Grabbed 3-year-old by t-shirt

[Boymamabee]

I’m really upset! We were in the shop and DS was having a tantrum. Husband grabbed him by scruff of top and frogmarched him out of shop. It looked terrible and I don’t agree with it.

AIBU?

I prefer to carry them out surf board style

If I’d been there I’d have been quietly glad that the child was being managed appropriately.

Yeah right. Pulling anyone by their clothes is aggressive and cold.

I've had three children and never dropped one. Holding them tighter is the answer, not manhandling them.

Or alternatively it has shown the toddler that if I shout and scream in a shop because I want something and mummy or daddy won’t let me have it I will get taken home and mummy and daddy will be very cross with me. Job done.

Holding them tighter could be painful, and certainly can be man handling. If the DH had have squeezed the kid very tightly to ensure he didn’t drop him that would have been far worse and could have bruised the kid.

I’m not a man, so it would be womanhandling. Holding a tantrumming child so tight is equally aggressive. It can hurt. It can cause serious injuries. You’re lucky if you’ve had perfect children whom you were able to smile them out of a tantrum within seconds. The rest of us mothers in the real world aren’t quite so perfect.

Because you clearly no everything, like how you NO that every pregnant woman who doesn’t have a disability can pick up a screaming 3 year old, meaning you also no the size and strength of every tantruming 3 year old. Wasn’t sure you needed to have personally experienced pregnancy to no how other peoples bodies work.

I don't have kids myself, but I know that the one thing guaranteed to catapult me into the realm of stratosphericallly hysterical as a little kid was to touch me when I was already upset. Maybe if you see someone manoeuvring a child using their clothes, you could consider that rather than being aggressive and "cold" (what? grabbing their body is warmer?), the parent knows their kid.

All we can know is that the parent is not parenting their child but parenting for the benefit of those around them due to embarrassment.

Doesn’t actually give a shit about their kid or what they will pick up from an aggressive, unhealthy action.

You're reaching now. You don't have to squeeze a three year old to not drop them.

@Coffeellama actually I know everything. HTH 😘

Yep correcting spelling rather than having a reasonable response makes my point nicely, thanks 😊

Holding your child firmly and marching them out which is what OP said initially and subsequently although at one point she used dragging, not raising your voice and not threatening is not aggressive parenting fgs, it is firm parenting.

Maybe people looked because they were surprised to see a parent parenting instead of sitting down passively waiting for a screaming child on the floor blocking people paths and giving other customers headaches with the screaming and then expecting a shop to change their layout to pander to kids who don't like hearing no?

How does that follow?

I was suggesting that you don't know that kid as well as their parent does, so there may be a good reason they're treating their kid differently to how you'd treat yours. (Obviously, abusive behaviour is a different matter, but this doesn't qualify IMO.) There might not be a particularly good reason, but onlookers can't know, though we do know that parents know their children.

But you feel that you can confidently determine from the act of manoeuvring a child using their clothes that they're parenting for the audience, not the kid. How?

I suspect they looked because seeing a grown man drag a three year old around by the clothing looks aggressive. They were probably hoping that the dad isn't physically abusive and that the child is ok.

I highly doubt they were looking in awe, as it's a pretty shitty way to parent.

Obviously didn't read the post directly above yours.🙄

He wasn’t dragging the child around.

Sounds fine to me

He didn’t hurt him but in that instance I wish he would’ve picked him up and carried him instead of dragging him by his clothes.

That is a quote from the OP. So yes, he dragged the toddler around by his clothes. Poor parenting and very unkind. Tantrum or not.

Totally fine. Sometimes it happens. I wouldn't be mad at him for it, I've had to do similar before although I was annoyed afterwards that I'd let a tiny three year old bother me that much. The screaming though, it goes right through you!

There was only one person being unreasonable in that situation and it wasn't your husband...

DH pulled him up by his hoodie and marched him out the shop

He pulled him up by them. And then marched him out of the shop. He didn’t drag him out by his clothes.

My two year old had a tantrum because I wouldn't let her lay on the floor of Tesco car park. She's heavy and my back is hurting so carrying is not an option. I managed to get her to stand up and when she refused to walk, I had to move her by her arm.

Poor parenting? Perhaps I should have let her just lay there!

To be fair the thread title says grabbed him by the t-shirt, the OP says the scruff of the neck then a later update says hoodie.

You can understand why people have different views based on that alone.