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!

He was naughty you didn't tell him off so some else did

To be honest the answer is nest time tell your child to behave

Apologies OP, we cross posted. I now see that you weren't aware that DD was kicking yur friend. Perhaps all the more reason why he felt that he had to tell your DD to stop though?

I'm a little bit astonished that you think it is OK for your child to kick an adult - presumably she had shoes on, and it hurts!

It's not lacking tolerance, it's about teaching kids the right way to behave.

It's not an intolerance of small kids at all! She's not a toddler, she's 4! 2yo's can learn that they shouldn't kick people ffs!

I don't condone kicking and told her myself. He was being a bad tempered arse.

But you are condoning it by saying 'she only did it playfully'.

I would be telling my child that the reaction she got is one of the main reasons why you don't kick people! You don't know how they are going to react.

My son is ten, so past that kind of thing (one hopes!) but were he to have kicked anyone, I would have been very cross with him too!

He was wrong to bark her head off - must have scared her.

Playful kicking??

You already condoned it on this thread by saying it was playful.

I ask again, what should he have done? Why, if you didn't see it do you assume her kick was playful?

It would be playful if he was playing with her. As he sounds like a grumpy arse, that's unlikely. I think a better word is naughty, and people do tend to snap when they feel a sharp pain. So although he does sound like quite an unsympathetic character, I think in this instance you just have to chalk it up to natural consequences and move on. No email necessary.

YABU

Four is plenty old enough to know kicking other people in any circumstances is wrong. He was kicked by her, presumably it hurt, he was right to tell her to stop as you didn't see it. Does 'playfully kicking' somebody mean kicking them more than once? If so, no wonder he snapped at her.

He was U to tell your DD off harshly about the kicking, but as you didn't know she was doing it, he had to. However he shouldn't have made her cry. The whining you should have dealt with, not him.
I wouldn't e-mail him, I'd leave it to his wife to discuss (otherwise you're doing what he did!)

PrinceHumperdink - yes, he is v bad tempered.

I agree she should have been told not to kick, but I'll be the one to do it, not someone else and not the way he did it.

Oh for goodness sakes it's not bad-tempered to not want to be kicked or to react sharply when you are kicked. It's a fairly standard human reaction!

TBH cherry your OP said nothing about "shouting aggressively", and really sounded as if you had a problem with other people telling off your child.

I see that you posted that you don't but I had already posted my comment.

I don't shout aggressively at my kids (often! ) or other people's. I tell them off tho and think others should do the same. Maybe you should tell his dd off!

It also wasn't clear that you didn't see - sounded as if you were looking on, unconcerned.

additionally i would tell a friends kid off if they were whining and the parent wasn't doing anything to alleviate their whining.

So what should he have done? Just sat there and let her kick him?