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?

100% agree with you.

I have autism but I’ve found that ‘lived experience’ only matters when it supports one perspective.

@BluntPoet oh I'm not triggered! But your post clearly demonstrates that you are incapable of seeing things from other peoples perspectives or having any empathy at all.
Your subsequent posts also clearly demonstrate this.
ASD and ADHD are often genetic and children need parents who are able to be flexible and adapt their parenting style to accommodate their needs in order to help them mature and to protect their mental wellbeing.

He's being more immature than her and I agree with her tbh

Yes it’s pretty shocking how many people are excusing her behaviour.

Oh, because I can empathise with a tired parent wanting some peace and quiet after a day’s work and not to be bossed around by their offspring and called names?

So, because I empathise with the wrong person I have no empathy 😂

Perhaps you’re projecting your own inability to see things from the other side here?

Maybe if it was a boy calling his tired mother a bitch and his dad was siding with him, you’d have more empathy for the parent on the sofa?

What you fail to understand is that excusing and indulging questionable behaviour in children (irrespective of sex) produces people who only see things from their perspective and have no empathy. They do not magically become well-adjusted adults just because they turn 18.

Basically, if you don’t parent your child and show them how to interact with others, he or she will be learning all the hard lessons in adulthood and will suffer.

I have autism. And I recognise very well the high emotions, low tolerance for stress , etc etc. But this isn’t a get out of jail card to excuse shitty behaviour. My family worked extra hard to teach me not to be a brat. And it worked. I still am a brat sometimes but would be 100 x worse if they hadn’t done their job. All kids need to be taught boundaries and how to interact with others. Some kids need it even more because otherwise they will be lost in adulthood, alone and unhappy.

I have a feeling you equate boundaries with lack of love of corporal punishment but if it’s true, this is your problem, not mine.

Have you actually read that last post of @BluntPoet or were you too keen to jump on and admonish with the usual #behind... but only if I agree with you...

Or just maybe a 15 year old girl should be able to express her emotions and anxieties around a friendship going wrong without her dad shutting her down.
If it were an adult trying to talk a problem out with this man eye rolled them into shutting up everyone would have a different opinion.
Like I said, Do as I say because I say so parenting can work on a 4 year old. A 15 on the other hand is going to call you a prick, and learn that they can't come to you for advice in the future.

@BluntPoet he could have had peace and flipping quiet- he didn't need to get involved!!!!

He could have just continued to pray about on his phone and left the OP to handle it.
Or
He could have put his phone down and actually listened and tried to understand what his daughter was telling him.

But he didn't. He chose the shitty let's minimise and belittle her and what she's upset about. Of all the courses of action he could have taken he chose the one that would hurt her the most.

Anyone who has lived with a parent like this will know exactly what it's like. I'd put money on the fact that he's done it before!

In fact I bet he's been doing if for years to get out of doing the hard parts of parenting.

He's the adult! Yet he was the one screaming in her face!!!

@DoreenonTill8 care to elaborate? I have read all of BluntPoets posts and stand by what I have said. They clearly have zero ability to empathise with the DD

You don’t get to call your father a prick in his own house FGS and having ADHD is not an excuse.

Apologies @BluntPoet for talking about you...
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@carerlookingtochangejob you are having a go at blunt for being on the side of, and having zero empathy with the dd or understanding of ND when blunt has advised they are ND?

Clearly insulting someone isn't a helpful thing to do.

But escalating that situation by shouting at the other person probably isn't going to improve anything.

To me, letting her leave the room and then calmly saying "It's not appropriate to call me a prick, that's really hurtful" and then doling out a suitable punishment, would be a way of still making clear that the behaviour is unacceptable without resorting to intimidation. Shouting in someone's face is a sure fire way to make someone think you are a prick.

Surely what you want is someone who a) sees being able to control yourself role modelled, b) who is genuinely sorry for what they've done and c) who doesn't want to call you a prick again rather than just too scared of the consequences.

Let's say it's scared her so much that she never does it again. Was that a success? Or has it just ensured she tolerates her father instead of respecting him?

Good for you taking dd side. No she shouldn't have sworn but everything else is on him. He's supposed to be the adult

You, on the other hand, seem to identify with DD rather than empathise with her.

Empathising doesn’t mean excusing inexcusable behaviour.

It also doesn’t mean siding with the DD against the parent who has been the target of her current mood/outburst.

A friend wouldn’t give DD what she wanted and she had a strop. And took it out on her dad probably knowing mum would run to the rescue. Pretty poor behaviour, if you ask me.

I’m very glad I was shown boundaries when I behaved like DD as a teenager. Thanks to my family members stepping up and doing the work, I can at least have a shot at a normal life today, I’m just about capable of maintaining relationships, respecting people’s boundaries and not acting on impulses. It’s hard work.

But it would be a lot worse had my family excused and indulged my behaviour. Worse because I’d be completely not equipped to interact with people and would probably be alone and unhappy.

I didn’t have an autism diagnosis unit adulthood. And I’m kind of glad, just in case it might have been used as an excuse not to parent me.

I also agree, if my child spoke to me like that I would be furious. She was behaving like a whiny teen, didn't get her way and decided to be nasty.

No need to apologise. :)

Like I said earlier, lived experience matters only if it supports a certain narrative. As soon as one refuses to use their ND diagnosis as a get out of jail card, all hell breaks loose :P

@DoreenonTill8 I too am ND!

Yet funnily enough I can empathise with the DD.

But Mumsnet is always determined to make excuses for shitty men.

Tbh. Sounds like on of those moments in family life where nobody is at their best and it's better to let it blow over. It was, in your telling, an incident rather than a pattern. Yes, have a chat with DH about it, but wait for the emotions to settle. He may well be prepared to apologise for his part in it. But DD does need to know that's not a free pass to be disrespectful.

With respect, I suspect you may be projecting a little, the OP never mentioned eye rolling or belittling, nothing that he said was shitty?

He gave her sound advice, it just wasn't what she wanted to hear in that moment, because she was too caught up in the histrionics of it all, for all we know that approach may work to de-escalate it at times, where as OPs validating her and letting her rant may just lead to it escalating more till the end of time, it's hard to say from that one incident.. it doesn't sound like what OP was doing was de-escalating the situation with her friend, and that is probably what the DH was trying to encourage if he wanted any peace and quiet that evening after being at work all day.

It sounds like the daughter and friends have regular dramas, as most 15 year olds do, to them it's the absolute end of the world, to the adults around them you want them to just stop whinging on because you know very well that it will all be forgotten in the morning!

Her saying 'I wasn't talking to you' in response to him is so dismissive and rude, IMO op should have stepped in then, because that is the point where it started to escalate, she could have told her to go and have 5 minutes to calm down and she'd come and have a chat with her upstairs (so as to let DH wind down after work) she didn't, she just let it carry on oblivious to DH, it does seem from this like OP sides with her daughter even when she's blatently out of line, she said she went in to calm her down, but never made her apologise? I'm actually shocked at that, and not surprised her DH is fed up with it all.

@BluntPoet what inexcusable behaviour

DD comes downstairs to talk to her mother - nothing wrong there
Father constantly interrupts with unwanted and unasked for opinions and advise completely minimising DD Distress.
DD gets upset - doesn't seem unreasonable under the circumstances
Father continues to be a prick.
DD calls father a prick - probably not the best but again he was being one. ADHD does reduce ability to filter.
Father goes off on one and is physically abusive to DD because of something her disability is having a huge influence on!

So yes the father is the one most in the wrong here. He is the adult!
I bet he wouldn't treat his colleagues the way he chose to act around his wife and daughter.

@sandyhappypeople there is nothing to excuse a grown man chasing a child up the stairs and shouting in the their face!

If a man did that in my house he would be asked to leave and that would be it.

Absolutely extrapolation!!

@DoreenonTill8 what exactly have I written that does not come exactly from the OP?

. 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). @carerlookingtochangejob no 'constant interruption' no physical abuse.. yes shouting not great parenting, however of she's pandered to by op, never told her behaviour is wrong, always expects others like the friend to answer to her, then I can understand the father losing it.

One thing mn has taught me is there's people out there who should NEVER be allowed to do jury service due to their bias!