Is this child abuse?

[Hah20]

DS who is 2 years old has a habit of trying to scratch DH in the face. In the past DS has got a big reaction from him for doing this. I believe this is why DS repeats the behaviour.
Today this happened and DH pushed DS off him, he fell backwards and was very upset,bumped his head but with no lump. I just want some opinions. Was that just rubbish parenting or is this classed as physical abuse?
I am very much of the gentle parenting approach and am horrified by what happened, but not sure what to do. I told DH in no uncertain terms that what happened wasn't okay and he disappeared in a sulk for the rest of the day.so we are yet to have a proper discussion.

You want to teach your DS that it's NEVER ok to push someone away? What if that person is hurting them?

And yet you seem happy for a child to scratch at people’s faces? That’s going to go down well with the parents of the boy who loses an eye or the parents of the little girl with the scarred face. DH didn’t ‘lay a hand’ on this feral kid, he defended himself. Personally I’d rather DH was finally allowed to do this as it sounds like OP has already damaged their relationship by DS being too spoiled. Which in my mind is far worse for a kid than bumping his head.

Your DS also needs to know that it's never okay to scratch. Why is scratching okay but pushing is not?

He pushed away someone who was scratching his face.

If there was no intent to hurt him and it was an attempt to stop it I wouldn't call it abuse.

What consequences are there for the scratching of moving him away is not acceptable in your eyes?

And actually it's a bad lesson to learn it's not ok to push someone who is physically assaulting you away.

My son who is autistic was taught this by a school. Left him very vulnerable when pinned up against a wall with someone's hands around their neck.

The police told the school off for telling ds off in the previous occasions it happened and he pushed them away. The bully escalated because they felt powerful (to a knife) and ds became a repeated target due to not defending himself.

Your little boy will find nursery and school lonely if you don't get hold of him hurting people, he can't scratch or hurt anyone. You say you want him to know it's never ok to be pushed, but you are teaching him that unless people move away he can hurt them. He'll struggle to make friends or he will have the kids that have been taught do it back do to him whatever they have just had done to him

It was not meant but it happened too roughly.
Talk about how you could parent if that exact same situation were to occur again. Make up a set of strategies, all of them gentle options. Try them, try any gentle approach.
Tell husband that you won't abide your child being physically abused. Help each other come up with viable actions.

@Numberfish I literally said" By all means block a scratch remove child".

You stop the child's hand and remove them from your body, it isn't rocket science. You are describing a child of two as feral?

An adult male 6ft "defending" himself against a toddler? Cop on.

This isn’t gentle parenting, this is permissive ineffective parenting! I would say I’m a fairly gentle parent but my DDs have boundaries and wouldn’t get away with that kind of behaviour!

OP you need to nip it in the bud now before he is in either nursery or school. Friends of ours have a daughter who was like this at 2, never disciplined, always backed up by mum as she could do no wrong- lo and behold, she’s 7 now and has no friends because of her behaviour and it’s really sad.

I think you have blinkers on and your son is being bought up to think he can do no wrong. He needs to learn that scratching someone's face isn't on. Whether the victim is a 6ft tall male adult or a 5 year old little boy, it hurts! It sounds like his push was instinctive rather than abusive and alright, he shouldn't have done it, but you're as bad, teach your son how to behave!

No your partner is not abusive it’s was a natural reaction but you really need to nip this with your child in the bud.

My DD was seriously injured by a boy who’s parents were using “gentle parenting “ my DD ( 2 and a half at the time ) had a toy that he wanted at nursery and he went from 0-100 in less than 10 seconds and smashed her face 3 times with said toy. It all happened so quickly before the teachers could intervene. She had to go to hospital via ambulance for tests and scans, her eye was swollen shut for nearly 2 weeks and she still has to attend the hospital for her sight in that eye. This happened a year ago. The nursery were not allowed to discipline this child in any way and this was the straw that broke the camels back with him. The nursery refused to have him back after that.

Nip the scratching in the bud now OP before another child is hurt. You might be ok with your child hurting you and your husband but it’s not ok for him to hurt others.

"Gentle parenting" does not mean the same as passively accepting bad behaviour. Even if you're not willing to physically chastise a badly behaved child you need to punish them in other ways. I get that you think your DH shouldn't have behaved how he did, but what have you been doing to make the child stop this "habit" of trying to scratch people in the face? Why have you allowed the situation to develop to this extent?

The main reason you are being unreasonable is that you're being incredibly passive, blaming your DH for his natural instinct to defend himself whilst not coming up with an effective alternative course that makes the child realise that what they're doing is wrong.

And are you also teaching your child that it’s not okay to scratch?

Dd went through a hitting stage at 2 and the only thing that worked was to immediately put her straight into a travel cot in the same room and remove attention from her for a couple of minutes. She was too young to understand it hurt and had been enjoying the reactions she was getting. It worked really quickly as she realised that hitting immediately resulted in going in the travel cot for a couple of minutes and no attention. This was 17 years ago and she turned out fine!

I think the problem is that he wasn't concerned when his child hit his head, didn't apologise and went off and sulked ignoring his family

Did he deliberately push the child with the intent of causing pain/shock/upset as punishment or retaliation? That's abuse, whether the child ends up hurt or not.

Did he reflexively push a child who hurt him or gently push away a child who is ignoring instructions to stop being physical? That's not abuse, even if the child ends up hurt.

edit: the behaviour afterwards and not showing any concern for the child points towards it being abuse, or at the very least poor emotional regulation and inability to take blame. I comfort my child whenever they’re hurt and apologise if I contributed to that, even if their own actions were the main factor.

Your 2 year old needs to learn not to scratch.

Presumably your DH has two functioning hands and therefore there's no excuse for a grown man to push a toddler away causing him an injury.
It may be helpful to ask him how he would explain his child's injury to police/ social services if reported. Saying that he was concerned about his face getting scratched wouldn't really cut it.

What do you mean, he has no prior experience of children? Step parents can be dangerous to kids and this could be a red flag.

Good grief, people. Read OP's posts. She has NOT said that dh wasn't concerned or didn't apologise. And there was no injury.

According to some of you, dh should apparently be dragged off in handcuffs for instinctively pushing away a toddler who was clawing at his face.

It absolutely is ok to be pushed once he gets old if he keeps disrespecting boundaries and hurting people. He needs to be learning not to scratch, and if he won't learn that, then pushing by other children is going to be a natural consequence to ensure their own boundaries are respected.

If it was a genuine reaction from your DH to protect himself then no, I don’t think it was abuse. I was mucking about with my 6 year old the other day and he banged his head on the floor, I don’t think that was abusive.

And sorry but if your DS has a habit of scratching anything, then it sounds like gentle parenting isn’t really working and you might need to reconsider this approach. I think it only really basically works for kids who are naturally really well behaved, and in all honesty it sounds like your DS is not in that category. Better to adopt a more hands on approach now (and I don’t mean hitting of course) before he starts at nursery or school.

And on “but also need DS to know that it's never okay to push or be pushed”, as others have said it is ABSOLUTELY OK to be pushed if you are harming someone and you should start teaching your DS this. I appreciate in this case there’s a size difference and ideally your DH should have handled it better, but in general terms I teach my kids that they should never start a fight but they absolutely should defend themselves appropriately if someone is hurting them- and this is what most kids at school will do.

Because she is yet another 'gentle parent' whose little darling can do no wrong.

I've been hurt by my child so much I've reflexively pushed them off/away from me. I'd feel terrible if they fell and bumped their head, but I wouldn't class it as abuse, or even 'someone laying a hand on my child'. I'd class it as a reaction to pain.

I don't get the dynamic here of a parent of a 2 year old, your husband, who has no time alone and has no experience with children? I mean I also didn't have any experience until I had my own kids.