To have taken DD’s side?

[SmellsLikeTeenSpirits]

Genuinely looking for how you might have handled this as can see how it could have played out differently.

DD 15. Diagnosed ADHD. In middle of revising for her GCSEs. Was having a friendship issue yesterday with one of her oldest and closest friends. Was handling it ok but not getting response she was looking for from friend and was frustrated and emotional. Came downstairs to ask me for advIce. DH is on sofa. Not long back from work. Hasn’t been involved in conversations to this point and doesn’t tend to get involved in DDs ‘dramas’. As she’s talking to me he tells her she should just leave it. That she’s escalating things and should drop it (not terrible advice tbf). She gets upset saying ‘I’m not asking you , you don’t know what’s going on’ he repeats ‘leave it’ a few times but not in a particularly engaged way. DD starts crying. DH says ‘there’s no need to get upset’ DD gets up to leave the room and mutters ‘prick’ under her breath as she leaves (she has never sworn in front of or at either of us before).

DH roars ‘what did you say?’. DD runs upstairs in full tears. DH chases after her and gets really in her face on the landing shouting ‘what did you say? Say it to my face! You do not get to call me that’. At which point I go upstairs and intervene - DD goes into her room. DH is stil fuming. I tell him to calm down and stop making this about him (not helpful I know). I then go in and calm down DD. I listen to her for a bit and I do tell her that it’s not acceptable to say that to her dad and that she shouldn’t take her anger out on him.

I then go back downstairs where DH is scrolling on his phone. I leave it 5 mins and then say ‘are we going to talk about this?’ He says ‘what, the fact that you’re ok with DD calling me a prick?’ I say ‘No, about how you could have handled that differently and how it’s not acceptable that she called you that but your response wasn’t what she needed from you at that moment and you could have just let the whole situation defuse and then talked to he about it when you were both calm?’. He says ‘I’ve given up expecting you to support me on anything and I’m not having this conversation’ and goes to bed. He left for work that morning without saying goodbye (although he did still make me a coffee). I feel rinsed today and am wondering if he’s right and I should have just let it play out between them? What would you have done?

yes, people like you should never do jury service, if you base your verdict on evidence you've made up!
Where on earth does it say anything about expecting the friend to 'answer' to her (what does that even mean?' let alone "always expects" this???

'People like you' 😆 oh gosh I stand corrected, you superior person that you are...
not getting response she was looking for from friend was the wording posted so deeply apologise.. I have posted a typo and it should be IF not of she always.. but thank you for posting.

😂😂😂😂
And you accuse me of making stuff up!!!!

As she’s talking to me he tells her she should just leave it.
He literally interrupts her to give his unwanted opinion!!!
He does so again when she tells him he doesn't have all the information - which he doesn't!!!

At no point did I mention a friend!

It is you with comprehension difficulties and bias not me!!!

@carerlookingtochangejob the OP mentions the friend, interaction with whom the whole cause of the argument

Not about expecting the friend to answer they don't 🙄

If my daughter called my DH a prick I'd have chased her upstairs myself and dragged her down myself to apologise, but I would have intervened here well before that stage.

I think you're doing what you're accusing others of, not seeing things at all from the DH perspective, you're projecting your own experiences onto a situation that is not the same at all, it's understandable, and everyone does it to a certain extent, but it's quite obvious you are doing that because you are rewriting the OP to fit in with your narrative, your minimising one set of behaviour and exaggerating the other.

DD comes downstairs to talk to her mother - nothing wrong there
"DD is 'frustrated and emotional' Came downstairs to ask me for advice."

Father constantly interrupts with unwanted and unasked for opinions and advise completely minimising DD Distress.
"he tells her she should just leave it. That she’s escalating things and should drop it (not terrible advice tbf)"

DD gets upset - doesn't seem unreasonable under the circumstances
"She gets upset saying ‘I’m not asking you , you don’t know what’s going on’"

*This is where it starts to escalate IMO, that was rude, she shouldn't be telling her father off for trying to help, and OP shouldn't be openly condoning that, OP could have stepped in here to calm down daughter, explain her dad is only trying to help and take the drama elsewhere.. inexplicably she chose not to do any of those things and let it continue.

Father continues to be a prick.
He tells her to leave it, and that there's no need to get upset

DD calls father a prick - probably not the best but again he was being one.

Completely inexcusable and past the point of no return.. nothing to do with ADHD as many people on this thread have already said, she was angry, upset and frustrated about the situation with her friend and someone basically telling her to 'calm down' and she wanted to lash out in that moment and hurt him.

With regards to the dads reaction, I'm not surprised at it, there seems to be an awful lot of pandering going on, and undermining, neither of them were having their finest hour, but I can't blame someone for losing their shit when they are so blatently disrespected by their teenager with (seemingly) their mum's blessing.

She should have apologised after the chat with her mum, he should have apologised to her then and sorted it out that night instead of letting it continue on, but she probably thinks she's done nothing wrong, teenager's do have a habit of thinking the world revolves around them and no one else understands, it's a stereotype for a reason, but I think it's been made worse in this situation because her mum seems to be trying to be her friend rather than her parent.

I still don't think the dad did anything wrong in what he said about leaving it or not needing to be upset - I don't view this as goading or dismissive of her feelings at all. He's clearly aware that there are frequent 'dramas' and he's tried to give her sensible advice on not escalating them. Maybe he's fed up of the frequent fallings out and in that moment told her what she should do to not make it worse.The daughter got further upset at him saying that (because it's not what she wants to do) and all he's said is that there's no need to get upset. He might be clumsy at expressing himself but he's not wrong - dd getting into a further state because he's said something she doesn't want to do, isn't helpful to her.

Personally, I think she was very rude when she basically told him to stay out of it - it's hard to stay out of something when you repeatedly see your child acting in a way that's not going to benefit them in the long run. I really do think he was trying to advise her. And tbh, teenage dramas can be maddening and maybe he's fed up of hearing about them and no one telling dd that she is making them worse with her own behaviour!

It all went tits up and he did get disproportionately angry, but I don't think he was entirely wrong to react badly to being called a prick.

@sandyhappypeople then quite frankly I hope for your DD sake she has another safe parent in her life that doesn't think that being abusive to children is ok and is willing to protect her from your behaviour.
Chasing and screaming in a child's face is abusive - fact.

No need to hope, I don't scream in my daughters face, neither does my DH, but I also wouldn't tolerate her calling my dh a prick, or being so disrespectful to him in the first place if he was only trying to help/calm down a situation which he was perfectly entitled to do, he is her parent.

Abuse is a strong word and IMO not used correctly here, to me it minimises textbook acts of abuse, and victims of abuse, the dictionary definition of abuse is "treat with cruelty or violence, especially regularly or repeatedly" this was a momentary loss of temper after being provoked, after all you could say calling someone a prick is abusive, but she didn't do it to be cruel, she did it because she lost control and wanted to lash out, he didn't do it to be cruel but to make it clear how unacceptable he found her behaviour, neither are acceptable, and both should have apologised.

I'm not saying you're wrong, and I'm right, you just have a different definition of what you class abusive, and that may be based on your personal experiences, that's why it's so difficult to form an opinion with limited information, we tend to fill in the blanks ourselves. But unless this is part of a bigger pattern, which OP says it's not, then it was just two people that love each other that pushed each other past their boundaries and then reacted badly, they are only human and everyone loses control every now and again, the best outcome is that they forgive each other and both learn from it.

So she was supposed to be calmly and respectfully reprimanded when she'd run off?

@Iwasafool yes, let the dust settle and have everyone go off and do their own thing to calm down, then address it. She was angry, Dad was angry and nothing good is going to come of chasing her up the stairs to shout in her face. I've been there as the child and it's quite frankly shit parenting. Dad, as the adult in the situation, should have controlled himself and addressed what happened and reprimanded her at a later time when tempers weren't frayed. I mean we've all lost it in the heat of the moment, myself included, it's what you do in response to a mistake that matters. Personally I would apologize for my own behaviour, whilst also firmly expressing that the daughter was also in the wrong. It's quite possible to have a calm and rational discussion about rights and wrongs, flying off the handle is rarely the right option.

DD is 15. Yes, not ideal to call her father a prick but from the sounds of it he was goading her into a reaction.

Her father though is an adult. Chasing after a girl to scream in her face is so completely over the line it's ridiculous. A massive, massive overreaction that will mean the girl will think at a) she was right to call him a prick and b) will likely damage their relationship.

She wasn't wrong though was she?

OK @easylikeasundaymorn you're clearly much cleverer than I and I bow to your take down of my post. My post was actually intended to be directed at those with the attitude 'he's a man, he's guilty'. You however have taken it rather viciously than I with your allegation I'd say someone deserves to be raped because of what they wore. Sorry, as someone who's been a victim of sexual assault, to be accused of this is highly upsetting. But well done superior you.

I can’t fully tell from your op if dh was purposely goading dd before she called him a prick, or if she just didn’t like his advice. You were there and you know the two of them, so I’m sure you have your own opinion of the situation.
Personally, I think parents should be willing to take on board that being human, they sometimes don’t behave in the best way and it should be ok for kids to call them out on that. Granted she could have worded it better, but obviously your dd will struggle with impulse control as part of her adhd. I imagine rsd may be feeding into the issue with her friend? In which case, dh could have explained his pov more sensitively and with some logic, instead of seeming like he was bored of listening to her.
His behaviour after, chasing her up the stairs and screaming, is absolutely not on. How can he expect his teen With adhd to display impulse control when he, a fully grown man, can’t do the same? For that, she was right, and he owes her an apology.
That’s not showing weakness in my book, it’s modelling good behaviour.

It's not appropriate to use it to a parent. That said. He shouldn't have intervened. Her mum was dealing with it.

They were both behaving like dicks and both know they're in the wrong.

But how you handle it, is important.

I've generally always told my husband to back off went he wanted to join in conversations I'm having with a daughter.

I've said point blank "No, you don't get to speak right now. This is not your conversation. We'll discuss it later."

You had the option to shut your husband down yourself.

When you talk to him later or the following day, you tell him to trust you in handling a daughter and that he will have an opportunity to make a contribution to the topic - but not at that point.

Your daughter blew up because she wanted to speak to you not him - and was not responding well to his comments or attitude. And you were not taking charge.

Your sensible responsibility was to diffuse the situation at that moment and tell your husband to back off or move the conversation and find a quiet place to talk to your daughter 1:1.

In the aftermath of this, you need to set down rules.

a. Your daughter has the right to speak to either of you alone, but as parents you hold the right and responsibility to discuss issues that concern her.

b. No one in the family has the right to call each other names.

c. You all treat each other with respect.

I presume your daughter apologised to her dad?

So she’s having friendship issues and he tells her to ‘leave it’, a conversation that didn’t involve him but he got involved anyway. Then she calls him and he couldn’t just ‘leave it’. No, she shouldn’t have called him…but he could have said, I get that you’re upset but there’s no need for that, I’ll leave it for now and we’ll talk about this tomorrow 🤷🏻‍♀️

OP did support him but in a way where she wasn’t aggressive towards her DD! And after that behaviour he doesn’t deserve to be supported. How can someone expect their teenage DD to learn how to manage their emotions if that’s the type of behaviour they witness from a parent!

I see it from both their points of view. He wasn't being helpful, but a child shouldn't be allowed to call their parent a word like that. My Dd also has adhd and that is not an excuse. Children with adhd do have a filter and do know right from wrong.

@Comefromaway my DD has adhd, they do have a filter lol sorry but that is a poor excuse.

This! Why the heck didn’t you tell her to wind her neck in the minute she said this? She was rude to her dad/your husband! You didn’t step in to support him and have her then go ahead to further insult him. No you don’t support your husband but pander to your DD. That behaviour needs shutting down immediately.

DH had just come in from work and didn't want the drama - tough, problems aren't timetabled around him.
'Leave it' was his solution for him to have a quiet life, that's no good for a 15 year old girl to accept as a solution.

She was bound to either react to him or storm off upset - neither of which is a solution.

She needs patience, empathy and understanding until she can settle herself - it's rotten being any age and feeling like that - mosts mumsnet issues are just the ssme.

I’ve actually demonstrated to DH and PIL how a quiet action can work wonders. DS responded very well to me taking out a notebook and pen and drawing a noughts and crosses board and handing it to him and saying he could go first. He calmed down immediately. When PIL went to the loo I delivered DH a ‘hard stare’ and he apologised. Later I made it clear that if there were any more comments or attempted interventions in our parenting, there would be no further holidays with us or trips out or even visits for a while, and that he needed to speak to them about it, which he did.

I know this isn’t exactly the same as OP’s situation, but in my view there needs to be firm action with men who don’t ‘get it’, whether they are the shouters or whether they don’t stop their parents interfering.