stomping up the stairs so they wouldn’t dream of screaming and throwing things around the room.

I think that by the time our children are 7 and 10, we're a bit beyond the "how to deal with big emotions" phase and more in "It doesn't matter how you're feeling, there are some lines you just cannot cross" territory.

Fully agree with this, and I think the husband wants OP out of the house today so the atmosphere is better. A spat between siblings should not be escalated into such a long punishment.

Happy birthday for yesterday 💐

parenting is hard, and there’s no right or wrong way todo it you just have to learn as you go along. I’m sorry your birthday was spoiled but you still can do something today the good thing about a birthday on a Friday is you get all weekend to celebrate 😀

if were you I would go to the shops (or send DH) pick up something nice for you and DH for dinner tonight and a nice bottle of wine perhaps some chocolate. Get something quick and easy to feed the girls. The girls eat early and are sent to their rooms, you and DH then have a nice meal and watch a film together. They need to learn that if they can’t be guaranteed to behave then they will be excluded I feel that’s a very valuable lesson in life.

Parenting small people is not about tolerating or not tolerating behavior. They aren't adults yet for God's sake.its your job to teach them how to communicate better with each other. How to deal with big emotions. Maybe the 10 yr old is hitting pre teen hormones. But this whole " my only job has a parent is shut them in their room and punish them"'' is doing nothing but building resentment. And not parenting.
When this women's entire happiness is based on the dynamics between siblings and if they are behaving perfectly or not. Then yes thats far too big a burden on them. And the giant elephant in the room is the partner who needs to take some load off the op so she's not so burnt out. Shes in burn out and so won't be able to parent in a meaningful way

Jesus…. hopefully you have naturally well behaved kids.

Exactky ! Kids in bed quiet . I’d have ordered take away and poured a wine

The OP’s gift was the gift of martyrdom and being able to throw this birthday at her partner and children for many years to come if they don’t behave as she wishes on her birthday

But your discipline isn’t working is it? Your methods led to your preteen children throwing a 2 hour tantrum- that’s not normal behaviour for their age.

What it suggests to me is that the punishment was too extreme and they perceived the situation as irredeemable/ hopeless. You didn’t allow for the opportunity to earn privileges back, so they figured they had nothing to lose/ become distressed.

Besides I don’t think cancelling commitments or events is ever appropriate punishment. It doesn’t teach children good life values - as adults we wouldn’t cancel on our friends for unrelated misbehaviour. I think it’s important to teach children to honour their commitments, and to be resilient. That means teaching them to go to that birthday party, dinner, event, club, training session even when they don’t feel like it. You’re actually teaching them that they can throw massive fit to get out of whatever they don’t feel like doing.

As for cancelling today’s event - how come a fight/ argument warrants a two day punishment? Surely that’s too extreme. What incentive have you given them to improve their behaviour? Screen time/ pocket money/rewards (clothes, treats etc), those are specific to them and any consequences imposed on them won’t impact others in the same way as cancelling an event. Plus such privileges can be taken away in increments and earned back in increments. If you impose a punishment that gives them no chance to earn back what’s lost/ improve their behaviour, you should expect extreme reactions.

Well first off your children are not responsible for your emotional well-being. That is highly damaging to make them shoulder the burden of your happiness. Secondly, children are children and not miny adults. You also behaved like a child and made a marhty of yourself and stormed off to bed with no dinner?
Why did you punish them and yourselves just because they had an argument? Sounds like the 10 yr is going through a development stage and so things maybe changing for her.
Especially if they don't do this often. Maybe help them out with their issue instead of throwing your whole birthday on them?
And this whole victimized approach of, we don't celebrate my birthday, I don't ask for anything, I don't plan anything.
Sounds like you've set the culture on how you want people to respond on your birthday, and have made it look to everyone around you, you don't want a big deal. So then don't feel so sorry for yourself when that's exactly what happens.

You are the mother. They are 8 & 10. You sit them on the sofa and you give them a good lecture about how would they like it if you behaved like this when they had their friends around for their birthday. You don't reason with them, you tell them how disappointed you are in their behaviour, list all the occasions you went out of your way to help them when they wanted something and you tell them that if it happens again, you will think twice about making their birthdays specials. You are in the process of bringing up a pair of 'brats' and that needs to be overridden now or else you will be in for a whole lot of trouble when they get older and will be treated like a door mat and they will wipe their feet all over you and become entitled teenagers.

I think you need to stop making excuses and start putting yourself first. The fact that your partner isn’t the breadwinner shouldn’t stop him making and effort and planning and paying for things for you.

Your kids aren’t going to learn to respect you and prioritise you on your birthday when you don’t respect or prioritise yourself.

And for future reference, de-escalating a sibling spat is the way to go. Not winding things up further and further. HTH.

Nope, I expect my similarly aged kids to get a jumper without having a sibling spat. But when they do, I don't drag out an emotionally manipulative tantrum for two days. HTH.

I think how they are this morning, will be the most important thing. If they are remorseful/apologetic , have a calm chat with them about what happened last night, what went wrong and why. If the event is something you’d actually like to do, go as a family. If you’d rather do something by yourself (and get a break) then fair enough.

I think your reaction is part of the problem (although very reasonable, I would have really wanted to take myself to bed after all that!).
Under the circumstances I would have gone sodding nuclear and told the little darlings that it is my birthday and they better get their acts together sharpish or >whichever event they are currently looking forward to < is off the table, and it would be.
Even if your ideal birthday is a bar of chocolate and a glass of wine in peace they are old enough to help facilitate that for the person that does so much for them, I wouldn't let it slide until I was sure they had learned their lesson.

"One of my late DMIL's sayings to her DCs when they had behaved particularly badly was 'I love you and always will but right now I really don't like you'. That is a hard lesson all children have to learn: other people have feelings, it's not all about them."

I vividly remember being told this as a child and being completely devastated that my own mother thought I was so awful she didn't even like me. It stayed with me and it massively affected my confidence on a core level.

I think it's an absolutely disgusting thing to say to a child. Kids will mess up. That's part of learning and development. Your relationship with them needs to be a safe place for them even when they're getting it wrong and telling them that their parent doesn't like them says a lot about them as a person.

Kids this age are still very self-centered- even when you see glimpses of the lovely, kind and empathetic people they can be, they will revert back to this behaviour when upset/stressed/tired- I don’t think it’s that unusual or a reflection on you as a parent. I think your partner needs to talk to them about the behaviour, in general but also in light of it being your birthday and how unacceptable this was. If they are sorry when they calm down, then I think that’s just part of life and I’d give them a do-over and do something nice as a family today. I would agree with PP that my children are shattered come Friday evenings- it’s definitely one of the harder times for them to regulate.

I can’t see this would have been an enjoyable family birthday celebration no matter what tbh

You partner could have made a bit of effort!

Why’s your partner so wet behind the ears?

@Fluffalumpper happy birthday for yesterday.

FWIW I think you and DP did all the right things yesterday but for whatever reason it didn't work. Sometimes it just doesn't.

Setting expectations in advance was particularly important for my DS. My DDs could cope with a bit of 'making a plan as we go' but DS absolutely couldn't and the result would be tears and sad tantrums.

It does sound like your DDs could do with a firm talking to today. The fights stop right now. We had firm rules about not sniping at each other. Any instance of sniping was jumped on. It stopped escalation in its tracks. We also had strict rules about not going into each other's rooms or using each other's stuff.

One of my late DMIL's sayings to her DCs when they had behaved particularly badly was 'I love you and always will but right now I really don't like you'. That is a hard lesson all children have to learn: other people have feelings, it's not all about them.

Happy birthday @Fluffalumpper we had a realisation at a point that our kids were overindulged and had to pull it back before they became entitled twats. They are older now and much nicer kids. They experienced a bit of a shock to the system when the family culture changed but it has been better for everyone that it was addressed.

It absolutely sucks that this happened on your birthday, however I do think this is par for the course with kids of that age - it will happen from time to time especially as you've one moving into puberty with all the changes and hormones that brings.

I actually think the reaction to cancel everything and send both to their rooms with only a break for dinner and then expect them to go to bed for the night was a bit harsh and I think it's possibly escalated things as opposed to defusing it and trying to focus on helping them build empathy. To my mind your dh should have been stepping in there, taking it off you completely and giving them a reality check that they needed to set it aside for your benefit and then continued with your plans as they were and had a different consequence. By punishing them in this way you've essentially punished everyone and also given them control over events. It seems strong especially if this is not normal behaviour for them and they are usually good, well behaved kids as you say. Punishment isn't enough at this age, they do still need help to self regulate and empathise even though in a basic way they know its not good behaviour.

I think your dh needs to step up and get them to now plan how they are going to make it right for you and you do a redo of your birthday.

There's no reason why you both couldn't have ordered a takeaway and watched a movie or something nice like that when the kids were in bed rather than taking yourself off to bed before 9 and deciding they'd categorically ruined your birthday.

I think this is a little harsh but I do agree. You’re being a martyr to your children and you don’t need to be @Fluffalumpper

I hear a woman squashing down her needs, not wanting to make a fuss and then ending up disappointed.

Why don’t you say you want your birthday to be more of a priority for everyone? When you say it doesn’t matter, they’ll take you at your word.

You could have had a takeaway still, you could have still gone to the pub. You deprived yourself.
You could have told them they don’t get to ruin your birthday so despite them acting up, you’re all still going out because that’s what you want to do.

Raise your presence and your expectations around what you want and deserve. It sounds like there’s a disconnect between what you say and what you actually want.