Difference in parenting styles

[parentinghell]

DS is 3.5 years old. DH and I have different parenting styles, I find him too harsh and he thinks I'm too soft. We have disagreed on two things today and it would be good to get other parents' thoughts.

1. DS has a 10 hour day at nursery and when he comes home he throws his coat on the floor and won't hang it up. You can tell him many times but it just won't go in, I think at that point he's too tired. Yesterday DH told him if he doesn't lock up his coat then he will have to go to nursery without it today. DS didn't pick it up so this morning DH made DS walk a few metres to nursery in the cold without his coat.

1. DS is slim, previously underweight. When he comes home from nursery we offer him food before bed. He gets 3 meals and 2 snacks at nursery although I can see today he refused his lunch main but ate his pudding. DH gave him a bowl of chicken, rice and beans but DS didn't want it and asked for Greek yoghurt, banana and blueberries. DH said he has to eat his rice etc first before he can have yoghurt, DS said he was hungry but didn't want to eat what DH gave him, so DH said no food for DS.

YABU - DH is handling it fine.
YANBU - DH is too hard on DS.

*up to date

'How to talk so little kids listen' audiobook comes with a good cheat sheet PDF on how to handle all kinds of situations. Maybe something like that for you both to work with would help you get on the same page. Or reading a book together? Janet Lansbury has good, common-sense advice for dealing with toddlers that isn't punitive but also isn't too 'crunchy'. Her books are very pragmatic, which might appeal to your DH too?

Why did you have to put his coat on?

I take a dim view of punishment, especially a day later, that makes a child physically uncomfortable. Natural consequences are one thing (refuse to put your coat on and you’ll be cold), withholding a coat over some trivial misdemeanour 12 hours earlier is not fair. 10 hours is a very long day for a little one so I’d just hang the poor kid’s coat up for him. Or, if I really wanted to be bloody minded about it, stand over him in the hallway until he did it that evening. I bet when you’ve had a long day at work sometimes you don’t put your belongings away instantly.

The food thing seems reasonable enough assuming chicken, rice and beans is a meal he’s happy enough to eat usually. Especially if he left his main course at lunch time - pudding for lunch and yogurt for dinner isn’t much.

He's unreasonable in my opinion. 3.5 is very little, he must be shattered.

Hugasauras · 05/05/2022 20:04
'How to talk so little kids listen' audiobook comes with a good cheat sheet PDF

Don’t know about the PDF as haven’t seen it but I certainly agree this book is good. The Parenting Puzzle is too.

I don't think your DH was wrong in the moment to not skip straight to the food DS wanted as you don't want to encourage that. Also, not wrong to teach DS to hang his coat up but I agree with you that the "punishment" was too long afterwards.

I think you need to talk and agree a longer term plan for those 2 situations. Agree an easy post nursery snack - weetabix/porridge/yoghurt, egg on toast etc. Maybe have a few options and DS can choose. My DD is a bit younger but I tend to just give her a snack type meal after nursery (fruit, yoghurt, cheese). I don't think she'd eat a full on meal at that point after 2 x main nursery meals.

For the coat, maybe talk with DS about how it's important, how the house would look if you all threw all your coats on the floor (if you have as many coats as we do it'd be a huge pile!) and you wouldn't be able to get to the door (make it comical). If that doesn't work, maybe a chocolate button after his snack if he hangs it up, a special new peg for him, maybe he doesn't get to choose his snack (or do other thing he likes to do at home after nursery) until he has hung it up? Basically try and find an immediate natural consequence. If you and your DH agree in advance then at least you'll be on the same page even if its a bit of a compromise on how you'd each choose to handle it.

Although to be honest at 3.5 I think all our pegs were too high for my DS and I must have just stripped his coat off him and hung it up myself! I'm planning now to get a 4 cube storage thing in the hallway and have a box each so that each persons bits (including coat for the kids) can just be chucked in there.

I'd read "How to talk so kids will listen and listen so kids will talk" (there's also a book for little kids - I think "How to talk so little kids will listen and listen so little kids will talk"). I probably need to read it again actually.

I was similar to your husband with my first and I really regret it. The battles weren’t worth it. Our bond has suffered and he is much more angry than my younger ones. With my younger ones I didn’t really punish at all and actually they are much more easy going and we have a better bond. If they want to eat yogurt and fruit for dinner then they can. I ask them to pick up their coats and they didn’t always but actually now they mostly do what I ask.

I took the coat away and told him since he doesn't want it I will put it in the bin for the binmen to take and then hid it.

This was presumably a pointless threat uttered in a moment of grumpiness. He’ll be upset, confused or think you’re being daft.

It’s become a silly battle of wills when you could have looked at him, seen he’s tired and wound up, might not be acting up intentionally but literally can’t do what’s being asked as he’s not in the right frame of mind to listen, so just picked it up yourself. Don’t make stupid threats you don’t intend to keep. If he even registers it properly he’ll realise you were lying and take you less seriously next time.

You must be tired after a long day too so cut yourselves all some slack and aim for harmony rather than winning. No one wins in this scenario and instead of connecting with him when you’ve been apart all day you’re pitting yourselves against each other.

Love both of these too. Please both of you read them. DD is pretty easy going most of the time but I read No Bad Kids by Lansbury recently and it’s so immediately usable and applicable DH noticed and said it must be good so he’s reading it at the moment.

I’m pretty strict but I don’t know about this. I’m not sure a three year will care if you put his coat in the bin. And if you did what are you going to do when it gets really cold, or it’s raining? Send him out to get cold and wet. Hopefully not! And you obviously didn’t put his coat in the bin so why tell him that. He now just knows that you won’t follow through. If you say something you have to follow through so make sure you are happy with the consequence before you say it!

Personally I’d probably chill out on that one. He’s exhausted. Not the time for a battle. You have time to reinforce the coat on a peg thing when he’s a little older. As others have said you really need to pick your battles.

He sounds overly harsh to me. Your child is 3 years old!
Has he ever thought after 3 meals at nursery he doesn't want another meal when he gets home? Imagine being forced to eat when you aren't that hungry.
And the coat thing, if he does it all the time then he needs to get to him before he takes it off and do it 'together' - 'let's hang up your coat together', either that or remind him what to do with it before he takes it off.
It's much easier to compromise with them than bark orders at them and get more annoyed every time they don't do it.

I dont think your DH is too harsh. With the coat, the punishment is too far in the future and a bit pointless, but not necessarily too harsh.
with the food i think your DH handles it well. My kids had to eat their food and if they didnt, they didnt get snacks and got the same plate again for the next meal until it was gone. They are 8 and 6 now and eat everything. They always try new foods without complaining too. Now if they tell me they really dont like something, then im a bit more lenient. I know they only refuse to eat it if they really dont like it at all. It wasnt always like that, a fee years ago especially one of them was an extremely picky eater.

He's 3 and he's knackered. Your DH is being completely unreasonable.

I have a 3.5 year old and yeah I try to get him to tidy up after himself but need to pick your battles sometimes. Also your DS will not associate walking to nursery with no coat as a punishment for not hanging it up 12 hours previously - that's just ridiculous.

With the food, I always serve a small meal after nursery as they eat quite a bit during the day. Fruit and yogurt is better than nothing, your DH needs to chill man.

IMO, with these two examples, I would say that neither of you are clearly right or wrong - just different. And while it's important to be consistent on the big things, I'd say neither of these are serious enough to worry about DS seeing different approaches from you. So I wouldn't worry about this too much OP.

Re the coat-perhaps a compromise that he hands it to one of you two to hang up rather than throw it on the floor?

I can see why your husband wanted him to eat a meal if he has been underweight & hadn't eaten his lunch.

But I think something that he would have eaten would have been better than nothing-especially if he was hungry.

If he was tired & it wasn't long until bedtime, perhaps a cooked meak just seemed too much.

YANBU I don’t think your dh is being totally unreasonable but I’d be much more in your line of thinking. In both instances, whilst I see the point your dh is making, I can’t see anything to be gained by fighting over these points unless you see a serious habit developing (not listening to any instructions or persistently skipping main meal for dessert). Yoghurt and fruit is a much better pre bedtime food than what your husband made. Why would you make that after your child has had 3 meals already?

I'm 56. I've had 3 kids. Oldest being 34.
I can't really believe anyone parents in this way! I ve never met anyone who did.
He is a 3 year old little boy. He is at nursery for an extremely long day. Why would you want this ridiculous charade being played out in the brief and precious time you get to spend with him?
Who gives a fuck about picking up a coat??
Tell your husband to pick it up for him if he is so bothered by it. Its utterly daft how unimportant this is. What a miserable carry on. As for him being made to eat yet another hot meal. Why should he?? Why?? He doesn't want it! He has had a hot meal already. There is nothing wrong with some yoghurt and fruit at the end of his day. Would you like someone forcing you to eat something you don't want? Ofcourse you wouldn't. Let him be happy and relaxed in his own home because he isn't in it much by the sounds of it.

Thank you everyone and we will definitely look at the suggested resources.

When I'm responsible for him in the evening, I help him take his coat off so we don't end up in the situation we got into yesterday. But if we do, I just tell him we don't throw things on the floor and hang it up. He's little and tired, it's not worth a tantrum. I told him yesterday that it's going in the bin as DH was already telling him that he would have no coat the next day and thought telling him it's going in the bin would feel more like an immediate consequence. But I don't think he understood!

With food, normally I make him fruit and yoghurt as I think he's had enough hot meals and he won't want another. So that's why I was ok with it when he asked for it.

DH and I have spoken now and we are still friends 😊 he thinks DS is old enough to make a connection to the punishment 12 hours later but could see that a hot meal only about 2.5 hours after a hot meal at nursery wasn't going to go down well, so we are back to offering him fruit and yoghurt in the future.

Im with you. Poor boy is shattered and it's cruel to make him walk in the cold without a coat, basically to punish him. If he refused this on a weekend, then I can see there needs to be some consequence but even so I think it's cruel to make anyone walk in the cold without a coat as a punishment.
If this is the first time your ds didn't eat his school food and opted for a yoghurt then I would have let it go. If it was a habit then that's a different story.

he thinks DS is old enough to make a connection to the punishment 12 hours later

He is so very wrong!

But it’s good you’ve talked and hopefully he’s annoyed enough at his current methods not working that he’ll get reading and find some new approaches that work for your whole family.

I can’t do smiley faces on here since the upgrade but I wish you well.

I think it’s easy to go overboard with your first kid because you think ‘they have to learn’. But then you realise that actually it’s a process and the kid who won’t pick up the coat when knackered at 3 , will do it occasionally when not knackered and will do it pretty much always by 7 or 8. Consistent is not the same as rigid - it’s easy to say ‘be loving and positive with firm boundaries’, but as a pp said IRL it’s actually complex and difficult.

@parentinghell
“DH and I have spoken now and we are still friends 😊 he thinks DS is old enough to make a connection to the punishment 12 hours later”

he hasn’t got a clue and he is incorrect
read that bollocks back to yourself and imagine you are that three year old.

frankly your husband sounds rather cruel and a control freak.

Jeez some people on here are pretty heartless. Food should not be used as a punishment. You want him to have a healthy, but positive relationship with food. When he's with you all day you can support that alongside expectations and boundaries.
But a whole day at nursery is a different equation. They eat so unpredictably in that environment. And when they're overtired they're never going to make adult(!) choices, like how eating all their chicken and rice is the proper way to behave 🙄
On a nursery evening I plan easier things that are more likely to be well received by a tired guy. Things like cheese on toast. You could try that? That way your compassionless husband won't feel so agrieved about his rejected chicken.

I wouldnt be letting a 3.5 year old be turning down all the main savoury meals (you said he only ate the pudding at lunch?) in favour of dairy & starchy carb snacks. It's not a balanced diet and its poor habits. Try Ellyn Satter - you provide healthy balanced diet, child decides how much of it to eat. Unless there's a medical issue at play he will eat when hungry. If he's growing height wise its likely he's getting enough nutrients.