Who is being unreasonable here? Argument in swimming pool

[10LittleMonsters]

Me and DH took kids swimming. DS4 is on waiting list for ASD diagnosis.

All fine. But at one point DH forced DS4 to get in pool which caused a lot of tears. Had fun though mainly

DS4 put the pound coin for the locker in his mouth in changing room.

DH tells him sternly to take it out. He does. He drops on the floor. DH tells him even more sternly to pick it up. DS4 does but it back in his mouth. DH very stern again. DS4 starts crying, throwing all the clothes everywhere; meltdown begins. Hitting us.

I calm him down. Get him dressed. Hes back to being quiet and is picking up his clothes. Says sorry.

At one point I say

"DS4 I know you were angry as daddy told you not to eat the coin, but we can't throw things or hit people"

DH interrupts obviously pissed off

"He can't bloody put a coin in his mouth. Its ridiculous"

I said

"OK OK, let's not get it all going again"

DH now mad at me. Says I undermined him in front of DS4 and in public. Says he is allowed to reiterate things.

I said DS4 was doing as he was told and he wasn't doing anything wrong in that moment and he had put the coin back ages ago.

Was I unreasonable in saying that? DS4 has very strong reactions to negative stuff and while I know we still need boundaries, we were almost all sorted and DS4 was being good so just wanted to get out the changing room

Btw "cold hearted cunt" is beyond the pale.

I discovered after the event that my ex husband's behaviour would now be regarded as abusive towards the children (DS as the target, and the other DC as witnesses to it). If I could rewind 20 years and put today's understanding on my situation then, I could reasonably argue that my ex husband shouldn't have the children unsupervised, which would have made it easier to leave him. Abuse was less well recognised then.

I think you were both frustrated and your DH lost his patience a bit. I'd say try to talk to him calmly. You'll have to weather a fair few storms with your DS and are already, so it's best if you come up with a strategy around things. Just say you both seem to have exacerbated the situation and you're sorry if he felt undermined, but it's time to talk it through.

DH seems like the type who likes to be seen to be winning at life? Defo won't appreciate any comments making it look like your lives aren't perfect to the rest if the world. Sense DH perceives some sort of lack or failing on behalf of DS4 and DH wont engage because he can ignore things easier than acknowledge them. Also there can be alot of twaddle on Internet and he may find it hard to filter it all.

Try to view it from DH perspective now and again if u can.

This!
and I say that as an ASD parent myself.

The problem with most men is that they are not empathetic and don't understand or take the time to understand the best way to treat/behave towards a child with special/different needs. He also resents being told how to react towards his child because he's the father and knows what to do. Instead of showing DH leaflets get in touch with the Autistic society and see if someone will speak to him. I'm guessing that there is also a local support group and maybe someone from there can talk to him. There are many things that can help with autistic children and a pet is a good way forward if you don't already have one for him, cats as well as dogs. Good luck but be proud of yourself and your son, you are both doing well.

You picked validating your DS over validating your DH in that moment, which is fine because you can’t parent both of them. Parenting is hard, parenting ASD DC is even harder and you are still both working it out. Almost certainly your DH is behind you in working it out if you are the default/main parent. Try and be graceful with each other and supportive of each other and find ways to work it out together.

so... for context, I am on the spectrum and as an adult in their early 50s i was only diagnosed about 5 years ago.

Honestly you guys need to cut yourselves some slack. ASD is REALLY hard to cope with. As a child I never knew why i did certain things impulsively. I was (and am) high functioning but I can remember as a kid painting myself into certain corners that I didnt have the skills to get out of.

You are both doing just fine. There is no problem here. You both clearly love DS. There is no right answer with ASD and its about management styles. Neither of you have been unreasonable. Put the kids to bed. Open a bottle of wine and remind yourselves you are doing ok.

Missing the point but we had so many changing room melt downs at that age I totally abandoned going swimming for a few years. So well done for actually going swimming even if you had a changing room melt down afterwards, at least you made it into the pool!

It sounds stressful. I think maybe you should both cut yourselves and each other some slack and move on. In the grand scheme of things it’s probably not worth the argument xx

Neither of you reacted perfectly, but the reasoning is in your post; you're waiting for an ASD diagnosis. This means that while you're navigating this, neither of you are going to get it spot on right away.

if you son does have asd then quite frankly your husband needs to do a course straight away to change parenting style and understanding asd

talking to asd kids like this will always cause distress and meltdowns and some asd kids loud tones and shouty tones dont even register in their brains so they wont get the words your even saying

he needs to change his attitude now

and im saying this as a parent to a 18 and 12 y old with asd(and many more conditions)

Young children mouth. Yes somethings we'd rather they didn't chuck in their mouths, but that's what they do.

You were right to focus on his emotion and behaviour. Your DH should attend parenting classes assuming your DC is diagnosed, it will help him.

Well done you. We should all focus more on helping children link emotion to behaviour. This is a key staple for living with others because they get to practice managing their behaviours.

First of all OP, I am sorry you’re going through this. These things are hard to deal with when you’ve got a supportive partner, but they’re even more difficult when you are the only one trying to make things better.
My Ex-OH was like this, always anger first and think about the consequences later with our daughter. She’s an emotional little girl & he would shout things like “stop being such a baby!”when she was 2!!!!!! That is still very much a baby in my eyes. He soon stopped when I pointed out the ridiculousness of a grown man in his 40’s telling a 2 year old not to cry. He had to be ‘checked’ every time he said something ridiculous like this - used to drive me insane, and ultimately caused me to go off him because he just seemed so spiteful all of a sudden - it made me feel sick!

I’m going to come out and say you did nothing wrong saying to your DS about the coin, his Dad DID tell him not to - and that’s not undermining - that’s stating facts. I wholeheartedly would have dealt with it the same way you did. It’s showing that you acknowledged the situation fully and showing your son these are the reasons why it’s not ok.
Your DH needs to grow up - he seems like he is struggling with not having a “perfect” child and is taking his anger out in the wrong places.

Personally I think you’re both slightly BU, DH shouldn’t have asked DS to pick the coin up giving him an opportunity to mess about again, he should have picked it up himself and put it away. You have also undermined DH as you’ve pandered to DS and instead of reinforcing DH’s comment by saying ‘I know you’re upset but you cannot put coins in your mouth’ you’ve made out like DH is being unreasonable in telling him not to do it, like you’re upset because Daddy’s told you off but let’s not throw things. Throwing clothes and having a tantrum when you’re told not to do something isn’t a big issue, putting pound coins in your mouth IS!
From the looks of it DH is sick of you pandering to DS when he’s done wrong and any child, ASD or not needs to be taught right from wrong particularly where safety is involved… and in actual fact DH didn’t ‘bring it up again’ you did by Mollycoddling DS being upset because HE didn’t do as he was told.

My daughter has an ASD diagnosis and is 11 now. My husband and I are just like you. He has read some of the literature but it all goes out of the way when he feels out of control. Yesterday’s argument was over my daughter having got in the car without shoes on. He called her stupid, and an idiot, then had the audacity to complain that she told him he was the idiot. This morning he mentioned her need to control a situation, but I think that’s what my husband also needs to do. We also now think I have ADHD and he has ASD himself. It’s a 3 year waiting list for our diagnosis though. I write everything down whenever I can because when we eventually get to the bottom of waiting lists, I want to have the records of the sort of arguments we have, caused by his lack of understanding of ASD. I feel that he might hear it from professionals, and put things in place. We are on the waiting list for support from Action for Children, Build Sound Minds. There’s a long wait though. I would suggest seeing if it is available in your area. Also, ask the doctor what is available in your area. Look at the National Autistic Society website in your area too. In our area, there’s something called Bridge The Gap which I am currently looking into as well.

If you have a look at a video on you tube called 'the window of tolerance'.
When your DS was disregulated and outside of his window of tolerance he would not have been able to take on board your feedback about his behaviour. Therefore really it does need to be explained again after once he has calmed down.
(Speaking as a teacher of children with asd)

I don’t think either of you are being unreasonable. You both know your son is awaiting a diagnosis but more importantly for you both to learn how to address him the best way possible. Your DP like my sons dad gets frustrated that telling him once doesn’t work and he had to repeat himself. And although you agree with DP your first response is to placate your son because it hurts to see him upset.

my son is 12 and undiagnosed because his dad keeps cancelling the appointments with the doctor. He refuses to believe his son may have a disability even though his primary school head teacher who is fully qualified with special needs told me she suspects my son is autistic.

I hope you all get the support you need xx

It isn’t not about the coin in the mouth, this is about your husband sadly. He needs to talk to someone: ASD can be hereditary (obviously not always) so perhaps he is also ND and instead of patience and explanation and a safe environment to meltdown in and understand his feelings he was disciplined and forced to mask and conform to NT standards? (Or he has very rigid rules for living and can’t cope with your approach that contradicts that, or that someone else might be ‘right’). That’s just one theory. Another could be he doesn’t believe in it and he doesn’t want his child to have anything ‘wrong’ (it is absolutely not wrong btw!!!) so it disciplining him. What you’ve said he said to DS re bed sheet and calling you what he did is abusive, which you seem to know and I’m so sorry you are all in this situation. Any which way you cut this, he needs to talk to a professional, which might also work well for you all as a family learning to navigate DS4’s ASD.
best of luck to you all

Sounds like a really tough situation and like you're resigned to the fact that DH is never going to be understanding of the requirements of approaching situations with an autistic person in mind...

The "cold hearted..." comment however, makes me feel like he actually has his own mental issues and he feels like he is not being seen by you (and the fact that you are being understanding with your son is maybe stirring something up with him?!). I only mention this because had an ex with borderline pd (which he only told me about after we split up, after years of being together - His reaction to every disagreement we had was to tell me it was all my fault because I wasn't being sympathetic enough to his feelings and was "cold"). Interestingly, I too dreaded holidays and times when there was less routine and we would try to do "fun" stuff. For me it was because he invariably couldn't handle it and he would get very upset and angry at the world.

I found the best times with my ex were when I had enough energy to consider his reactions and constantly adjust my behaviour accordingly (not the best. Some will say you should absolutely do this, just like you would try to for your son, people don't grow out of these sorts of things just because they become an adult. Some will say it's not your responsibility. I decided in the end I couldn't manage that all the time and left but we can't all easily make that decision).

So with that in mind, In the interests of making life easy because it is your decision to stay....

Possibly the swimming pool situation might have been less explosive had you worked with it in the moment either by (if you were within reach) saying, when the coin was dropped, "I think I'll take that right now because I think you'll be too tempted to chew it and Daddy is trying to keep you safe, that's why he asked you to take it out of your mouth" (he'd then likely have chuntered about DS picking it up BUT hopefully would've advoided a melt down in the moment and you can talk after about how DS was just being literal and not belligerant even though he likely won't believe you given his stance on things)

or.... if it was all unavoidable you could've said after it all died down, "I know you were upset about Daddy getting cross about what you were doing with the coin, he wanted the coin out of your mouth because he was trying to keep you safe, you don't chew coins..." And explain why - it's dangerous/might choke/ dirty in as concise a way as possible. Talk to DH later about not giving him coins in future and frame it as a question rather than an instruction. Asking "Do you think it might be best if we don't xyz?" Or "what do you think we should do about xyz next time?" in general might illicit more thought about responses rather than defensive ones and encourage discussion instead of starting an argument off the bat? Or might not! Likely all depend how he's feeling in the moment!

At least then DH might feel that you were in agreement with his overall aim (as much as DS will appreciate praise for doing the right thing, you might find DH really reacts to it too, if you can find a way to do it without patronising him) and maybe he would feel less undermined and therefore be less volatile.

It is a lot of work on your part because basically you're ultimately having to watch over and help regulate 2 people. I feel for you. X

I think you are both BU about different things.

As a four year old my ASD child disliked swimming pools. I don’t agree with forcing a SEN child in. A SEN child is also much more likely to have a sensory oral need, hence the sucking so keeping dangerous objects out of months is essential. You can get chew necklaces or other alternatives.

You said I know you were angry when daddy said not to put coins in your mouth but you can't throw things or hit people but the issue was putting the coin in his mouth not his reaction to being told not to. So I know you were angry when daddy said not to put coins in his mouth but you cannot put coins in your mouth it's not safe. Otherwise your DHs is right you are undermining him telling DS not to put coins in his mouth
You didn't really need to bring any of those things up again in that moment though, just keep the coin away from him next time.
Work on how he deals with his anger as part of ongoing help with emotional regulation when everyone involved is calm.

Has it crossed your mind OP that there isn't actually anything wrong with your son other than he's severely distressed by the horrible bickering between you and your DH and the awful way in which your DH talks to you. He's 4, he will be much more intuitive than you're giving him credit for and taking in all of it in. I think the most loving and helpful thing that you can do for your child is address these obvious problems with your relationship and focus on providing him with a safe, loving and consistent home whether he has ASD or not

Pls don't anyone say I'd be better off doing it alone because that isn't an option.

PS OP it absolutely has to be an option if your partner is abusive. That's a ridiculous thing to say

I find work so much easier than trying to keep our home happy. Makes me so sad.

You’re doing magnificently in difficult circumstances, OP. DS and DH are lucky to have you. I hope someone makes an effort to make you happy too. Sending you love and strength.

Your OH has no idea how to parent a child with ASD, I think you need to take ds places on your own if he's not prepared to learn. A lot of patience, trying to understand from their perspective, thinking ahead, knowing what they can manage are all required - he just wants to bully him into submission and that is going to be awful for your son. It doesn't sound like DH is interested in listening or learning, he just wants to 'make' him behave.

You need to tell your DH that you can't 'make' someone independent or responsible, you can't even teach it (at least not without explaining very clearly exactly what it entails in any given situation). You can give children the opportunity to show it as they mature, but if they can't then they're clearly not ready. For a child with ASD who emotionally may be quite far behind their NT peers to expect them just to be able to demonstrate because you think they should be able to at their age is just unrealistic.

Don't doubt yourself, as a parent with a child with ASD you sound like you're doing a great job. I can completely understand why you undermined your DH in this situation, it's because he was being an asshole.