Husband shouted at my daughters

[Unknown987]

Bit of back story. I have two daughters from a previous marriage, 12 and 10. One with my current husband.
My husband has a very good relationship with my older two. He's the softer playful adult in the family whereas I'm more the disciplinarian. He is actively involved in all parts of their lives (discipline is left to me as my expectations are higher than his I guess). He has been in their lives 5 years.
our 2.8 year old has been having major tantrums recently - she has meltdowns over something she does not want to do (normally end of day when she is tired). This one was triggered by bath time. In these tantrums she is hitting crying screaming breaking anything around her. I would welcome any advice around this too?
Last night was a particularly bad tantrum. Both husband and I are fed up 10 mins in and we are laughing out of dispair while she is just going crazy on floor. My older two find it funny and are always laughing when she has these tantrums (we have spoken to them before to leave and go upstairs away from baby when this happens as it is not helpful).
Older two were upstairs laughing throughout the tantrum even though I had told them to go in their room.
Baby daughter scratched husbands face in the tantrum (really hard) almost drew blood so while I took her off him and restrained her the girls were on the landing and he shouting at them and pushed the 10 year old towards the stairs by putting hand on shoulder (she said forcefully I didn't see) and he shouted at both older girls 'I don't ever want to see you f*ing laughing again when baby has a melt down.'
Girls went down and I told him to calm down as we are at our wits end with baby's behaviour and I believe he took it out on the older two.
i am so disappointed with him and have told him never to swear or touch my girls again. I don't know how to be now. I explained to my girls that it is out of order but he was angry at the baby not them. This has never happened before as normally it is me that tells the girls off and is seen as the 'mean' disciplinarian.
But Aibu to be angry at him?

You’re all drained and exhausted with the wee ones meltdowns (bath, bed) /tantrums (sweets). I think what you need is to actually read up on child development- she’s too tiny to meaningfully share, she can maybe take turns, the baths- she’s too tired and washing hair can be scary (skip daily bath unless really messy, don’t wash hair every time unless necessary, look into sponges/flannels/cups for washing gently and potentially skip shampoo for a period of time (water honestly does the trick). Bed - she might be not tired/too tired/thinking it’s not fair cause everyone else is still up and „playing”- calm everyone down for the 30min-1h before she heads to bed, slow things down, don’t surprise her with bed time (3yr olds have no grasp of a clock and only starting to have a grasp of daily routines, especially if those differ- like if older kids have evening classes)….work with where she is developmentally not where you want her to be and all of you will get much more relaxing time and be less stressed.:)

Some of the posters are the most kind hearted people who give the nicest advice and ways ahead. Thankyou

From a practical point of view, ensure the little one’s finger nails are kept short. I’m sure the scratching didn’t help.
Your husband lost his temper when emotions were running high. We have all been there. Your older children were giggling because a tantruming toddler can be quite funny and because you, too, saw the absurdity in the situation and laughed. But the laughing was unhelpful. Your husband has apologised. Everyone has calmed down. I wouldn’t worry too much about this. Just keep channels of communication open.
Your 2 year old sounds a bit of a handful. I had one like that. I remember at the same age sitting her down with her child minder and my husband and explaining what was expected of her and what the consequences would be when her behaviour was unacceptable. We also explained that everyone who cared for her would take the same approach. It put the adults in charge of the situation and broke the cycle.
Other than that just keep communicating with the toddler calmly and clearly tell her what is happening and what will happen next. Stay neutral, calm, and in charge. Stick with the routine. Team tag with DH so one of you has time out of the situation. Maybe you and 10 year old bath the little one one night and DH and 12 year old do it the next night. Older Kids can be super helpful playing with and distracting the baby. Hair washing is always stressful. Maybe go shopping with her for some extra mild baby shampoo. Let her pay for it. Let her smell it. Tell her it is her special shampoo and not stingy. Much of the tantrum is anticipation of something bad happening. Alternatively, make up a story about a character she can buy into and keep her distracted with the story while you bath her. “Do you want to know what Charlie Claude did next? I’ll tell you as soon as we’ve rinsed off your hair. What do you think he did?”. Give her a special cloth to hold over eyes while you’re washing her hair. Praise her when she gets her hair washed without tantruming. You sound like a lovely family. This will pass.

So because the 2 girls are not biologically his your DH he can't discipline them, l assume that he can pay for their upkeep etc this doesn't sound to me like a family unit to .me, you are unreasonable your DH should not have sworn to anybody but to be so angry is ott.

You are all unreasonable.

I wouldnt be happy at a child clawing my face to the point they almost draw blood and i certainly would be raging if a 10 or 12 year old laughed about it.

They are old enough not to laugh like theyve been told, so are you and he.

Tantrums might be normal but you deal with them, you dont laugh at them. Imagine she did that to another child?! Would you laugh then?

You all need to grow up a bit and set an example for the toddler rather than laughing when shes losing her shit.

When I was having an issue with my eldest I called the HV. They sent someone over from the nursery nurse team and observed our interactions. She then gave me pointers of how to manage the behaviour.

How is you DC speech? I'm wondering if she's having tantrums because she's not understood. Improving emotional iteracy will help. So reading lots of books about feelings and naming her feelings for her.

I see you don't want to leave the park. I know it's very disappointing when you have to stop playing. Shall we come againg tomorrow.

When does she normally have tantrums? Is there a trigger?

I’m concerned about this. He is stressed and pissed off and rather than owning it and acknowledging it, he is putting it onto a 10 year old child for laughing. I’m concerned that he doesn’t have the self control to stop himself from pushing her and swearing at them.
I’m also concerned that you seem to have ‘softened’ his actions from the original post to later posts. This makes me think that you are feeling uncomfortable and this is leading you to changing the narrative to persuade yourself you don’t need to be worried.
He needs to own his feelings and own what he did and have a plan in place for what he will do next time. There needs to be no deflecting onto your girls for laughing; it was not their fault.

The girls took their cue from you - you said you were, initially at least, both laughing at the baby's behaviour. That confirmed to them that it was OK to laugh - and they did not realise that it became not OK the longer it went on - and especially not when your husband got scratched.

Your husband shouldn't have shouted and sworn but I can understand that he was at the end of his tether with it all. Pushing one of the girls near the stairs is definitely not OK though.

I am not sure how to deal with tantrums. I always used to get annoyed and shout but probably that's not a good way to deal with it. Shouting or laughing will probably not help. Perhaps trying to stay calm and talking quietly might be more effective - but it's easier said than done!

I'm not hearing anything about your tiny one and what will help her? Angry at baby as well as daughters?

Most toddlers are unable to express themselves, that's why they call it the terrible twos, the way you're handling it is not great and it's making the situation worst.

Toddlers and tantrums can drive you insane. As you know you can't reason with them while in tantrum mode. You said she's a good speaker so I would wait until you playing with her with toys and talk about her screaming. Tell her if she's upset she has to tell you what is upsetting her as you can't make things better if she won't tell you and when she's screaming you can't understand what she says.
There's no need to bath her every night, a quick wash down is fine some nights especially if bathing sparks a tantrum. Maybe bath before dinner when she's not so tired, take her doll into bath and get her to wash its hair.
Another thing you could do is make a list of house rules of what you expect from children,involve the older girls. Like being nice,sharing, telling mum or dad when feeling upset, having a bath without being upset as we all have to be clean,etc.
Hope this helps. I have two children and 5 grandchildren who stay often. My youngest grandchild can have crying fits for not much reason and when that happens we just have to leave him until he stops and believe me that goes against every fibre of my body as I just want to cuddle him. But he comes out it in his own time and then forgets it.
I think your husband was just so frustrated and everyone can do something out of character, it's not as if he slapped them. I come from the generation who were smacked and smacked our children. I absolutely do not agree with it and so glad it's not acceptable now. You sound like a lovely mum and these tantrums will soon disappear just hang in there.

As others on the thread have pointed out, she's not a baby.

I don’t think you should be angry with your husband. Are you sure that isn’t projected anger from the situation? Of course he shouldn’t have sworn at your daughter, but it was the stress of the situation. There is no perfect parent, we all do things we regret at times and should then sit down with the child acknowledge that and apologise. As others have said, you’re older two have been taking their lead from you and your DH. Time to sit and discuss management of the situation together as a family. Please don’t exclude your DH from disciplining your your older two. As you say, he didn’t assault your daughter. You are a family. All in this together.

There was a school
of thought in the nineties that this was the way to treat tantrums. Never agreed with it myself but know people who did.
Try to have a consistent approach to this. If it is a laughing matter then all of you should be able to laugh. If it’s not then none of you should be laughing.
As for the tantrums themselves ignoring them as much as possible is a good idea so go about your ordinary business while child has the tantrum and don’t focus on it. Certainly try not to let the child know that it is upsetting you. The child needs to know you are the strong one and however strong her emotions she is not going to break you. Another suggestion would be the naughty step. 2 and a half isn’t too young to start this regime where a badly behaved child is put in a naughty step, or stool or whatever and left there for a set amount of time to calm down. I never used it myself but my daughter has had some success with it with my grandsons. Above all stay calm.

With my kids when tantrumming, I quite often sat down, stated clearly what had to happen (that had caused the tantrum), put my arms out and said "Would you like a cuddle?" Nine times out of 10 they came straight in for a cuddle. I cuddled until they calmed down and then explained in age appropriate language why whatever the issue was had to happen. Usually followed by "After that is done would you like to ....." something they enjoyed like colouring playing a game. And I always pointed out that a tantrum didnt really make any of us feel better.

It worked with my grandchildren too.

Definitely no LTB from me, sounds like you were both just highly stressed and at the end of your tolerances and your older children were not being helpful, they are old enough to know better if they've been told before and that in itself is probably highly frustrating. Yes he swore which is not on, and a firm hand directing them away from the tantrum towards their room is very far removed from a physical slap, tap or other sort of physical admonishment. I would try not to make him feel too bad about what's already happened as it does make it an "us and you" situation when you need to pull together as a team. Just focus on what you will do next time as this will inevitably happen again. I've been there so many times with my daughter and it's really hard to keep your cool especially when you're both in the thick of it.

I don't understand why you would all be laughing at this child's upset. Laughing at her will make it worse and it's belittling her. Children of this age cannot regulate and you are making it worse and making this happen . If you walked away and left her to it she wouldn't have an audience and the tantrum would stop. It is you , your husband and the two older children that are causing the younger one distress. As adults regardless of who is soft or the disciplinarian you have a responsibility to all the children . Also the older children will need telling off sometimes and as they get older teenagers surely when they are backchatting and not following instructions by any adult, as they will, they will need telling off . If you don't let your husband do this in the right way of course they will play one off against the other and you will have more problems.

Just speak to the girls and explain husband was stressed and didn't mean to swear at them but move on you can't turn the clock back .