Need advice on this possibly terrible/weak parenting decision of mine.

[KidsArt]

Really want brutal opinions pls.

DS1 is 3 years old. He can be pretty challenging, in his own world, never listens, doesn't want to play with others, and his nursery have talked about ASD.

DH doesn't work on Fridays. He takes DS1 and DS2 (18 months) swimming. They all love it.

I work from home on Fridays.

DH just couldn't get DS1 ready. He wasn't listening. Refusing to get dressed. Playing with his trains. Running away from DH. this went on for 20 mins

DH left without him. Took DS2 and just walked out. He did give DS1 warning that he would leave unless he got dressed.

DS1 lost his mind. I mean, sobbing, wailing, throwing himself at the door. "I want my daddy. Where is daddy? I want to go swimming. Why not me? Please please. Where is Daddy. I'm sorry I'm sorry"

I don't think I've ever seen him that upset. He was shaking. He got all his clothes and was trying to put his own pants on, falling over, crying, collecting his towel, trying to get out the front door, looking for the car out the window.

I made DH come back and get him.

DH thinks this the reason DS1 is the way he is. That he needed to suck it up.

Is he right?

I was just going to suggest that perhaps you and your DH could do a parenting course for ASD children together - and a PP has out up a link. Brilliant.

It’s hard to discuss differences in parenting philosophy and not put judgement into it. Having a neutral place/course/book/mediator as focus helps.

Structure us they key. Getting dc to pack bag night before. Laying out clothes in bedroom in shape of person. Keep routines the same so get up, wee, brush teeth, wash face, get dressed and eat breakfast. We have pictures versions and dc sticks smiley face on each one once he has done them. Sand timers are awesome so show sandtimer and say when this runs out we put trains away.

Honestly OP, I would have done the exact same as you.

Of course we need to teach valuable lessons and to parent correctly but I just couldn't witness my 3yo shaking and in hysterics without intervening.

It sounds like he learned a lesson and we can then be more firm on the rules next time.

That made me so sad to read. I agree that the scare was likely to have been enough. Actually leaving was too much. Your partner needs to learn some techniques that actually work with your 3yo and which also help him as a parent keep his cool - walking out was an act of anger and desperation and I'm sure he knows it.

I feel for you both, it's tough parenting any preschooler but add in additional needs and it's no wonder that things get really tough sometimes. Hope your son got a cuddle and some comfort.

At 3 I would have done the same as you. Poor little chap.

Biggest question is has dc learned lessons though. If he is asd next time it will play put exactly the same as dc won't link what happened today with going swimming next friday. Things need to be structured for dc to succeed rather than be setting up to fail

I couldn't have seen my child like that.

I think this sounds like a good learning curve. I don't think you did the 'wrong' thing by turning back around and taking him swimming. Use this as an opportunity to talk to him about the next time he goes swimming, discuss how it's important to listen to dad and get ready when he asks otherwise he will have to go swimming without him. Then next time praise him for getting ready himself last tome as part of getting ready to leave the house. Also giving a 5 minute warning before play time needs to end is useful, small children often need to be told about transitions before they are going to happen, so he isn't expected to all of a sudden stop playing.

He has now experienced that daddy will leave if he's not ready. He then changed his behaviour to get ready. As a first time, I don't have an issue that DH turned around and collected him. Hopefully that's enough impact. Leaving him entirely probably won't teach him any more anyway.

DS2 was older, but he only ever called my bluff about not getting ready to leave the house on time for school once, and I honoured my warnings that he was leaving the house on time, no matter what state he was in and would finish getting ready on the playground while the other children could go in ready.

I don't make threats I can't deliver on, but there is often some way to make a realistic compromise to avoid complete loggerheads and sometimes it's good to be able to mellow the edges especially if the threat was made when stressed. That's different to backing down completely and doing none of what you say. DS1 and DS2 are both decent older children who understand boundaries. DS1 has ASD.

also, 'suck it up' is rarely helpful advice for a 3yo. How are they going to do that if they don't yet have the basic emotional and cognitive tools to achieve it???

I agree with following through with smaller consequences, but I agree that in this case the threat / near miss was enough!!

Your husband is right. Your child needs to learn that there are consequences to not listening. He cannot be pandered to constantly.

I don't think I've ever seen him that upset. He was shaking. He got all his clothes and was trying to put his own pants on, falling over, crying, collecting his towel, trying to get out the front door, looking for the car out the window.

awww this really hurts my heart

This is a tricky one, @KidsArt . On the one hand, you did undermine your husband's parenting decision, to teach your 3 year old that if he chooses to mess around and not get ready... the consequence is that he misses out on the swimming trip. However, as Tugboat said above, what would your husband have done, if you weren't working from home?

As unfair as this sounds, if I were your husband, I would have cancelled the trip altogether, and explained (gently) to your older son precisely why he and his little brother weren't going to the pool. That his behaviour, his refusal to get ready on time/at all means that everyone misses out. You're meant to be working, for goodness sake, not looking after a hysterically bereft small child!

I get how difficult it is to parent a child like your older son - my youngest was pretty much the same at that age. And yes; he has ASD. I've always used the "you make a choice, you abide by the consequences of that choice, be they good or bad..." method with my children - even at 2 years old, they understand. It's similar to the lesson most of us learned at a very young age that if the oven door is hot, we don't make the choice to touch it because the consequence is that we will burn our hand. So, for your older child, it would be that if he refuses to get ready to leave the house with Daddy and his little brother, for a regular (so he knew it was happening beforehand!), if he won't let Daddy (or Mummy) help him get dressed... then that's a choice he has made, and the consequence of that is that everyone misses out. Not just him; everyone.

Harsh? Maybe. But I'm a single parent and when my children were that age, I didn't have the luxury of leaving the one misbehaving at home whilst I took the other out for a treat. If my son misbehaved... my daughter missed out, too. And he soon learned to get ready on time so that he didn't have the weight of the consequences of his choice on his shoulders. He's 18 now (today, actually), and is one of the most punctual, responsible young men I've ever known. Your lad will be, too, when he's older and not in the throes of the misbehaving years, I'm sure.

I'd be having a chat with your husband, though, if I were you about not leaving one child behind the way he did, today. All that will teach your older son is that his Daddy is someone who will treat the younger child, whilst punishing him (however much a correction is needed, behaviour wise), therefore that's the one whom your husband prefers... and that could lead to a heck of a lot more acting out from your 3 year old over who knows how long. Also, I'd be reminding him that WFH is not something that you can do whilst trying to console a hysterical little boy who has no actual clue as to WHY his Daddy left him and took his younger sibling swimming! It's a both, or neither situation, regardless of whether you happen to be at home (trying to work).

Would you take one and leave the other, if your husband was WFH, I wonder...? Knowing that the one left behind would react - and understandably so! - the way your older son did? All your husband's choice will do is store up the consequences of damaging the relationship he has with your older child. Which I'm sure, deep down, your husband won't want in the slightest.

for you, because it is tough. But even though you did undermine your husband in his parenting decision... I think you were absolutely right to expect him not to choose between his children!

It sounds like your dh had just had enough, rather than thinking about using this as a teaching method.
3 in my mind is very very small, coupled with the ASD, I think you did the right thing. He also left you to deal with the fallout from his lack of parenting.

Thank you so much for all your help & advice. I really feel I've f*cked up here.

We do try to be structured, give him warnings, and i have the cards etc of 'now and next' etc - , but he just doesn't focus enough to take things in a lot of the time. So I'm saying 'tomorrow we are going swimming' but he's singing to himself. I say 'listen, listen' and he looks at me for a second but it's like it's uncomfortable for him to stay still and focus for one minute.

I'm doing all I can on the SEN stuff. Referral. Exploring going private. HV visits regularly. We see another parenting specialist. etc. And I agree parenting course would be good. Thank you. WIll look into that.

In that moment though - I just genuinely had no instinct for whether we had taken it too far. And that he had learnt a lesson already that they had gone without him. When they came back, he said "sorry Dadddy. Me happy I can come too. THank you. Sorry Daddy" - but he was v. happy with himself and perhaps has learnt that all that crying and wailing and throwing himself at the door has worked.

And poor DS2 was very annoyed to be back home again. And they'll be late for swimming. God - feeling like an awful mum right now. DS2 does get it pretty bad at the moods of DS1.

I do agree with people about managing two in a pool. They are in the the shallow end and in the splash zone. I have said to DH a few times that it seems a bit much still.

If he was shaking and crying like that, I would have done the same. He has probably learned a bit from it.
Going forward, if asd is suspected, start getting ready much earlier. Have everything ready to go with very clear instructions to your ds. He probably was not following/ processing the instructions well and got overwhelmed.

You did the right thing in this situation.

The issue here is two fold

Firstly you undermined your DH, I would tell DH where to go if he called and made me come back when I had made a firm decision and was sticking to it

Secondly you’re right about your other child getting the short end of the stick for this. I was that child and I still resent my parents and brother now, his ‘needs’ dominated my childhood and it’s something I wish more parents would consider

you can all learn from this:

DH needs to be more assertive with "get this on, do this, do that" and make sure it's done
DS should know that if he faffs about he doesn't get to do the nice thing
OP can now learn not to undermine her DHs parenting decisions, and let him learn himself

In your DHs shoes? I wouldn't have come back. Harsh? yes, but these things happen.
FWIW when my DCs were small - maybe 4 and 5 - they were messing me about not getting their cossies on to go in the pool and i said if you haven't started putting them on by the time i get to 10 we'll go home. Well, we went home because bickering and faffing was their preference. And I'd paid and we were short of cash. So it was an expensive but learning experience. They had to tidy their rooms with the extra hour or so we'd won.

@KidsArt I think you are being very hard on yourself.

DS saw the natural consequence and - here is the important thing - modified his behaviour. Plus he apologised. If he had just cried without getting his stuff together, that would probably have warranted a different approach.

I would have done the same as you.

Get yourself a cup of tea and tell yourself you did the right thing. X

Is it just me that would have picked him up and put him in the car in his pyjamas rather than let it get to that point?

I think leaving him is brutal.

If DS was older with no potential SEN then ok, but DH is punishing a very small child for his lack of patience and parenting fail. Next time he needs to give DS much more warning and countdowns. What he could have done is a rehearsal of leaving with the older DS - showing him what is about to happen in away that 3 year old can really grasp.

I think 3 is too young for this harsh and if your son is ASD DH is not right that lack of consequences cause neurological disorders.

Consequences can be affirmed on daily basis in small matters with love and compassion. That’s the way to learn not with a big shock that the 3 year old doesn’t really understand.

Given the level of upset in DS3, which he cannot fake (shaking) I think you did the right thing. He wasn't upset, or sad, he was distraught. That's a different thing. Your DH isn't wrong with wanting to stick to his guns, but he chose too big a tool for this job.

As a pp mentioned, there are nuances and DH seems not to have got that.

Don't beat yourself up about it. Not because I think you were right 😉, but because it's done. Lots of tips here, but it seems you're on it pretty much any way. You do not sound like a bad mum.

Also, your DH should not have assumed that you'll stop your working day to do childcare. That was completely out of order. That also needs to be addressed.

the shaking and crying is a bit of a red herring - he's upset because he doesn't get to do the nice thing, but his lovely mum is there to calm him down and be nice to him. I think that's ok. It is very harsh, but there you have it.

As unfair as this sounds, if I were your husband, I would have cancelled the trip altogether, and explained (gently) to your older son precisely why he and his little brother weren't going to the pool.

that is hugely unfair to the younger one. Is that child going to have to grow up missing out on things because the older one faffs too much? That's not a good message to send. And guilting the older one that not only he but the little brother miss out? not nice for a 3 year old - a 15 year old NT? possibly ok.

Your DH did the right thing.