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!

So, the man is having problems in his marriage and is probably stressed up to the eyeballs. Can't you cut him any slack, if he's not always been like this and it's a relatively new thing?
Doesn't excuse your DD I still wouldn't have accepted being kicked btw

"My personal view regarding speaking to children is that they should be treated with respect and not patronised. I don't 'coo', never have and never will. If I talked to a child about their behaviour to me (my own or anyone else's), I hope I'm kind but I'm most definitely direct and, if I were being kicked, I would give the parent a few seconds to say something and if they didn't - I would. Directly. Not shouting but not 'fluffily' either."

LyingWitch - Actually we do agree - on a non-aggressive approach.

So we are BOTH the voice of reason!

It has been described as 'playful kicking' by her mother who didn't see it so presumably only has her dd's word to go on. I can't say I would ever describe being repeatedly kicked in the legs as playful myself.
No-one has said that the child is 'the devil' and if the man had kicked her back or hit her or screamed in her face or anything it would have been disproportionate but he was (quite rightly) angry and told her off. I don't think the child would have learned anything form being spoken to nicely. She wasn't behaving nicely, he wasn't asking her for a favour, he was reprimanding her ffs.

Animation if you had your way all kids will be wispered too, handed flowers and running around in circles holding hands. If they are naughty they will be cuddled and told it is not their fault.

You can actually reprimand without the anger - firm - fair - kind.

Dandy You following me love?

There was no need for him to be rude and agressive. He should have just said 'Please stop that, it's hurting me' which would at the same time made the mum aware and she could have dealt with it. As someone else said "There are ways of telling a child to stop an unwanted behaviour that don't involve frightening them."

Goodness me - 510 posts and a c 95% agreement level. Tells me 2 things:

(1) the OP is 95% probably BU.

(2) a LOT of people are fed up with having to put up with other parents' poor child discipline.

Not all people respond the same way to things. Not a perfect world. The kid's bound to meet grumpy people eventually. If the kid behaves in a manner unacceptable to society, it's going to receive negative feedback. The extent of that feedback depends on the person. Can't protect the little buggers for ever. Consider it a learning experience.

This thread is hilarious. God alone knows why the OP has it in for Fuckme specifically. And then has the front to say that Fuckme doesn't like being disagreed with. The irony of that statement from this particular OP is outstanding

Animation... Eeek... do we? Are we? But if you tell me you consider yourself Mrs Johnny Depp too, I will challenge you to a dual. [shocked]

"Animation if you had your way all kids will be wispered too, handed flowers and running around in circles holding hands. If they are naughty they will be cuddled and told it is not their fault."

Steady on MrSpoc - I'm more likely to model myself on how Captain Kirk might do it!

Ha. DS does that as well whenever he's told off in a firm voice, LL. He's only 3.7 though and I have a hard job not to snigger whenever he does it. Same reasons, I think. If DH isn't around, he'll go and hide behind the sofa until I call him back again.

Dont get it? Animation please elaberate.

Animation you only have the OP's word that he shouted at her poor little flower like a bloody great beastie. She may be over-reacting to someone who actually disciplines naughty kids the DH's style

Gosh cherry stop being so melodramatic! 'scary man', 'dd burst in tears', 'humalitation', 'frighten'.....All that happened is that a friend (who your dd see every day) told her 'stop this'. She will not need life long counselling fgs.

Omigawd Goodness me - 510 posts and a c 95% agreement level.

Didn't know there was an opinion counter on here. Doubt very much it's that one sided!

"Animation you only have the OP's word that he shouted at her poor little flower like a bloody great beastie. She may be over-reacting to someone who actually disciplines naughty kids the DH's style"

True. We only have the OP's perspective. That's all we ever have. She did say his wife told him to calm down as well and not be so aggressive.

Dandy Maybe you should look back through this thread and see if you can see me being a "sock puppet" wasn't it?!

< bringing grudge from other thread over to this one >