Familiarity breeds contempt.

[SofaHugger]

DH is a deputy head of a primary school. Kids love him, parents adore him etc etc. He's clearly good at his job and does loads and loads with every year group.

We have 2 DD's, 7 and 9. They're in a different school because of distance. He coaches them in maths and it is quite literally, hell.

I fucking hate it.

It inevitably ends up in tears with him shouting. He denies its shouting, but he doesn't appreciate what a fucking loud, shouty voice he has and especially so since he's sat next to the poor things.

One of his bugbears is that they don't answer quickly enough, so instead of giving them time to think, he repeats the sum. I've heard him repeat it louder and louder every 5 seconds or so and will ask about 7 times before DD explodes or dissolves into tears.

Did I say I fucking hate this? In the past I've 'interefered' yes DH, that's what you call it and I've copped his temper, doubly so since he says I undermine him. When I wait for the girls to be out of earshot, I'll say the same but he accuses me of saying it loud enough for the girls to hear, making me the good cop and m the bad cop.

I think his behaviour is so damaging and he doesn't see this at all. I ask him whether he treats his class kids like this but he ignores the question. He has started this treatment of 7 year old just lately and I'm feeling more and more lame and pathetic as a mother for not protecting them from this, I feel stuck. His defence is that he wants what's best for them and he doesn't want them slipping with numeracy. I argue that neither do I but his methods are tortuous and counter productive. His second defence is that I shout at them too and that I'm a hypocrite for telling him off and not supporting him. Yes, I do go off at them on occasion, about messy rooms, not listening, fighting and squabbling, risky behaviour etc. I cant put it into words but I don't feel it's the same.

I see their attitude to homework and school work changing so quickly. They hate it and things like spelling practice, handwriting practice etc etc isn't getting done on time and when it IS done, it's wrong and it's sloppy. They bloody hate it and I don't know what to do.

I've name changed for this because he knows my usual UN here and finding this thread would be the catalyst for him.

Im not even sure that any of this is in proper order and makes sense. It's all come out in a muddle. I have two unhappy girls in bed and I'm tense as hell.

I've posted here for the honesty, gloves off response. Not sure I can take it, but it can't be any worse than the atmosphere at home

I think he should stop trying to tutor them. It's a well known fact that it's harder to teach your own children pretty much anything (and why I have so much respect for Home-edders!)

I think it's because you have more vested interest in the outcome, iyswim - all teachers want their pupils to do well, but in the end they're not their kids, so it's up to their pupils' parents to be happy/upset at the outcome - but when you're trying to help your own children, you have both ends of it - wanting them to learn AND to do well, and it's very frustrating.

I have similar problems to your DH when trying to help DS1 with his homework at times - I hate myself for doing it and try to walk away rather than get so frustrated - but sometimes I still do get loud and shouty at him (when he appears to be being particularly dense ).
My Dad was the same with me - and then went a stage worse when I was in senior school, and I took a subject that he lectured at degree level in (idiotic thing to do, in hindsight!) - whenever I asked him about something that a teacher would have given a 1 minute tops answer to, I'd get a half hour lecture about why I didn't know it, what was behind the answer and other things I should learn to make sure I remembered it for next time. I had to stop asking him, and actually it kind of spoilt the subject for me too. :(

So you'd think I'd know better, wouldn't you...
My best option is to stay well clear of DS1's homework, unless he asks for help - did that last week, and then found out this morning that one of his spelling words, that he copies out 4 times, was not only spelt wrong initially but had been marked correct by the supply teacher last Monday.

Can't win.

But in case that ramble got all too much for you, I'll repeat my initial advice - he should stop trying to tutor your 2 DDs himself.

"You can't teach you're own kids. Fact."

Bullshit. Millions of people can and do (either full time, as homeschoolers, or for supplementary work).

However, every family is different and lots of parent/child units don't work well together.

If they need tutoring, I would look for an actual tutor who is not a family member. But before you do that, maybe give the kids a break of a few months to just cool off, because it sounds as though they have started to develop a negative attitude towards their work.

He's an abusive bully. If he's like this now what do you think he'll be like when your dds are in their teens, pushing boundaries and doing GCSEs . They'll end up scared/hating him which could impact on their relationship with you.

Several things:

1. This is why so many children have an almost phobia-like hatred of maths. In my experience there is something about maths-brained people that makes them pretty poor communicators, and therefore not great teachers - at least not when it comes to teaching maths, anyway, which is something of an irony.

They don't explain things well/easily and they seem to don't understand that because they don't need much time to process a numbers concept other people won't either, and they rattle through stuff at a rate that leaves non-maths brained people without a clue about what it was they just said. I used to feel like I'd sat through a maths lesson spoken to me in a whole different language that I had only the most rudimentary knowledge of, that it was spoken at great speed, so I was lucky to have caught a few basic fragments of it but was left none the wiser about the actual conversation because everything went too fast.

It really is the most demoralising feeling. Non-maths brained people need a lot more time to process information that comes in numbers than information that comes in words. The numbers don't create pictures or storied in our heads that can be anchored, for want of a better word, and then recalled easily, if that makes sense. Some people can do maths fluently and quickly like most of us can read and spell fluently and quickly. Once learnt, the information stays there and can be readily recalled and manipulated. But for others, where number patterns and number concepts are concerned that just doesn't happen and it's like wading through treacle.

People now accept that dyslexics have this with reading, it's about time maths people did the same for people who find maths a mystery, and stopped getting all frustrated and superior about it.

2. In a way I'm glad to hear that his experience of trying to help his children with school work at home is as frustrating and futile as it is for all us non-teachers! I just don't think that children respond well to being taught at home by their parents. At least I know it's not just me!

3. He needs to back right off before he makes them hate him. If he has any faith in his teaching staff then what he's doing (beyond gentle coaching to help with any homework set) should not be necessary.

4. Are you sure his pupils love him as much as he says they do?

I really think you need to step in and put a stop to it altogether. Trying to reason with him clearly isn't working. When he next suggests a tutoring session, tell him he's not doing it anymore, he scares and intimidates the children and you will no longer allow it. He's going to destroy their love for learning and they will associate any school work with being shouted at by their dad.

I think you all need family counselling. You need a safe space and an experienced mediator to help you all talk together about how this tutoring is affecting family life.

One of his bugbears is that they don't answer quickly enough, so instead of giving them time to think, he repeats the sum. I've heard him repeat it louder and louder every 5 seconds or so and will ask about 7 times before DD explodes or dissolves into tears.

This sort of "teaching" could make someone who was not bad at maths become bad at it, as it could make them panic every time they tried to work something out. Would it work to tell him he will end up making them worse at maths than they would otherwise have been?

It also sounds as though his personal pride is getting the better of him and he is going into a panic that they are not as naturally bright as he'd like them to be, and he thinks he can solve it by hothousing them and putting more and more pressure on them to do better.

He can't and that way lies madness. If he wants to end up with children who hate his guts and distance themselves from him as soon as they are old enough to, then tell him to carry on.

FWIW I came on MN to give myself something to do so I could calm down a bit after a very bruising encounter with DH about something quite similar. The last thing I had said to him was to think about what he was doing to DS1 because when he steeped back, I believed he'd realise that it is despicable. (So strong words).

Then later, we had round 2 and he went off to bed muttering loudly about how I am too soft on the children and they need to be "men" and also how I am controlling and interfering in his relationship with his children.

The thing he does that made us argue has been going on a long time - years - and its not the first time that we've argued about it. However, I basically held up a mirror to him yesterday and told him to do his own internet research if he didn't believe me that its a problem.

This morning, I think we had a breakthrough. DH apologised to DS1 for how he behaved to him yesterday and told him how much he loves him. I think he will try to take a gentler approach from now on.

So, you can stop it eventually. Things between me and Dh will probably not be as good as they were for a while (no one likes having their faults pointed out to them) but its a price worth paying.

Maybe you should video your DH the next time he does it? He'll hate what he sees, it will make him even angrier, but maybe it will get him to open his eyes to what he is doing?

Another one who suffered with parents as teachers. Both excellent professionally, in different ways, and I hated both of them teaching me.
For example, Dad trying to make me learn French verbs on holiday made me hate him and the verbs and refuse to do it. He's obsessed with academic success and his reactions to my various exams/choices have soured our relationship.
I just had the feeling that anything I put in front of my Mum was crap, and so avoided ever doing so, despite her massive expertise. She could never hide her disdain if something wasn't at first class degree level, which is tough at GCSE.... The one thing I was grateful to her for was coming between me and Dad when he got too extreme.

His approach has the potential to fuck up his relationship with them, and yours if they're left with the feeling you're not protecting them.

As several pps have said, teaching members of your own family is fraught with difficulty and this seems a particularly unpleasant manifestation of that. I think you have to find a way of telling your husband this state of affairs cannot continue. Keep your message unambiguous and completely non-negotiable. There is no room here for a cordial exchange of views. You are right in this matter. Good luck!

I think you need to say it clearly and with determination, but also with love. Otherwise you risk turning it into something else and you cloud the issue.

He will want to change the conversation to be about you interfering in his relationship with his children, and you failing to support him properly, but don't let him change the focus away from the fact that it is unacceptable to behave as he does when coaching the children.

God, that sounds awful. My eldest child hates maths homework and it can be so frustrating trying to do it with her because she won't engage properly and makes silly mistakes. The worst thing I could ever do is take your husband's approach; she would be in bits and it would never get done. It takes massive amounts of patience and backing off hugely. When they had lots of the national test papers home for practice last year she got very upset so I agreed with her teacher that she'd just do 10 minutes a day. Soon as I took the pressure off her she could do it and would often end up sat doing them for 30 minutes without realising! Problem is, your husband is a teacher so he must know all this surely? Is he bullying generally?

My dh has the 'maths brain' - it's as if maths and numbers are instinctive for him, whereas I have to struggle.

My dad was a maths teacher, and head of Maths in a 13-18 high school, and I remember him telling me once, that maths was like a language, and you have to learn the vocabulary and grammar before you can use it easily - and that some people really struggle with this, whereas it comes easily to others.

He used to help me with my maths homework, and it was nothing like the OP's dh - he was patient and took the time to explain things so I understood them. He was evil, though - if I was struggling with a question, he wouldn't work through that question with me - he used to make up another question, using the same principles, work through that with me, so I understood what I was doing, and then I had to do the real question all on my own - evil, no?

When it came to helping the dses with maths, we found that, quite a lot of the time, it was better for me to help them than for dh to do it, because I could empathise with why they were struggling, and having struggled with the concepts myself, I found it easier to find ways to explain them, whereas he couldn't understand why they didn't get what he was telling them, and he did get impatient with them. But when I talked to him, away from the children, he was mature enough to acknowledge the problem, and to accept that getting impatient didn't help - and when he did help them, he tried to be more patient.

I agree with the posters who have suggested the OP records her dh tutoring the girls, then maybe he will see what he is doing, and that it is causing damage.

I would also ask him, whether children he teaches regularly end up in floods of tears - is it normal for children to be so upset during teaching? What would he say if a parent came in to his school and said that their child was being reduced to tears every time a particular teacher taught them? Would he defend that teacher and their practices?

So...
he has the temper
he regularly makes two little girls cry
he is making them panic about schoolwork

...and he accuses you of undermining him?

Gutted. Typed a long response, switched tabs as DH walked in, and I've lost it.

Sorry only now returning - it's taken me days to try and get past this. Another flare up has happened and I'm just so utterly sick of him. So sick of the way he can wreck my DD's self esteem with a few cutting comments or being shouty. Sick of being accused of undermining him, when really it's just the other way around. He hasn't spoken to me in two days since I asked him to stop hectoring our DD's. He just doesn't get it.

Honestly, as someone put it aptly above, leaving him would only mean he tutors them without my supervision and I do not trust him anymore to do the right thing by them. He is so driven in the aim of getting them to 'learn', he is blinded to the damage he is doing.

And to top it all? Tonight at bedtime, DD whispered "Daddy told me if I tell him to go away again, (she said to him it in anger/frustration/distress at the last coaching session), he said he will go. What did he mean?" I am burning with fury that a grown man can threaten a 9 year old with leaving and am lost for words at his callousness.

This isn't looking good for my marriage. Right now, I don't even like him.

I still hate maths due to my dad, much as I love him. It wasn't much better when he say in a car whilst o was learning.

Mum shouted but it wasn't the same.

He is to involved and needs to chill

It's astounding that he won't just stop when it's making you all so miserable. When his own children are telling him to go away and crying because they hate him teaching them, why does that make him more determined to shout at them rather than give in and realise it won't work?
When you've reached this point, where he is threatening the children that he's going to leave, and you are questioning the future of your marriage - that should be a massive wake up call to him. Is there anyone else who could get through to him?

Repeat record him doing his 'tutoring' and threaten to show it to his lea/governors arse!

You need to put your foot down. He has no right to upset them to the point of tears. Homework can be so stressful without a parent shouting/sneering at you.

this is abuse.
it needs to be stopped.

Agree with Yak - why is it so important to him? It is making all 4 of you miserable and is doing way more harm than good. V difficult - good luck with finding away through this....

Prick.

What does he fear will happen if he doesn't tutor them, ffs? They're tiny kids! You never know, if he leaves them the fuck alone, they might just become a little less afraid of maths.

His ignoring of you is as abusive as the way he is treating his children. Call him out on the way he's blackmailing your 9yo. I think at this point, you have nothing to lose by pointing out that he earns no respect with threats and power games, from any of you. And call his bluff. Offer to pack his bags for him if he really would rather leave than treat his own family with love and respect.