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?

I feel sorry for the 2 year old in all this mess - being disciplined for not sharing sweets? How did you manage with the tantrums with your older children? Toddlers have tantrums - they are still babies and you should be gentle and help them with big emotions - not laugh at them, that’s just cruel.

You can discuss the tantrums afterwards. In the moment, there's no point trying to reason with a toddler. Work out what works for them. It sounds like you've tried the "being present" approach and that isn't working. So try removing her.

Since when are 10 and 12 year olds large children?
As for pushing them for laughing at something that your laughing at, it's good to know that you think assaulting children for copying your stress reactions ok, I hope you tell people who's kids your around this because I doubt that any decent parents will want you near there kids. Me I'd have you arrested for assaulting my kids

Thankyou everyone. As usual posts end up going down so many different routes. I don't even know what I need to take from here. I really appreciate the genuine responses from posters who are actively trying to help through their replies. I appreciate you.

You and your husband laugh at the toddlers tantrums. Why should the older children NOT laugh?

Why are they disciplined for doing what the adults do?

Make a "tantrum safe space" for the toddler and immediately she starts tantrumming take her there

One adult stays with her. Not speaking or touching. Just waiting.

Rinse and repeat

Do not laugh or interact until tantrum is over

Husband should apologise to your daughter/s for swearing and pushing/physically instructing and for being angry about THEM laughing because its what HE does

Watch out for ANY signs that this happens again

If it does - get rid of him

I think you are overreacting and focussing on the wrong thing.

Laughing at a child having a tantrum is not going to help with the tantrum.

He was physically hurt in the midst of a tantrum and overreacted in the moment. As a one off, I don’t see the big deal. Sit him down with the elder girls and he can apologise and explain.

But don’t make him public enemy of the house over this.

There is a huge internal pressure from within the parent of a child exhibiting this behaviour to try and be outwardly calm and controlled whilst managing the situation.

It induces a huge stress response when you are faced with these extreme emotions and it's very distressing for a parent to see their child so visibly upset. Particularly when you know what's best for them at the time (I.e. get quickly.through bathtime etc so an exhausted child can go to bed).

It's very challenging to deal with as a consequence.

It's fairly easy to see how a parent might try to "stay in control" themselves by going a bit too far in trying to internally minimise their own reaction and that of the other adults around them by "laughing it off". Just as some parents might not manage to control themselves at all, in which case the best choice is to make the child safe and remove yourself from the situation temporarily.

Your looking at it from a very basic, black and white point of view and it's not as straightforward as you are implying.

Please please please do not try this!
When your little girl is having a tantrum of this magnitude she is not in control of her emotions or her body. It will be incredibly scary for her, can you imagine her then being picked up and shut in a room all by herself. All she will learn is that she can’t rely on her mummy and daddy to help her and protect her. Because in this moment she needs to know that she is protected. Sit calmly in the room with her while she works it through and she will eventually put her arms out for a hug or ask for one. Immediately give her a hug and for as long as she needs it. Tell her it’s ok, that you love her, ask her if she was feeling sad/angry etc, help her to name the emotions. Don’t give in to whatever the tantrum was over, but help her and support her to be calm.

We dealt with this when our oldest DS was this age, and are dealing with it now with our third child, DD. Our middle child’s “tantrums” were barely worth acknowledging. Just as an aside, frequent tantrums of this scale, lasting this long are often a first sign of ADHD. Our oldest is diagnosed, we didn’t notice other signs until he started school. Our DD is showing similar signs, apart from the epic tantrums. She can’t sit still in her seat at dinner, flits from one game to another etc. We notice it more as our middle child is not this way at all. So is just something we will be keeping an eye on with her.
Just something for you to consider. I also had epic tantrums as a child apparently, and have some ADHD tendencies, although not enough to need to persue a diagnosis.

I think you are being unfair on him. He lost his temper in a stressful situation. It just proves that he too is human and that he has his limits. It might be good for your older girls to also see that about him. I suggest you sit down and talk to them about it and he can apologize for losing his temper, but be doesn't need to be demonized for it. Try to develop a strategy among the four of you for dealing with these situations in future. Maybe the older girls will be able to help and feel less stressed by the situation themselves if you have a plan.

It might be very black and white but the way I see it is there are two older children who see their parents laughing when their toddler has a tantrum so the two other children think it's funny because the parents are laughing, the children do not see it as wrong because of course parents are laughing but then parents are upset because the children are laughing, toddler sees both mum, dad and the children laughing so thinks there's nothing wrong with the behaviour, can you see where this is going?

Re the tantrums, my lo will just calmly lie down wherever and start crying. At home/safe space, I just wait and don’t pay much attention. I don’t entertain the tantrum and if they need to get the emotions out I think that’s okay and they don’t need it to be a show. In public I just stand quietly and wait. It has NEVER lasted more than a minute, maybe two. He gets back up and comes for his cuddles and then I obviously try and help him. If it’s an unsafe space, obviously he gets picked up promptly and held or put in the buggy etc and that’s usually enough
but laughing at someone having a meltdown, least of all your own child is immature, insensitive and nasty.

A few observations from me (from someone who.many years ago had a tantruming toddler). Find a decent book about strategies to deal with it and ensure everyone follows the same strategy. However each tantrum can be dealt with by one parent. Having an audience really doesn't help.

You and you dh need a really good talk about this and I wouldn't be happy with anyone swearing at my child or shoving or pushing them. I'm assuming this is his first experience of parenthood so spell out to him that swearing, physical stuff is that line he cannot cross, regardless of how angry he feels.

I'd also talk and listen properly to your dds. They will be teenagers soon and this could drive a wedge. Don't minimise their feelings because this is also a lot for them to deal with.

OP if the tantrums are normally when LO is tired then the worst thing to do is to make her have her hair washed before bed when she's tired and you know she doesn't like it. You are probably all tired too at the end of the day which isn't going to help. She definitely doesn't need her hair washing every day, just do it a couple of times a week on a Sunday morning and then one morning in the week or earlier in the day. It doesn't have to be done before bed. Make bath time fun with toys and make sure the shampoo doesn't get in her eyes. When it comes to sweets don't expect her to be able to share them yet, just give her what are hers. A 2 year old really shouldn't be having sweets very often, if at all, anyway.

You as parents need to model the behaviour you want. Laughing at tantrums is obviously completely the wrong thing to do, but how can you be surprised or angry that your daughters are doing it? They're copying you. Why do you expect better behaviour from them then you display yourselves?

Your DH swearing and pushing them is completely unacceptable and I hope he can see this and apologies. If he thinks he did nothing wrong then I would be seriously concerned. If he even touches them again then he needs to know he will be out.

My response to you was directly to your comments "Why on earth would you both laugh when your child is acting this way?" and "I really do not know how some people are allowed to become parents."

I'm not suggesting it's desirable behaviour, partly for the reasons you've just articulated.

If that's what happened.

🙄

You talk as a family I think is the way forward

you need to make it clear he was not angry at the two year old (because saying he was angry was wrong) and that laughing at the situation isn’t on
he needs to apologise to them for swearing and for saying what he did - parenting can get the better of all of us but he still should say sorry

they should also say sorry because laughing isn’t nice eithrr

then together come up with boundaries and methods of handling the tantrums

My point was that you should reserve your ire for the OP who has changed her story, not the poster who quoted her.

And it's spelt "love", my petal.

OK, it's not a massive deal. He needs to apologise to your daughter(s) and he needs to understand it's not OK to take out his frustration on them. The pushing was not OK and should never be physical with them in anger.

The girls are old enough to understand that them laughing at a tantrum is not appropriate. But if that is how they see you reacting it's understandable that they did.

Is toddler dd overtired? How is she with water generally - swimming etc? Can you try bathtime in the mornings (or reduce hair wash to a weekend morning when you have time)? Get bathtimes to be a fun thing with loads of toys rather than a battle over getting clean and just spongewipe face, hands, bum...

Has he apologised to the girls? Has he taken them aside and explained, seriously, that you are all under a lot of pressure and that what he did was wrong and he shouldn’t have sworn and he’s very sorry? Have the girls accepted the apology and how do they feel about the situation now? Do you need to broker some kind of conversation to discuss this between you all ideally when toddler is asleep?

I think how everyone reacts and responds to the situation going forward will be a big indicator of what to do next. If husband doubles down and sulks you have a big problem on your hands.

💯 this

Pushing a child in the right direction (and op has been clear it wasn’t a shove) is not assault. I don’t think the police would be very interested in your accusation.
im not going to get into an argument about whether i’m a child abuser. That’s extremely offensive not just to me to also to anyone that’s been assaulted.

What does he think happened and why? This sounds like you trying to solve things, but it was his action that was an issue. A few things to help in the meantime

1. Small children don't need daily baths. If the bedtime routine doesn't work because she is too tired, do something else. Lots of calm cuddles and modeling behaviour. She will learn how to calm down from actions, not words.
2. Older kids have a discussion on how things will change now. We were laughing before, now that stops. No blame or shame needed, just group change.
3. Everyone needs a break at times. Make sure you all have time to unstress.
4. I think you may have higher expectations of a 2 year old than she will be able to achieve. Of course she won't share sweets and will try to grab them if seen. She is tiny and has zero impulse control. Keep redirecting and she will get there.

Her op said he shoced the dd. She has back pedalled since people have said his behaviour was out of order.

Is there a reason you are minimising abuse?

Has he apologised to your DDs especially the one he touched - off his own back?

To be honest though I would find it hard that he laid a hand on her. I couldn’t move past it.

He shouldn’t have acted as he did but discipline in your house sounds like an absolute riot. Why is your 2 year old behaving so badly and the rest of you laughing at her?