Just walked out on kids

You're not showing them how regulate their emotions if you can regulate your own.

What do you do from here? You calm down, turn around, go home and act like an adult.

I’m less bothered by the OP leaving her kids for half an hour while she drives away as a one off, than I am a load of people online normalising that and congratulating her. That is much more peculiar and I would hate for the OP to get the idea that it’s okay to do that regularly, because it’s not.

My mum did this Op. I was not scarred for life, in fact for me it barely registered as an event. I think you did the right thing if the alternative was absolutely losing your shit in front of them - far better to step out and the deal with things calmly when you’re back.

God, I wish more people would leave their dogs at home! I'm sick of seeing dogs everywhere I go and in places dogs should not be.

And don't get me started on the number of stupid people dragging their dogs out in 30+ degree heat because they haven't trained them well enough to be left at home alone for a couple of hours.

That’s the kind of advice that’s given by HVs as they are aware that babies are incredibly vulnerable and susceptible to harm if their caregiver is stressed/exhausted/angry. They would always prefer the baby to be safe in their cot while the caregiver takes a walk that stay close to someone who has reached the end of their tether.

i have yet to hear a health visitor recommend a parent takes off in their car because their tweens are arguing. I must have missed that in my parenting course(s).

I think the difference here is your use of the word "often" - you say your mother often issued that threat.

Here the OP has just once found she needed to put distance between herself and her bickering children. I don't think one instance is going to prey on their minds or scar them for life.
Maybe if it became a regular thing coupled with threats that she was never coming back it might be different but this just sounds like a one off so it's not the same thing at all.

Pmsl you’re correct @Procrastination4. If the same thread had been written about dogs instead of kids they’d have been OUTRAGE 🤦🏼‍♀️

I am absolutely stunned by the number of posters who think this is ok! I’m not talking about you, OP, as it was a “heat of the moment” thing, but not the right thing which I think you think the same. However, other posters who AREN’T experiencing the stress and “end of your tether” thing that you must have felt earlier, think that there’s nothing wrong with it! (And yet, posters are regularly condemned for leaving their dogs at home for a few hours!)
When we were children, my mother often threatened to “pack her bags and leave”. This was in Ireland when separation/divorce wouldn’t have been very common so we wouldn’t have any experience of how that would pan out. In fairness to Mum, she was a full time teacher in a multi-grade classroom (and was an excellent teacher who put huge effort in every day) and had 5 children to deal with also, so I can only imagine how stressed and tired she must have felt at times. Dad was a hands-on dad, who did his fair share of cooking and cleaning every day, so it wasn’t all left to her, but I can imagine it was still stressful. But I remember how upsetting the threat used to be, even though she never did it, obviously, so your children may have been quite anxious this morning when you actually left.
Put it behind you, though, and hopefully they’ll cop themselves on after this. Best of luck!💕

The whole reason it’s suggested with babies (and is a great idea in that case!) is that babies do not have the awareness that older children have, and there is no reasoning with them. A 9 and 12 year old are aware of the concept of abandonment and can be reasoned with, so disappearing without explanation isn’t the same thing here.

So much judgemental hyperbole. You’re fine OP. Sometimes kids push your buttons and leaving DC of that age for a while to catch your breath is absolutely fine. Children as young as 6 walk to and from school on their own in many European countries while over here people lose their minds if an 11 year is left alone for 30 minutes. And we wonder why young adults lack resilience.

Anyways I wouldn’t take the scolding comments from posters here too seriously. I was warned on another thread that I was abusive, my DD would be mentally scarred and alienated from me for life because….I couldn’t work out how to reinstate her lost Roblox account😂

When my 2 boys were like this [ages 10 and 7] they were intensely arguing/fighting in the living room and not listening to a word I said. So I picked up the phone which was in there and made out I'd called a children's home.

I started telling the fictional person on the other end their ages and names and whether they would need pyjamas and some toys etc.

As I continued talking the arguing petered out and I could sense they were still. When I put the phone down and looked round they were sitting on the settee quietly looking at me. I just shouted 'Joke!!]...and followed up with a warning that I'd had enough and that upsetting me had consequences.

I've told people about this and most have laughed, only the ones without kids looked askance. I'm not bothered. It worked. The atmosphere was different afterwards but they got the message.

We still laugh about it now and the 'boys' are now in their 50's with children of their own. They were not permanently damaged and they still seem to like me!

My health visitor told me if DS was really getting to me I should go and walk round the garden until i calmed down and this was when he was a baby! Surely OP hasn't really done much more than that? I've always been told it's better to leave DS somewhere safe while I calm down than snap and potentially hurt him, I'd assume the same applies to older kids as well. (I live in a flat, the garden is communal so I'd have to go out of my front door and then another door.)

No, a little bit older, one was local to me. Just in case it becomes habit forming. I've fallen out with other mums because they see their daughters and sons the same and don't intervene when their son is punching hell out of the girl. There's a lot of posters on here who won't forgive their parents for allowing their brother to bully or assault them. There are 12/13 year old children who have killed adults. I tend to read country wide news.

Once, she left the house as a result of their bickering for 20 minutes.

On the back of that, your conceit is that the lesson learned is abandonment when things are hard?

I bet they don't learn their tables that quickly.

Sitting back and letting children argue all
day, shouting and storming off out of the house saying “I’m done with this” are not the only options here.

In truth, if the behaviour was arguing about a face cloth, it’s not unreasonable to teach them that that’s ridiculous and it’s going to gain a reaction.

You can’t seriously think that we should just sit back while our kids argue all day about random household objects, and not make totally clear that that’s bullshit behaviour and nobody’s accepting it?

I don’t think there’s any issue with letting your kids think that behaviour needs changing - it often does.

FWIW, just incase it’s not clear haha, I don’t agree with or endorse “gentle parenting” or anything similar whatsoever. I don’t have a gentle child, I have a feral child who sometimes needs a stern telling off to bring him back down to planet earth.

For God's sake - the kids are not toddlers or babies.

They probably won't even notice the OP is gone.

I am sure there are planets, or cuckoo lands, or make believe words where every single time there is a bicker or a row the parents sits calmly and beautifully and explains to children (who listen patiently and wonderfully) why they should not bicker. Then they rinse and repeat. The parent never gets tired, exhausted or simply fed up of the lot of them.

Meanwhile, here on planet earth...

Too many people who have "had therapy" posting on here I think....

Why can people not control their kids anymore. Honestly, my parents would have given consequences in no uncertain terms, and stuck to them.

You haven't "walked out on them", you've just popped out to cool down.

There is a big difference between teaching our children to be mindful of others, and an adult acting out of anger and blaming our children. “You made me do this because you made me angry” is probably a phrase or paraphrase extremely familiar to anyone who has been in an abusive relationship. And most of us learnt to accept this, because it’s how we had been raised. Not necessarily with violence, but just the idea: I have to change my behaviour, always aware that what I do might trigger anger and therefore unwanted behaviour from my parent/sibling/spouse.

Christ trust this to be the first comment on here lmao. OP they will be fine for an hour if it allows you to hold on to your last nerve.

Oh my goodness, what a lot of judgy comments.

Mums are only people. It’s hard, especially when you have to work, run a household, care for parents etc.
@patiencehasgone so what, you snapped and got some space? Its ok.
Maybe it will teach them not to be twats and that people have tipping points.

In the 80’s mum absolutely lost her shit when my brother and I were arguing over a weetabix (out of a big packet of them we both wanted the same one) she came running downstairs and shouted so much and swore. We phoned my dad at work and told him, this was back in the days of landlines and he assumed it was an emergency, when he soon realised it was a squabble about cereal that tastes like cardboard he was equally annoyed.

Now I am an adult I know that she was probably at the end of her rope and we had been naughty for days, I haven’t been scarred for life and my mum and I get on fine. I completely understand why she did it.

Do you mean never ever or just when you're driving? One is ridiculous, the other is perfectly sensible. I had a pint of cider the other week with my lunch at Whetherspoon's, didn't feel drunk and I can't drive anyway. People drink driving can get in the bin.

Ive definitely done this! Mine are older and still bicker about the most stupid stuff and deliberately annoy each other.

Sometimes children, and others, are responsible for making us feel a certain way, because their behaviour has been unacceptable.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with teaching children to be mindful of how they impact others, or with making it known when they’re out of line.

I think it’s right to teach my son to consider others, and that actually his wants and behaviour don’t always take priority. It’s not just his world, he has to share it with other people, and sometimes him wanting to yell about chocolate bars does not take priority over someone’s desire to not listen to it.

Unreasonable is unreasonable, and once children are old enough to learn what that means, we should teach them it.