DH hit our 2 year old.

[Froghottub]

I’ve name changed for obvious reasons….

So as the title says really and I just don’t know what to do.

DH is having a particularly bad time at the moment following a bereavement and various other stressful things happening.

Today our 2 year old was having a generic tantrum over not getting his own way basically. DH was dealing with it and I was upstairs. I could hear DS getting upset and asking for me. After a couple of mins when he wasn’t calming down I could hear DH was getting cross and telling him off. DS was just getting more wound up at being told off so I went down to help.

As I walked into the room I saw my DH hit DS on the head. It was like a slap to the top of his head. I picked DS up and told DH to leave. An argument ensued but he eventually left the room.

I am absolutely against any form of physical punishment and it’s a very firm boundary for me and one we have never ever disagreed on before.

i have left with DS and I’m at family staying there for tonight at least.

whilst DH had said sorry to DS he’s also been argumentative, has blamed it on me, been gaslighting me and has even tried to blame DS for being ‘aggressive’. This incident was nothing beyond a typical toddler tantrum of which there are and have been many.

he admits it was wrong but isn’t taking responsibility or grasping that this is a huge thing for me.

My gut reaction is that our relationship is over, BUT, I know full well he legally has a legitimate defence that DS was being naughty and therefore he chastised him. Whilst I don’t agree with his actions I don’t suppose a court (civil or criminal) will do anything about it. If I leave him, he’ll still get contact or maybe even 50/50 with DS and then I’ll have no involvement or knowledge of how he’s treated or what’s happening whilst he’s there.

if I stay I’m condoning abusive behaviour and teaching my child that being assaulted is okay and I just can’t stomach that.

what on earth do I do for the best? Am I over reacting?

DS loves his dad and I know DH loves him. Of course I want them to have a good relationship but how can I trust someone who loses their temper and hits a child to keep the most precious thing in the world safe.

My head is spinning. Although it doesn’t change the situation at all a further consideration is that I’m 33 weeks pregnant .

I guess my AIBU is
YABU - you’re over reacting and need to calm down and resolve this
YANBU - This is too far

Oh goodness, your poor son and poor you.
I understand your predicament, if you leave him then he’ll be on his own with your children, and in the back of your mind, you’ll always be worrying and wondering how he’s treating them.

Has he done this before?
Is he having counselling for his stress from the bereavement?
Could he attend a parenting class or anger management class - or both?

Honestly, well done for walking out with your child. A 2 year old should not be punished physically for being a toddler. You didn’t over react.

understand your predicament, if you leave him then he’ll be on his own with your children, and in the back of your mind, you’ll always be worrying and wondering how he’s treating them.

This is partly why I think opting to save the relationship is better. It would need to include parenting course etc and you'd know if/that his parenting has improved.

We didn't think my stepson"s dad had hurt him before, but following what we thought was a one-off hit, nspcc advised us to take the baby to A&E, where he had x-rays and a multitude of old fractures were discovered. Hitting a baby isn't normal. You must tell the authorities.

Social services will not intervene for a child being clipped round the head, especially with the OP saying it wasn't hard enough to hurt. They don't even have the staff for serious cases of prolonged abuse and neglect. I swear some posters live in an alternate reality some times.

What the OPs husband did was wrong. But we all know the response would be different if he were a woman. If it was a mother who was going through a bereavement, other stressful things and, when being headbutted by her toddler, gave him a clip round the ear. Everyone would be telling her she's not a horrible mum and she just needs help.

I agree with this. If this was broadly out of character for your DH, he is typically an involved, competent and patient father, and he was in the midst of grieving, then I would probably be willing to give him another chance AS LONG AS he comes to see the incident as serious and takes firm steps to learn better coping tools.

When we had three kids under 4, including a newborn, we were having sleepless nights, my DH was truly miserable at work reporting to an absolute tyrant, his beloved DGF died unexpectedly and DH could not travel back to the UK for the funeral due to COVID restrictions. While DH is normally the most level-headed person you’ll ever meet, and an absolutely stellar parent, he went through a few weeks of being quite short tempered with us (mostly with passive aggressive comments). One evening when I was feeding the baby, DC2 was being absolutely wild at bedtime, and running around naked half an hour after DH had finished the bedtime routine. He was keeping up his older sister. After much back and forth negotiation, and no progress towards bed, DH slapped DC’s arm, quite hard. He didn’t leave a mark, but the sound made my blood run cold.

I immediately took over and put DC2 to bed, and told my DH to get out of the house and calm the down.

I kept a very close eye on him for the next few days. A couple of evenings later, I got my DSis and DM to look after the kids one evening and I went out for a relaxed meal with DH. In neutral territory, after a couple of days to let the dust settle, I told him very clearly that I wasn’t going to put up with his snappy remarks anymore and that if he ever hit one of our children again, that would be the immediate end of our marriage.

He listened. He promised me it would never happen again. I told him a promise wasn’t enough - he needed to find a new job within 6 months, because his work was such a giant stressor; I was expecting at least 3 job applications per week starting the next day; and he needed to start counselling within two weeks.

He implemented both those things, by the deadlines set. He didn’t mess about. Honestly, the therapy helped him in ways I think he never expected. He stuck with it for way more sessions than I would have enforced.

It’s been over a year since the incident now, and we’ve faced lots more challenging situations together but he has never again lost his cool - not even once.

Hitting your DC is very serious, but I don’t think it necessarily has to be the end of your family unit - IF your DH takes responsibility and sorts himself out.

Firstly omg 😲, then all the best and positivity op.

I'm gonna offer a different perspective.

As a child I got occasionally slapped/spanked for misbehaviour. I can say confidently that :

• I always deserved it
• I always knew why I was being slapped/spanked and I usually knew I'd crossed a line before it happened
• I was not hurt (except my pride) but overall it was much better to be parented like this than being given no guidance/boundaries
• My parents splitting up over this would have harmed me far more than the occasional, deserved slap.

For context I have children of my own and I do not use any kind of physical punishment with them, because I like to think it's possible to enforce the same boundaries without slapping, though I can't say I haven't been tempted a couple of times ! But having lived through it I don't think it is the dealbreaker that other people make it out to be.

A light slap that didn't even leave a light mark isn't the end of the world if things are otherwise good. I'd be more concerned about the deflecting afterwards, though your (pretty extreme) reaction couldn't have helped.

I'm not saying you need to accept physical punishment by the way. You get to decide how you want to parent, and if the two of you can't agree on that, there is no coming back really. So you deal with it as you would any other parenting disagreement. State your boundaries and tell him you'd consider walking away if you two can't agree and if he doesn't stick to it.

If it does happen again you'd have to choose between accept it or leave.

This is a good idea.

While I'm not in the "never, ever, hit your child" camp, I am very much in the "never, ever, hit your child round the head" camp, especially as I don't know how much force is required to inflict a whiplash injury on a small child. If he was horrified at snapping like this, and willing to work on whatever had led to the situation, that would be one thing, but at the moment it doesn't sound like he is. If you can find a way to get him to take this as seriously as you do (perhaps @BreadInCaptivity's suggestion will work) then you may be able to work through this, but not if he digs his heels in further.

Ime of ss they just say don't allow unsupervised contact if you think the child is at risk, this was over a slap round the head . You then end up taking them to caffcass centre for a while.

Ss aren't going to say that a 2 year old bring slapped around the head is acceptable , if this is out of character that might be the sharp shock your H needs.

I'd be bloody furious too if I was you

OP you have made a lot of life changing decisions in just a matter of hours.

It sounds like you have been unhappy with DHs behaviour for some time and today was the final straw.

Spend a few days away and get some clarity on how you want to deal with this. As you mention you have legal knowledge. Put that aside. Do you want to be in a family with DH? If yes then he needs to get help, he needs to learn how to manage with your DS.

if you don’t want to be with him I think you know what your next step is…..

Those of you saying social services would be interested in this - they aren't the police, they are there to ensure children are being safeguarded which this child is, because his mother had removed him from the situation. Social services have no remit over contact in the case of divorce. OP is correct in that what the father has done would not result in arrest by the police and it's not a matter for social services to be involved with.

I could have written this more or less verbatim 10 years ago.

I really feel for you OP.

In the end, my values as a parent were just too different to exDH. We tried again after the first incident (very much like yours) but after the second, I left him for good.

The DC still have a relationship with him. I have no control over what happens when I’m not with them but I don’t believe they are in danger. Like yours, he did not injure them. Just treated them badly. It is tricky because I do try to find out from my DC what is going on when they are at his house so I can react appropriately, but I don’t want to interrogate them either. My DC are much older now anyway and feisty enough.

I lost so much love and respect for him that day. I could never get it back.

Everyone looses their cool with a toddler now and again. We all sometimes shout when we shouldn’t or tell of a child off when we should just be consoling them. Obviously the hitting is not on at all, but the fact your DH wasn’t horrified by his own actions and remorseful is the worst thing. The fact he’s hit your child around the head AND not instantly regretted it is the most shocking thing that shows he’s capable of doing this again and again.

‘Things get verbally abusive’ doesn’t mean it’s just him. When people argue, it’s very easy for things to get verbally abusive on both sides. ‘Oh,m don’t be such an idiot’ could be deemed s verbally abusive.

I got smacked as well but never as a 2 year old and never around my face or head.

Men like this rarely go for 50/50, he’d more likely to have him EOW.

Don’t stay because of a fear of 50/50.

Gosh so sorry for what you are going through op. I also agree with you that informing Ss will not result in anything except a record on your child's file (which might not be a bad thing).

You also say this is out of character for your dh and he's not done it again, however I'd be asking what happens when you're not around. He's already tried to gaslight you into believing it was ds fault, how many times has he just out right lied to you about hitting your ds and you've just never caught him.

I'd be staying away from him and doing what I could to stop any unsupervised contact until your dh can get a grip on himself and prove he can parent a 2 yr old without losing control

I think it’s really difficult. The slapping on the head is bad enough but it’s the reaction afterwards that’s worse I think- trying to blame it on the 2yr old is borderline sociopathic. Poor kid. I do agree that your DH should get some help but I’m not sure it would convince me to stay. How about a trial separation, so he knows how seriously you’re taking it, and he gets treatment then you see where you are? I’d also report to SS even if you think they won’t do anything- you might be surprised and at least he will know that you’re not tolerating this, nor do you believe his gaslighting.

Such a tough situation OP. I share your red line on any smacking (esp round the head FFS!) But in this instance I would follow the advice of posters saying don't make an instant decision now. He still has time to cool down and realise how awful his actions were, and recognise he needs help. He's not coping and he needs to make a decision to get in top of his stress and anger.

If the relationship is otherwise very good I agree with PPs that it can be salvageable, but only if he really looks at his own behaviour, recognises how wrong it was, and decides to make a change.

Good luck

Honestly I think you’ve dealt with it perfectly. As a child who suffered trauma I have very strict response to any sort of punishment which my husband knows and agrees with. If he broke those boundaries I would leave him and end our marriage, so yes you’ve done the right thing but I wouldn’t stop contact as a result. As you say, it’s a grey area so I’d report to SS so it’s documented. Set up some visits with you supervised for now and set about the divorce.

Hi,
so yesterday my child’s dad was reported to the police by the public for concern he was drunk walking home with her. We’d had a couple of drinks at a bbq and the police came round and took his and my details. They’ve said that they are going to forward it onto social services but the police didn’t take it any further just said it was illegal to be drunk with a child and that someone needs to be sober. I had had a drink but was more than capable to look after her and I would of never let him take her to the shop if I thought he was unable to look after her. I guess I’m just wondering if anyone has been in a similar situation and whether social services came and visited and what happened if they did and what they’ll do.

I agree with this. He needs to accept and own the fact that grief and other factors mean that he no longer has control. If he doesnt get control he will go even further next time.

He has to take responsibility for it - and stop blaming you and his son.

I would also get some legal advice for the beginning of separating if he doesnt follow it

I doubt he will want him 50% when it comes down to it.

Your husband's upbringing, state of mind and mental health, and reaction to this all matter now. It is terrible. I came from a family where we were hit as a punishment. Rarely and within the bounds of legal, but it was normal to me. We have 3 kids now. I hit the first one a few times in punishment. I v rarely hit the second, and I don't recall ever hitting the third. Education and a shift in my understanding, plus being in a better place myself, mean my parenting has changed. I didn't know it was wrong, or the damage it could do emotionally. Now I get it and I would never hit a child. You 2 need to talk, properly and fully, and do research together on parenting styles. Do not throw away your marriage unless you are SURE he is unwilling or unable to change.