AIBU to throttle DD???!!

[matchpoint]

Roughly four hours later and I am still frothing at the mouth.

Backstory: DD is 4 years old, and she and her sister have received (too) many Easter eggs from school, family friends, various well-meaning relatives etc. Both had a Creme egg for a treat after dinner, and the rest of their haul of Easter eggs are living in the kitchen to be dished out as appropriate over the next year/eaten by me (seriously, there are a lot).

I come downstairs to get DD up for bathtime, and she has opened and eaten parts of five eggs, two of which she knew were not hers. There was chocolate in little bits all over the floor, some of which melted and it took ages to clean up.

When asked about it, DD lied to my face that it wasn't her, but eventually fessed up (her sister is innocent in this affair). I went absolutely batshit crazy at her, and I don't feel guilty. She was sneaky, greedy and she lied to my face. She knows better. DD was sent straight to bed, no bath, no story, cried for ages, now asleep.

I'm thinking that she gets no more Easter eggs; and also want to ban her from the iPad for the next week. DH is a bit of a softy, and reckons being shouted at and sent to bed was punishment enough.

DH thinks this is too harsh; my worry is that she will see it as a not a bad trade-off---snuck into Easter eggs, Mummy shouted a bit, but she still got chocolate. MN thoughts please??

To add, I also told my friends and family about the toffee snaffling incident and they found it funny too.

It's the sort of thing children do - chancing their luck, being a bit naughty, it's really not a big deal.

It's actually better for the teeth to eat the whole thing in one go, rather than grazing at it through the day/week.

OP seemed very concerned that DCs have inherited DHs shit teeth, yet allowed them a creme egg, which is probably the worse thing they could have had with the liquid sugar filling

And through all of the posts, I've only seen one actually agreeing with the OP. double

WhatNow, I don't think anyone said it was ok for a child to do that or even for the mum to be mad about at the time and shouting.

But as a mum it's your job to realise that, if you tell your 4yo they are a liar and a thief, they will believe that and if you have over-reacted, take it to heart and apologise to the child (to send a the message that if you screw up, you admit it and try to make up for it.

I agree, that there should have been a proportionate punishment (which have already been suggested).

What I get from OP's post is, she has taken a minor incident to put the personality of her very young child in question and if that happens regularly, it will screw up little one's self-view.

I agree with what everyone said. You are doing both of you a potentially dangerous disservice by being unable to distinguish between a child's reasoning and your own. It's chocolate and it's tempting. You should have hidden it.

I think a 4 year old is able to be in a room without eating accessible chocolate. Mine wouldn't touch random choc eggs without asking. I think your shouting was over the top though. Calm but firm time out would have been fine. Maybe she could do some jobs tomorrow to earn her eggs back ? To make up for lying.

"I think a 4 year old is able to be in a room without eating accessible chocolate."

I agree. But that's not what the thread is about.

poor child! She's only 4! Its easter, every kid wants to eat as much chocolate as they can on Easter. A telling off would have been enough, but you waaaaay over-reacted. I want to give her the cuddles she should have gotten instead of being sent to cry herself to sleep. Poor poor little girl

This thread makes me feel so warm towards my mum. She was a bit strict about food (and a tad too friendly with the mung beans and tahini so beloved of a hippy 70's mother!) but come Easter, Christmas and the like, there were (are) bowls of mini eggs, Roses, sweets, nuts, dried fruits etc about the house. To be eaten. She might have suggested I wait till after lunch before I scoffed my 5th handful but she'd never expect 4 YO mini-Ifancy to have the level of self control the OP wishes her daughter to have. She'd think it her own 'fault' for leaving me/the chocolate unattended if I 'gorged' (don't think the OP's daughter did 'gorge'. I think she probably just wanted to try all the eggs to see if there was a difference.

I was at my mums this weekend. There was half an egg left in a bowl. She insisted I have it before her. I'm now 46!

she's only four :(

if she was ten, you might be more reasonable, but of course a four year old is going to be tempted by chocolate! i think sending her to bed crying is quite enough.

Is this a reverse AIBU and the poster is really the 4 year old daughter mumsnetting from the iPad in her bed?

Do people really think the op is going to come back? Preferably wearing a hair shirt? OP might have been a totally normal mum having a huge overreaction to something. There might have been a huge undisclosed backstory. She might have been on the verge of a total nervous breakdown. She might be a massive cow. No one had enough information to actually judge the background (although that didn't seem to hold anyone back), but there was a massive pile on about how evil she was, how she was clearly scapegoating this child and making the other one the golden child, huge abuse issues, genuine wickedness, loads of other stuff not even slightly referenced in the OP and when unsurprisingly, she didn't take that well, she's pretty much been painted as one step down on the good parenting ladder from baby P's mother.

There is a lot of "oh op, hope you're learning the error of your ways" and "hope you are taking this onboard" as if you were posting to teach the op or help her, rather than to just have a go, which is a load of rubbish. It's not constructive, it's a load of abuse, peppered with lots of anecdotes about how superior you are as parents (hee hee op, I let my child have lots of eggs because I'm a better parent than you). Surely no one is actually expecting the OP to come back for more?

Hear hear Rapunzel.

Although I doubt anyone has noticed the OP is gone amidst all their rabid frothing.

I wouldnt even have told her off, i would have laughed and took a picture.

OP, YABU and your expectations are way too high for a 4 year old.

I daresay the OP would have had a more compassionate response had she not titled the thread "AIBU to throttle DD??!!!", then gone on to describe how she was "frothing with rage...hours later", how she had gone "batshit crazy" and "(didn't) regret it" and then went on to describe her daughter as "sneaky and mean".

Was DD a teenager who'd just nicked money out her mums purse, assaulted a sibling and then lied about it or stayed out until the small hours with no contact?

No. She was a four year old who ate too many easter eggs.

Yes Rapunzel. I'm sure you and the OP are right and the other 98% of posters are all in the wrong. I'm sure it's a perfectly reasonable way to treat a child.

To be fair after reading the thread title and the first line Roughly four hours later and I am still frothing at the mouth the majority of people were expecting much worse than it to be a thread about a 4 year old eating too much chocolate

Not to mention OP said she's 'rather deal with low self esteem and anorexia'

Rapunzel; op isn't the slightest bit concerned for the effect that her nasty, abusive behaviour has had on her innocent young child, you're calling us abusive for pointing out how abusive and wrong her behaviour toward a four year old is? Ridiculous, she asked for an opinion, she got a lot of them, as an adult she should be able to take the truth. No child should not be subjected to what she did to her daughter and it would be outrageous if everyone responded to her posts with justification and support of her disgusting (as she described) behaviour.

Posters are entitled to respond honestly and they have a responsibility to when it concerns irrational rage, emotional and verbal abuse toward a young child. The truth hurts but it's necessary. Maybe this woman will think about what she has done and at some point realise that she needs to change. That won't happen if everyone pretended her behaviour was acceptable and justified.

Rapunzel Many many posters have also advised the OP to get help, and tbh, regardless of what may or may not be going on in the OP's life, her attitude towards a minor misdemeanour of a very young child is vastly out of proportion.
No matter which way you look at it, or how you attempt to justify OP's attitude, what matters is that there is a small child out there being very cruelly treated by her mother.
There could be 1001 reasons why OP feels so angry and stressed, but she has not mentioned them, and we are not mindreaders.

We can only go on the information we are given here. That's the nature of an internet forum.

Tbqh, if OP had said something along the lines of 'I have just gone batshit crazy at my DD for eating some chocolate on Easter sunday that I forbid her to eat, but I am having problems in XYZ area of my life, I am having a nervous breakdown, my marriage is falling apart and I have just heard the most terrible news this morning, I don't think the replies would have been substantially different because this is about a child who has been treated very cruelly, and whilst your sympathies may lie with a perceived problem the OP may or may not be experiencing, other posters sympathies will quite naturally lie with a small child who is being treated in an awful way over a very small misdemeanour, and that is not a problem which has been perceived or imagined, that is the OP's version.

So you can continue perceiving possibilities as to why the OP may have behaved so badly towards her DD, but I'll stick with what the OP has actually said, and to my knowledge, that hasn't included any suggestion of a backstory or nervous breakdown.

I don't think she said to the child that she was a thief etc etc.

At 4 I would have been expected not to take things that didn't belong to me. I was expected to sit quietly through a church service, I was expected to ask for biscuits or chocolate or treats, what was expected of me was made clear and it was also clear that if I did something wrong of course I'd get into trouble; this wasn't just 'nicking a bit of chocolate' it was opening 5! eggs, some of which weren't hers, and then strewing the bits around and being wilfully messy with it all. Not just 'eating a bit too much chocolate that is hers by right anyway'. So I understand why the OP is so annoyed.

I've just re-read the OP too. It sounds to me like it was out of character lying, along with wilful behaviour that has made her so cross. When a child hasn't really learnt something and is still learning it's one thing but when you know that she knows something is right or wrong but does it anyway it's not just 'ah she's still learning', it's just being naughty.

I also think 4 years old is not a baby. I agree with 'tomorrow is a new day' and punishment shouldn't carry over to the next day but I remember being 4, and I know various 4 year olds and what they are capable of and a 4 year old is capable of not being destructive and knows lying is wrong. (I know they all do it and it's normal but you still have to deal with it!).

The fact that you don't seem to care about your daughters emotional well-being is the most worrying thing.

You won't be dealing with the fall out of your out of proportion anger, she will.

Do you care?

I know they all do it and it's normal but you still have to deal with it!

And the OP dealt with it very badly. Very badly indeed!!
Not only that, but the OP then asked AIBU, and when told yes, YABVVVU, OP then defended her position, and basically said she cared more for her DD's teeth than she did for her emotional and social wellbeing. OP also made nasty comments about 'taking her chances' wrt giving her DD self esteem issues or anorexia!

Some posters had sympathy for OP before she began spouting vile crap about 'taking her chances with her DD's self esteem and crossing that bridge when she comes to it'.

Posters are understandably frustrated at OP's inability to see she just might have been OTT, and imo, that's why OP hasn't come back, because the majority didn't agree with her.

I don't buy the teeth stuff at all, that seems to be purely defensive and added as an afterthought. This mother doesn't seem to like children, or her child, at all. Completely unreal comments about eating disorders too. A friend of mine had a mother like this: I still vividly remember the mother's behaviour when I went round to play and have tea with Katie aged 5, 6 and 7 - even to me as a small child the dominating, controlling behaviour was deeply weird. Poor kid, she needs to escape really - it was only a bit of mess and a few bits of other people's egg, not any sort of a deal tbh.

Well yes she was naughty, but the punishment was completely out of proportion to the "crime".

What the OP described would, I imagine, have been really frightening for her daughter.