To have grabbed phone off DD and shouted at DH

[GrilledPrawn]

Teen DD has had plenty of warning/time/reminders to get homework done.

DH works 6 til 9, does very, very little support with our two children.
I’d already helped DD/DS with assignments. Put DS to bed. DD had started on her last assignment of two. DH arrived home, and I thought he’d help her finish off if needed.

i got ready for bed, but at 10 could still hear her downstairs crying. DH is just watching TV.
I went down to help. She finished and I told her to then go to bed.
She didn’t.

10.30 so now I’m insisting she goes to bed, but she wants to print something off.

I insist that we do it in the morning.
DD refuses, shouts at me - and now DH decides to join in and tries to get the printer working, but it’s not responding. I know I can do the printing from my phone in the morning.
This makes things worse as it’s undermining my stance and now DD is siding with DH.

I shout at them both and insist that DD goes to bed.
She goes - shouting at me.
I then check 15 mins later, and she’s in her room on her phone.

So I take it but need to grab it out her hand as she refuses.
DH then joins in (to undermine me) and I just shout at him to leave it.

DD wants her phone back, but I’m keeping it until sleep and then apologies in the morning.
DH is really pissing me off. He had the chance to help her, but didn’t. And then when he did decide to get involved he just made things worse.

Why is asking why one lets oneself get into a situation pointless?
Granted, it is what it is now

A lot of teens need help with their homework. Not doing it, maybe just explaining what something means. Do you would let your teen sob because they didn’t understand a maths question for example, and still wouldn’t help them?

Id probably take a huge step back with dd and her homework, she is a teenager so needs to take responsibility for herself. A few reminders is fine but if she doesn’t complete the work, that’s on her. You could make it clear that you will support her if she needs help but not last minute and not at 1030pm at night, which is just ridiculous. Last night sounds chaotic and unnecessarily confrontational.

Christ, none of this is worth it, not his absurdly long hours, not the child's tears at homework demands nor your stress about it all. You guys need to take a breather and figure out some priorities. This is not one person's ills, this is a family situation that you all need to examine and repair to a point whereby everyone is on the same page. It's only life.

When do dd and dh get to relax? 😳 It all seems very intense and dd sounds like she’s doing homework all evening! That’s ridiculous. Everyone needs time to relax.

You need to stop shouting and also let your DD face the natural consequences of her actions. Personally I would have let her go on her phone for ten minutes to decompress after all the shouting as I couldn't have switched off and slept otherwise.

Reminding her is fine. Offering help at a sensible time is good, but after that if it isn't done it isn't done and she will have to deal with it.

I do think you need to apologise for shouting and escalating everything though tbh.

YABU . Shouting and grabbing are unacceptable here. Sending her to bed with it hanging over her is hardly likely to lead to a good night sleep.

I would have sorted the printer and let the upset and tiredness be the natural consequence of her action. Then in a few days ask how she is managing her workload.

I have a teen and it's tricky but I don't agree with shouting nor grabbing.

Why was DD crying?

@Notamum12345577
a) I would have no clue about how to answer a maths question from my children’s curriculum after year 5
b) over dramatising, “sobbing” over a homework question especially homework they’ve had plenty of time to complete would get extremely short shrift from me I’m afraid.
Maybe we have different parenting styles.

DS did get frustrated with his maths homework last week. I told him to ask ChatGPT. He did, got the concept and completed the homework. Kids homework is just not on my radar as something that’s my problem!

If DH works 6-9 then he's physically not there for most of the the time that two teen/tween(?) children will need support after school.

I'm not sure how old DD is, but crying over homework makes her sound like a younger teen. So you (both) probably need better boundaries that you stick to.

If you could print off your phone in the morning, why didn't you just do it then and there (or suggest DD printed at school) rather than all this shouting over printers? The situation is clearly not ideal, but the aim should have been to just get DD off to bed, a solution for the homework identified, and a strict conversation (tomorrow) about not leaving things to the last minute.

I don't think homework is worth this.

Not at the expense of negativity, angst, arguments, crying, exhaustion.

And for what? Possibly an 8 instead of a 7. And I don't think any research supports that it does. So what?

If it's a 4 instead of a 3, then yes, but otherwise - simply not worth it.

That's different, though. Helping when asked for help is not the same as micro-managing homework. Many times, when homework is questioned, we are being told that it is assigned to get children prepped for doing independent learning. It's not independent if it needs prompting and monitoring from parents.
Children are responsible for their homework. Parents are there to provide support if a child asks for help. You can't spend years micro-managing every task your child does and then pull your hair out when they still ask you where their socks are at the age of 30.

Your daughter is a teenager. Surely she's too old for you and/or DH to be supervising her homework? A teenager should just be getting on with it, not needing help or supervision. And I don't really understand why it was a problem for her to print something out at 10.30pm.

Your H is a joke. Why the fuck is he working three hours a day and doing nothing to help with his family, children and home? What a failure.

I think OP meant 6am to 9pm, so he’s out 15 hours a day, not 3…

Is he really working all those hours?

15 hours, not 3. He is working far too many hours a day

You also had a chance to do something and you didn't, you could have printed it from your phone at the time and saved her the anxiety. You could also have planned it so she started her homework earlier instead of leaving it until the last minute.

Yes. And she also suggests this is because of his lack of organisation, not that his job actually requires a 15-hour day.

I’ve said this on here before, but I had a colleague and friend who did exactly the same job as me, but did appear to be in the workplace for much longer hours, and apparently often went in on one if not two days at weekends.

I never gave it much thought until I met his wife, and noticed she was asking me a lot of questions about my job. It was only afterwards I realised that he’d been telling her the job needed incredibly long office days and extra work at weekends and she’d only realised when talking to me that I did exactly the same role during ordinary office hours and WFH at least one day a week.

And no, he wasn’t having an affair, he was just avoiding parenting his kids, taking them to sports, supervising homework, the gruntwork of being at home. When his wife divorced him, it was ‘too much pressure’ to have the children for more than a few hours at a time, and magically, once he had his own place, he worked far shorter hours and sat at home in his pants gaming at weekends.

i suspect this is what’s going on here.

You escalated this.
Your husband is an issue but works a long day I'm not surprised he needs down time.
DD needs support managing her time to learn the skills for future because she also needs downtime.

Apologise to her when she gets home and sit downn with her with a tea and some biscuits IE a nice relaxed environment. Say you were sorry for shouting at her but it was late and you felt X, Y, Z and obviously the current routine isn't working for any of you and that must have made her stressed and unhappy (hopefully you'll get an apology here). Talk to her and ask her what she thinks is fair and what barriers she has to getting homework done. She might suprise you with her self awareness. Buy one of those phone prisons so she can have control and put her phone in it for an hour or whatever suits her to keep her focussed. Does she want to come home have a snack and drink and crack on? Does she prefer a break between school and home before she starts it? Does she have the correct resources available to her?

He can't get near 50% because he's not there 50% of the waking hours. It's simple maths.

I don't understand this. All my dc just do their own homework. If you are having to intervene like this regularly then I think they probably need more support from school which is being masked by this much help at home.

Yes that’s why I said he’s “out” 15 hours a day, not working 15 hours a day.

I worked with someone very similar, except they didn’t have kids. He worked extremely long hours just to avoid going home to his wife, it was obvious he didn’t like her that much. I always wondered if they still together or finally split.

TBH DH has never really helped with the children. From birth. He’s always chosen work over being with them.

I think you should prioritise your children and leave him. He isn't present anyway, but at least if he isn't living with you all there will be no repeated hurt. The effect of a non present parent who actually lives with you is really bad.

Interesting how people are defending his need for downtime, yet OP is expected to step up all of the rime - I'm not saying OP was in the right last night but I can see that her need to manage things comes from a place of wanting him to have some sort of involvement with his children.

Because yes, it is done now, and nothing the OP can do can reverse time to alter it. It also focusses blame on her rather than her husband, who, despite whatever shortsighted (and likely hopeful) decisions OP (and HE!) has made, should be showing up for his wife and family no matter what.