Husband of a friend telling off my child

[900cherry]

I was invited out this morning with some neighbours who are good friends. The husband is known to be snappy and to have little patience with his own children.
In the space of an hour, he told my 4 year old daughter to 'stop whining' and in a cafe, he snapped at her to 'OI, STOP THAT' when she kicked him under the table ( she was doing it playfully). My daughter burst into tears and came and sat on my lap. When his wife, who is a good friend, commented to him to calm down, he agressively responded 'Its not my problem if she's crying cos I told her off for not kicking me. She can deal with it'.

She is 4.

I said nothing as I didn't want to upset his wife, who I know was mortified.

I really want to email him tomorrow to tell him how inappropriate and uncalled for it was. AIBU? What would you do?

PS. The ironic thing is, he has an obnoxious daughter who is really badly behaved and I say nothing!

This happened to me not so long ago. I took my two DS to an early dinner with friends. One friend is a new mother (who does nothing but cradle the poor baby 24/7 but that's another story). My youngest (2.5yrs) was yelling out 'BAAAAA' - it was annoying for us and other dinners. I told my friends to tell him to stop and they did and he stopped. Sometimes others can make a difference.

If my child was kicking an adult I would have no problem if the adult firmly told them to stop it.

I am presuming you also told her off for whinging and kicking? some people just dont like kids but if you can get in there with the discipline first before they do it generally makes everyone more relaxed. There is no such thing as playful kicking - did he ask you to control her before telling her off?

And you asked were you being UR I said you were, and I've asked some further questions, to try to get a wider picture but you haven't answered them (despite coming back on the thread numerous times)

Perhaps Chat or Parenting would have solicited the response you require.

If a child deliberately hurts an adult that is a telling off offence.
If a child cries when they have been told off and mummy rewards that by cuddle etc then the child has been given a conflicting message.

Not very good for a childs emotional development.

Ultimately if a child behaves badly then it is the parents who are responsible. You should make your daughter very aware that kicking IN ANY FORM is for donkey's and not humans.

If your neighbour scared your DD then that is not really appropriate. However you know he is grumpy and so she should not have been sat next to him.

As a parents we have to risk assess at all time. Small child/grumpy man = a bad tempered telling off.

So yes yabu. But I can see why you had an issue with your neighbour tone of voice.

I shout all the time. Try not to but nearly always fail! Sometimes at other peoples children. They all still seem to like me though.
Or perhaps they are too scared to not like me

900cherry Don't know what to say about some of these posts OP. Not sure if it is amusing or scary

There are some truely strange responses on this thread. What is wrong with expecting a grown man to talk to a child in a nice respectful way? She was only messing about so there was no need for him to react the way he did. I assume that the OP means her daughter was tapping him with her foot and probably giggling? That doesn't warrant that kind of response.

It also doesn't mean that the OP thinks her child can do no wrong as some people have suggested or that it is wrong to tell off someone else's child, but there are ways of doing it.

The OP has said that the man was agressive and even his wife told him to calm down! If is felt over the top to his wife then imagine how it felt to a 4yo who hardly knows the man! I am not surprised she cried.

totally I think 'hardly knows the man' is a bit of an overstatement when the OP has clearly said that her DD adores him.

FM - I wasn't directing at you!
Chill!!!

But joyszaz that's not what happened according to the op. According to the op (who despite not seeing it is an authority on the intent and mood of the kick) her kid kicked him playfully.
If the op wants to change her story now to suggest that the childs leg accidentally hit him then fine, it wouldn't suprise me if she did so in a bid to gain more "moral support"
However if we are all going to enter our own hypothesis then I'd suggets a far more likely one is that the husband didn't shout but was firm with the child. The child not used to being told off by others and the op being oversensitive has now embellished and portrayed him in the worst possible light (anger management/shouting) while painting her and her daughter in the most positive (she adores him/ she was playfully kicking him) and still has been told she is being unreasonable by the vast majority.

900cherry... Would you prefer it if posters had just said - "YABU" or "YANBU", with no further comment?

I get the feeling that you're quite shocked that most posters haven't agreed with you. For myself, it doesn't mean that I don't have a bit of sympathy for the 'knock back' that you and your daughter have had. It was due, no argument there, but it does come as a bit of a body blow when you find out that your child's behaviour isn't as adorable as you think it is.

I'd happily say all of my posts to your face too; not spitefully and with no name-calling (as you've done regarding your friends' daughter), but as they are. If this were a site were everybody just agreed with everything, followed by huns and hugs, or didn't bother to post any opinion, it would be a ghost town.

Post on another topic and you may find that most agree with you. That's the thing I like about this site; disagreeing with a poster on one issue and in complete agreement perhaps on something else. No harm, no foul. :)

.

Why be so nasty? I don't feel like that at all. I'm bewildered by all of this.

So, we aren't allowed to make judgements based on the snapshot you have given of your DD (whining and kicking) but we are meant to make judgements based on the snapshot you've given of the man?

900cherry Mon 20-Jun-11 12:19:25

Fm, this feels like a slanging match, and rather ugly.

I can take people not agreeing with me. The situation over 300 messages or so seems to have become a tornado of a debate about telling off other people's kids and posters creating their own version of what happened. Perhaps my fault as I didn't give enough info. Sitations are never black and white and it is now clear to me, this isn't the fora for serious issues, or intelligent debate. In reality, this isn't that serious!

I honestly now have run out of energy to keep this going.

Since you put my name at the start, it's hard to see that it's not directed at me.

And you DID ask was I 12. I haven't insulted you and I feel to be pointing out that MN rules are to be supportive when you are not prepared to behave the same is rather disingenuous.

And what's with expecting perfect behaviour from 4 year olds? The only people who usually expect that are those with no children (like my aunt for eg ) who thinks that children are for controlling like little robots and MUST NEVER DEVIATE from what they are TOLD to do!

That's not the real world. I am sure the OP would have told her DD not to kick if she had been aware of it or if the man had made her aware. Just because she doesn't want grumpy bastards taking their strop out on her daughter or behaving agressively towards her doesn't mean that she doesn't strive to instill good behaviour in her child.

Why does it have to be one or the other?

And what's with a grown man reacting like that to having a tiny foot poking him in the leg a few times. If he can't cope with that imagine what he is like with his own children.

If it were me being kicked by my neighbours DC I'd say "Oi, that was my leg you know!" but not so severely it would make a 4 year old cry!

I think the neighbour's husband was unnecessarily aggressive. I'd just have a word with her along the lines of "Are you ok? I noticed so and so was a bit snappy the other day..." Or speak to him if OP knows him well enough.

Totally, did you read where I said that the wife may well have told the man to calm down purely because she knew that the OP would throw her toys out of the pram about her child being told off? It's a thought, isn't it?

Anyway, I can back here to see if the OP had answered my question as to whether she was going to send the email in the light of the overwhelming response to her question - ie that she would look like an OTT loon be unreasonable to do so. i'm most disappointed not to get an answer. :o

TotallyLovely - not sure what planntet you are on tbh

If you kicked my playfully and not a child I would tell you to fuck off. Not sit you down and council you through your reasons why?

May be all the willd children who run about with no respect for the elders is because of people no telling their children off correctly.

Define "playful" kicking please, because even if it doesn't hurt I can't think of a situation where being kicked isn't at least extremely annoying, and if you were aware enough of it to know that it was playful, YOU should have stopped your child. You didn't, and he had every right to say "Oi, stop it."

I had a a dear little five year old "playfully" kicking the back of my seat for most of a transatlantic flight a while ago, so may be somewhat biased.

Personally I think the man did your pfb child a favour.

IMHO I think the initial issue seems to be that the child has been led to believe that there is such a thing as playful kicking.

There is a deliberate kick or an accidental kick but a 'Playful' kick? It's only playful or fun for the person doing it. This isn't saying that the OPs DD is a malicious little horror only that if she hasn't been told that there is no such thing as playfully kicking someone, she won't know that not everybody likes it.
Trouble with this is, it's a real "you had to be there" situation. You can't see a facial expression over the internet. On the one hand this child "adores" the man in question, the next he is perpetually bad tempered.

Perhaps if the OPs DD is told plainly 'just don't kick, folk don't tend to like it' that should avoid this sort of situation.

He sounds like a bat-tempered twat. Be grateful you don't live with him.

Not his place to tell her off for whining - annoying as it might be. He could have tried to distract her to stop the whining but not tell her off. Re the kicking - was she just swinging her legs back and forward and kicking him by accident? In which case the parent might well have not known. Either way he could have simply said: 'Hey. watch out! You're hurting me leg' not 'Oi stop that'.

WHy are people so quick to make excuses for badtemper and intolerance?

Dog, no not going to send the email.

cherry - what were other diners' reactions to this man shouting?

Thank you for answering cherry. :) No dig intended, I honestly feel that that's the wisest course of action. :)

I don't believe I was being nasty.
You started the thread. You have ignored the questions and comments of people taking the time to reply to you. You have failed to respond to or even appear to consider any of the (huge majority of posts) talking about your DDs behaviour and your failure to discipline her yourself.
Then you post to say that we are not capable of intelligent debate and that you do not have the energy to continue, which sounds like a flounce to me.

I commented because I do not feel you have listened to anyone who disagrees with you and that you were planning to leave (obviously wrong there as you came back very quickly) because everyone else was wrong.

You haven't even had the common courtesy to let us know what you are now planning to do re: the email - are you still planning to send it? have you taken the advice that it would be a bad idea?