DH smashed DS's phone

[thiscountryfan]

So yesterday I walked in to the mother of all rows between DH and DS (14).

DS was screaming and raging at DH for stamping on his phone and more than likely fatally damaging it. According to DH, he had discovered DS had been stealing his beers (not for the 1st time), then lied about it, then smirked in DH's face when busted. DH just lost his shit at that point and grabbed the phone (possibly the only item that DS cares about).

DH has since apologised to DS and accepts
It wasn't his finest hour but point blank refuses to pay for replacement/repair - saying he is sick of DS's selfish rude attitude of late and that he needs to learn a lesson.

I'm torn. I certainly don't agree with what DH did (and he knows it) but quite frankly DS has been so utterly horrendous and perhaps needs to
Understand that parents are human too.

I know the thread has moved on but your husband responding to his own son with violence is fucking horrible. If it really was a ‘heat of the moment’ thing are you not worried that he might hit your son next time if he has so little control over himself?

I think your husband should replace the phone like for like. It seems very weird to me to hold your 14 year old to the same standard as his adult father - presumably if your DS smashed his dads phone in a temper you wouldn’t say it teaches your husband not to wind him up.

If you are suggesting that allowing alcohol consumption, locking certain food away and expecting a child to suck up unpredictable and violent displays from a parent is 'imposing normal rules' then it's possible you need to research the meaning of the word normal, Decomposing.

FYI www.nspcc.org.uk/what-is-child-abuse/types-of-abuse/emotional-abuse/

It strikes me that maybe you are taking the piss here.

Come on now, her DS must be stupid if that rule confused him. Seems very clear to me.

Yes the words are clear. That is certainly a rule.

But what's the problem that the words are supposed to prevent?

And what's the difference between a beer and a cheese sandwich if alcohol consumption isn't the issue?

If alcohol is the issue, why are they letting him have it?

My Dad did this to my things and it still hurts now as an adult. I remember him stamping on a male your own Easter Egg kit once because I'd been naughty (I was 7) I was devastated. These things stick with you. He may not have been violent towards your son directly but it's still violence!!!!

@WidoWanky He's your hero? Showing a 14yr old how to respond with violence

Wow

Decomposing,
You also need to look up the meaning of the term discipline.

At root it means to bring out the best.
In common usage its meaning has drifted to 'punishment'.

Losing your temper and smashing property would fail the definition test unless the DS could anticipate that this would be the consequence of further infractions of the 'no beer on your own' rule.

That is to say, it would be 'discipline' if after the previous incident the DH had said to DS, 'Next time you take beer and smirk while I am yelling at you for taking beer I will shout at you, take your phone and smash it to bits. Do you understand that?'

It would still fail the 'normal' element of any post mortem though. Unless the family holding the post mortem was quite strange.

Can people here close their eyes and think for a moment how they would respond if instead of smashing a phone the DH had punted the DS's pet cat into the next door neighbour's garden as a means of showing the extent of his anger?

*So are you saying that parents imposing normal rules on children is abusive then?

Because you seem to be saying that any controlling behaviour within a relationship is abusive.

How do you define controlling?*

Okay well perhaps I would change the wording of the NSPCC definition and say abusive behaviour is that which is violent, in which case a man grabbing someone's phone and stamping on it until it breaks is still abusive. So how do you define abusive?

I would have confiscated his phone for a long time but breaking it is extreme and not setting a good example.

Can people here close their eyes and think for a moment how they would respond if instead of smashing a phone the DH had punted the DS's pet cat into the next door neighbour's garden as a means of showing the extent of his anger?

Ah well it's all good as the parents should be able to teach the kid that actions have consequences in whatever way they see fit apparently. Very important lesson to learn when he goes into the work place don't you know! Don't need bleeding hearts/the law/NSPCC telling people otherwise.

Can people here close their eyes and think for a moment how they would respond if instead of smashing a phone the DH had punted the DS's pet cat into the next door neighbour's garden as a means of showing the extent of his anger?

Why?

If you are trying to make a point, on either side of the argument, I have no idea what it is!

DS's pet cat you're comparing kicking a living animal to stamping on a phone?

If you are suggesting that allowing alcohol consumption, locking certain food away and expecting a child to suck up unpredictable and violent displays from a parent is 'imposing normal rules' then it's possible you need to research the meaning of the word normal, Decomposing.

No, I was referring to a posters quote as to what constitutes abusive behaviour and how that relates to all parents and children. It seems to me that the very nature of a parent/child relationship involves control so how can every relationship that involves control be abusive?

It’s quite a typical escalation, smashing a phone/ hurting a pet. Not unheard of at all in abuse cases.

No, I was referring to a posters quote as to what constitutes abusive behaviour and how that relates to all parents and children. It seems to me that the very nature of a parent/child relationship involves control so how can every relationship that involves control be abusive?

It was the NSPCC definition, and I thought it was relevant more because it specifies violent behaviour as abusive than the controlling part. So if we narrow the definition of domestic abuse down to simply violent behaviour in a relationship, what the father did here was abusive. What do you think domestic abuse is? No one has given me any alternative definition.

The Women's Aid definition of domestic abuse:
'Women’s Aid defines domestic abuse as an incident or pattern of incidents of controlling, coercive, threatening, degrading and violent behaviour, including sexual violence, in the majority of cases by a partner or ex-partner, but also by a family member or carer.'

So we've had an incident of violent behaviour by a family member, so again, smashing your kid's phone is domestic abuse by this definition.

So, using that definition of abuse, what disciplinary options are open to parents then?

Confiscating the phone? Grounding? Witholding pocket money? Removing electronics? Using the "punishment" phone?

Surely they are examples of controlling or degrading treatment so, by that definition, abusive? What would you advocate as suitable method?

Most of us (if not all) have said it wasn't a great response from the husband. I don't think one example makes him abusive though.

I see the judge and jury are still convicting a man they don't know, from a home they know nothing about on evidence from their own lives. ..

All I am talking about is this one incident. I'm not talking about ways parents normally discipline children or even about the character of the man.

Stamping on someone's phone until it breaks is not a disciplinery option. It's violence.

I would refuse to pay for another IPhone (they're stupidly expensive anyway, and your ds clearly doesn't deserve the ongoing indulgence- I presume it's on contract?)

A phone like that is a privilege, not a right. In future, I'd only buy him a cheap one.

I’d smash your husband’s phone. Seems a reasonable punishment for his behaviour.

I see the judge and jury are still convicting a man they don't know, from a home they know nothing about on evidence from their own lives. ..

You're right that I'm using evidence from my own life to judge the situation. The kid saw a man break his phone in a rage, and I have too so I know how he feels. I'm just baffled that it is justifiable so long as the man is an authority figure who's decided you deserve it.

What invariably happens with inadequate parents who favour punishment (which is inflicting pain, humiliation or destruction of property) over either rational discussion or 'consequences' such as witholding of pocket money to replace something deliberately damaged or taken, or perhaps refusing a lift or other favour if the DC is being rude, is that it doesn't work and tends to escalate. If your child continues to repeat the behaviour you dislike, what are you going to do? Stupid people (and I have seen many such stupid people on MN threads) tend to believe in escalating the violence and cruelty - a smack didn't work? Lock the kid in a cupboard. The kid escaped? Destroy all their toys. Still no obedience? Beat them with a stick...

As OP is finding out, not only is her H potentially not to be trusted not to do something worse the next time the kid is 'rude' to him, he has badly damaged his relationship with DS. Who, at the moment at least, both hates and fears him. So the DS is probably not (at 14) going to be 'good' in future - and what is the H going to do next time?

...what disciplinary options are open to parents then?

Confiscating the phone? Grounding? Witholding pocket money? Removing electronics? Using the "punishment" phone?

Surely they are examples of controlling or degrading treatment so, by that definition, abusive? What would you advocate as suitable method?

They are not controlling or degrading if the parent has clearly announced the rule and the reason behind it, and the child can predict what is to happen if this reasonable rule is broken.

They are controlling and degrading and abusive if the parent invents a new infraction and punishes it in a way that is not predictable or expected and/or in a way that is disproportionate to the infraction.

When the parent does that he sets himself up as a despot, ruling in an arbitrary way, causing the child to always be wary of the parent's mood (so many have tried to excuse the H on the basis of 'last straw' or 'bad day') instead of developing respect for the rules. Ruling in an arbitrary way is controlling and abusive.

In this case the H destroyed the phone in a fit of rage after the child smirked, not because of beer that was stolen. This was a new, unannounced infraction, and a disproportionate and unexpected response. It was violent, it would cause the DS to watch dad's mood in future, and it was abusive.

The 'watching dad's mood' style of parenting is not leading by example.

It establishes the principle that might is right, which is a dangerous principle to establish when a teenage boy might grow a few inches bigger than you and become a good deal fitter and stronger than you by age 17-18.

(Better than any of your suggestions and better than any transgression/consequence model for teens is a conversation about what is going on in everyone's life when two parties have been getting on each others' nerves for a while, and in particular when alcohol is being drunk it is important to establish what is going on apart from what has been taken from the fridge. You don't establish the sort of rapport and trust necessary for that by going ballistic as the H did here).

DS's pet cat you're comparing kicking a living animal to stamping on a phone?
Not for nothing did the phrase 'kicking the cat' come into existence.

Here's the deal:
It's violence by proxy in both cases.
He didn't punch his son. He didn't kick him. He did the next best (worse?) thing.
The OP states that the H chose to destroy possibly the only thing the DS cares about.

If you're horrified at the thought of a man kicking a cat to emphasise how angry he was, to frighten a victim by the level of violence and lack of concern about damage or destruction, to make someone toe the line - to establish control over them by means of intimidation, in other words - why not be horrified at a man destroying some other item that the child cared very much about and able to immediately recognise it as abuse?

I see you are very much distracted by the idea of a cat being kicked.

Let's say this man punched a hole in the wall instead.
Do you get it now?