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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Wibu? Dragging my son across the room?

317 replies

FuryFowler · 01/09/2015 19:48

My son is 6 and was being a pain at bedtime this evening. I asked him repeatedly to come to bed. I just kept getting an outright no from him as he lay on the sofa. I asked and asked nicely, then I told him, then I shouted at him. Still saying no and basically being rude. I threatened him with dragging him off the sofa to his room, he still refused. So with 2yr old in arms I pulled him off the sofa by his arm and dragged him halfway across the room. I wasn't rough and was going to stop by the doorway in the hope that he would get the message and get up and walk.
I was stopped by my husband who yelled in my face scaring my 2yr old, shouting that "if I ever see you do anything like that again I'll slap you across this room!" He then took both crying kids off me, took them in to the bedroom and closed the door.
I was shocked. I'm now sitting in the car outside not wanting to go back in.
Not sure what to do now? Wibu?..... Tag, I've never dragged him before, he's never been so resistant before and my dh has never yelled like that before Sad

OP posts:
PrimalLass · 02/09/2015 16:21

It makes sense because a child unwilling to get up is unlikely to be carried without a struggle.

goawayalready · 02/09/2015 16:23

If your child refuses to move? Simply allow them to sit where they are? For how long?

actually yes my son got so defiant that i turned off the tv the lights and took the other two children upstairs to bed telling him we were all going to bed and he could sit in his tantrum alone if he wished but he was not watching my tv or using my electric to do it we left him to it he came up to bed as soon as the mouth started working at me again i turned the lights off again and told him i was not putting up with it he can speak to me properly or NOT AT ALL he went to bed finally but we are talking an hour and a half stand off here just over bedtime

i feel for the op she was dealing with a difficult situation and instead of helping her her dh threatened her and abused her so yes i think he is worse than her she was dealing with a situation and lost control he did nothing then acted like a vile human being

livingzuid · 02/09/2015 16:36

Wow. OP if you are still here, I feel for you. Parenting mistake made, apologise, learn from it, move on as it seems you are doing. So many people must just spend all day playing and having nothing but fun and cuddles with their perfect children Confused.

Husband threatening to slap me across the room as a result of said mistake? When he was sat on his arse doing fuck all the whole time whilst you were struggling with a toddler and a defiant six year old? I'd leave the bastard that night and take my kids with me.

My DH and I have argued plenty of times over our different parenting styles. But even when I made a mistake that still haunts me, at no point did he tell me he was going to hit me!

Since when did it become OK for children to hear a parent being physically threatened?

I hope you are better now.

Lweji · 02/09/2015 16:39

Oh, do go away, Lweji. We all know you're the perfect mummy and in your perfect world little darlings must come first and are never disciplined and are never wrong, but your posts are sanctimonious, annoying and extremely fucking boring. Don't you have one of your perfect brood to go and fawn over or something?

If it makes you happy to think that way...

Original poster
FuryFowler · 02/09/2015 16:40

Thanks everyone. We are over it now in this house. Everyone is being ice to eachother and no shouting or threatening has been done.
Thanks for the kind words of reassurance from many x

OP posts:
Lweji · 02/09/2015 16:40

The majority of children behave in school or with other people

Sure, but sometimes they don't. What are teachers supposed to do, then?

Original poster
FuryFowler · 02/09/2015 16:41

Nice, not ice

OP posts:
Lweji · 02/09/2015 16:44

Good to know, Fury. :)

I totally understand people losing it. I just worry about the normalising and risking the cycles being repeated.

Hopefully, you will look into and develop better strategies to deal with defiance, or will apply them more and remember this episode when you feel you are beginning to lose control.
Take care.

marmitemofo · 02/09/2015 17:03

livingzuid and goaway your posts are a perfect example of my earlier comment that people are exercising double standards on this thread! Shock

both OP and DH were in the wrong. end of. blaming DH as a 'vile human being' when OP has already admitted she was in the wrong is ridiculous, over the top, and unfortunately this is turning into one of those threads which demonstrates why mumsnet has an (unfair) reputation for being a man-hating site Hmm

fury glad things have calmed down in your house.

Spartans · 02/09/2015 17:06

primal what's your point? The op isn't saying tried any of that.

Personally if I am close to losing my temper I remove myself. I have shouted and then had to remove myself, calm down and return to the task at hand. We all lose our temper and act how we wouldn't expect. I am not saying the OP is a bad person or that I am perfect.

Simply that putting yor hands on a child in anger is on par with threatening violence in my book.

I can pick up my 11 year old and my 40 year old dh. Not sure what you not beig able to pick up a six year old has to do with anything tbh.

PrimalLass · 02/09/2015 17:54

primal what's your point?

Simply that putting yor hands on a child in anger is on par with threatening violence in my book.

That if your child doesn't want to move, then carrying them (probably) kicking and screaming is not really any less 'violent' than pulling/dragging them. It is still making them move - by 'putting your hands on them' - using force.

Original poster
FuryFowler · 02/09/2015 18:09

Thanks lweji I knew were you were coming from x

OP posts:
SeaMagic · 02/09/2015 18:11

Look, I can only go on what the OP says in her initial post and she says she wasn't rough when she pulled defiant child off the sofa.

Not great maybe but a lot of us have been there and don't believe our children have been traumatised by the experience.

However a grown man screaming in his partner's face and threatening to smack her across the room is appalling.

And it's not one rule for women, another for men Hmm

I would say the same if the OP admitted to screaming in her child's face and threatening to smack him across the room [appalling imo] and her partner dragging child off sofa and attempting to get them to walk to their bedroom [not great but understandable and not hugely traumatic to said child].

OP, what was your son's reaction to being dragged off the sofa? Was he crying or did he look scared? Or was it perhaps more frightening to have his father screaming about smacking his mother?

SeaMagic · 02/09/2015 18:18

marmite really?

You think this thread is an example of why MN is known as man hating?

Well you may be right that some would think that but it's pretty nuts imo.

IceBeing · 02/09/2015 18:52

ceyes not that much authoritarianism in many work places tbh. I don't have to ask permission to go to the bathroom at work for instance.Nobody walks in and tells me I have sit down and keep quiet either. I don't have to work fixed hours. I don't have to conform to a fixed timetable. My interactions aren't limited to people born within the same school year as me. I don't have to wear a uniform....I could seriously go on for a long time...but I won't.

There isn't much that goes on in school that is actually considered normal anywhere else.

The whole 'children must learn to bow down to authority' thing is frankly a crock.

WhoTheFuckIsSimon · 02/09/2015 18:54

Haven't read the whole thread but wanted to say I genuinely know someone who did this recently. The child told a teacher and is now in foster care. Has been in care for six months. Mum is waiting for a court date for final decision about what is happening to him and other dc.

Aeroflotgirl · 02/09/2015 19:34

whothefuck there must be more to that!

SeagullSal · 02/09/2015 19:35

I'm sorry but there are so many variables and children surely don't get taken into foster care at something a child has said at school which may or may not have been seriou. This will make OP feel sick. It's made me feel sick.

SeagullSal · 02/09/2015 19:35

My DS comes out with all sorts!

LobsterQuadrille · 02/09/2015 19:37

whothefuck - if this is true then every single child in the country could be in foster care.

ceyes03 · 02/09/2015 19:53

Ice Only if you think you and your kids are above everyone else in the world. And you know what? You're not.

IceBeing · 02/09/2015 20:12

ceyes wtf are you talking about? Are the only options in your world a) bow down or b) be bowed down to?

Other options including cooperation, team work, consensus based decision making and generally interacting with others like humans rather than robots do actually exist.

ceyes03 · 02/09/2015 20:20

You're coming across as very "Well, MY children are too good for school" and you sound like an insufferable snob as a result. I very much dislike snobbishness and I dislike people who think they're better than everyone else.

marmitemofo · 02/09/2015 21:34

seamagic yes I do. OPs mistake has been minimised/justified by many posters on here, 'it was just once', 'everyone makes mistakes', also that DH was to blame for OPs anger as he didn't intervene sooner, accused of being lazy etc. would people be saying this if roles were reversed and DH had dragged child across the floor? Would they be blaming the DHs anger/reaction on OPs behaviour? I don't think so.

On the other hand DH has been accused of being 'vile' and scaring the children. OPs physical aggression has been minimised whilst DH has been demonised. The fact he removed the children from OP suggests he was genuinely shocked at her behaviour and thought she would harm them - clearly an over reaction but understandable given his childhood history. His shouting/threatening her was not okay but some people on this thread have turned it into DH being completely to blame, and as far as I can see, that's purely down to him being a man and therefore people have their blinkers on. As I said previously, I think both OP and DH were in the wrong, but I think this thread has turned too much from support to justifying OPs behaviour and scapegoating DH.

SeagullSal · 02/09/2015 21:38

Of course they were both in the wrong! Humans aren't perfect though.