Cancelling a day out due to misbehaviour.

[survivalinsufficient]

Unsure who is being unreasonable here.

Family day out is planned to a country house type place. Grandparents, Uncle&Aunt, parents and their 3.5 year old all going. Plan is to meet at parents house and go from there (all couples in their own cars).

When grandparents arrive, 3.5 throws a full mug of tea all over his grandads legs/feet. Just completely random, but a real pattern of behaviour here that parents are trying to work on with their child. It hurts Grandad, tea all over carpet, everyone a bit upset. Both parents are a bit stressed.

Child refuses to apologise for bad behaviour. One parent then decided that they are not going on the day out. Working on consequences of actions with child at the moment - bad behaviour, no apology, day out with family cancelled.

Grandparents and Uncle&Aunt don’t undermine parents and although are sad they go on their way to the day out. When they’ve left - other parent goes mad. Thinks it’s complete overreaction, thinks won’t impact child’s behaviour, ruined a day out for the whole family over what they consider a small incident.

Now caused massive disagreement within the family. Who was in the right? Was this an overreaction?

Just write what you think and mean. It's obvious who's who, but awkward and annoying to read, to the point that it's difficult to care either way.

I’m afraid you have hugely overreacted, and I have a nearly 4 year old in this phase. I assume it was obvious no one was happy with the behaviour, the consequence should have been immediate (take the child out of the room), then once everyone is calm a little chat about how this could have really hurt granddad if the tea was hot and how we don’t hurt people.

At this age they are really not doing it to annoy you, there are plenty of good books on toddler psychology explaining why.

Absolutely ridiculous consequence for a 3 year old.

My ds (exactly the same age) threw the last toilet paper in the bath !!! I was angry as planned to go shopping tomorrow not tonight he did apologised and we had to go to Aldi soon after bath time. He will deffo do it again though too young for consequences

Apologise

The part of the brain that deals with foreseeing consequence and willpower etc isn't fully developed until around 21 years old, one of the last parts to fully mature, so you can imagine how underdeveloped it is at 3.5 years old. I think your expectations are a bit bigger than they should be. oh here we go. Hardly surprising that we’re raising a generation of spoiled brats if there shouldn’t be consequences for their behaviour.

at almost 4 he is old enough to know throwing and smashing things is wrong. In 6 months time he’ll be at school, and that kind of behaviour won’t be tolerated.

I just can’t imagine having immediately following that scene taking child on a lovely family day out where he’ll be spoiled rotten.

To me that’s just such an obvious lesson that bad behaviour gets rewarded, or at least has no impact on their day beyond having to say sorry. I think my child is old enough and cognitive enough to understand this, and as I said at bed time they made that link themselves and spoke about future behaviour

My husband comes from a family that were in general more laid back about behaviour than mine, so we are no aligned on the standard of behaviour we should and can expect from our child.

This is exactly how I feel.

You seem to have a very black and white view and your expectations are not realistic. As someone said above there’s a big difference between knowing its wrong, understanding why its wrong and being able to control the behaviour.

was it your parents or your partners? If your partners then you have massively over stepped and im not surprised they are furious.

Oh sorry no - my parents. My sister.

Although I would have done the exact same thing if it had been my in laws.

You overreacted. You could have had a quick chat about why it was wrong etc and had the day out. Saying your child is bright means nothing, he’s still 3.5

You are still massively expecting too much for a near 4 year old. Yiu are making them a teenager

but you made a unilateral decision and didn’t consult and it affected everyone and you are still doubling down

I feel sympathy for both of you, as I do feel you overreacted but I also know what it’s like to feel so appalled by the creative ways our children have of driving us insane that we have to MAKE IT STOP! I also think it’s likely that you, like many of us, were raised in a way that used a lot of shame to control our behaviour, and so our responses to things like this can be from a very triggered place of our own early experiences.

I agree with others that this stuff is normal and while your boy is bright and knows he shouldn’t do that, the impulse control required to stop himself throwing when he felt the need (why did he? Was there anger at grandad or more likely just a curious thing?) is not there at that age. Plus apologising with remorse- I think my 6yr old is only just getting her head round that. Again, being told off and forced to apologise in the immediate aftermath of an incident where all the adults are upset, probably feels quite shaming and in order to have any sense of power, he digs his heels in. Not pathological but immature.

I’m not sure what consequence I’d give for that, I agree there should be something, certainly making him help clean up the mess. And I’d expect him to apologise but perhaps a bit later when he’s more regulated. One thing between DH and I is we’d never give a consequence that was going to negatively affect the other, without discussing first. Like DH wouldn’t stop tv time when I’m the one looking after them and need them occupied for half an hr while I do a job etc. In future take a moment to have a word before issuing auch a nuclear option.

So you would gave cancelled a day out with your partners family without giving your partner any say in the matter? You need to work as a team with your partner and be more realistic about what your child can do. If your child does have some kind of underlying problem, you wont solve it with over the top punishments

I think it was a badly chosen consequence. It impacted several other people, so not a fair thing to choose. Something like not getting a promised treat at the day out would be more appropriate - or anything similar that only impacted the child.

Going out for the day would also help the child run off some excess energy!

I think op, in this instance you need to step back from this a little in order to protect your relationship with your partner as well as with your child.

Obviously your partner has backed you in public and seems loyal to you in that respect from the little we know of them, but it sounds from what you're saying, that you maybe sometimes feel you know best and will act accordingly but doesn't that kind of shut down your co-parent when you're meant to be doing this together? If everyone around you is unanimously telling you this is OK and it's part of the journey of raising toddlers (and I do get it I'm in the thick of it too and it's a lot) then it's maybe worth considering why are you finding it so hard to accept? Were you raised in a strict way? I think you need to be really careful you don't place too much pressure on your child to be perfect because how we act when our kids make mistakes is the crux of our parenting and is the deciding factor in whether or not they are open and come to us if they're in trouble later.

Your child may be very bright and I'm sure they are as you seem like a very invested and caring parent, but there's a big difference in being bright for their age and in physical brain development. What you're expecting is behaviour that comes from a physical part of the brain that your child's body won't have fully created yet.

Plus, when you look at the behaviour itself and the circumstances, is it possible your child got over excited/overwhelmed seeing all these people they like to see all together in a new exciting place with lots of things happening? Kids will lash out when they feel those feelings and don't know how to handle them. Small consequences, trying to understand the why behind the behaviour and giving alternatives (eg we don't throw things but if your body feels really excited you can jump up and down lots instead or run in a circle let's practice) and being consistent with it will help.

Noone at any point suggested no consequences. Just that this was an excessive consequence.

I think you are expecting a degree of emotional regulation from a 3 year old that is unreasonable. Hes barely out of toddler stage. You brought him into a busy house of relatives, all full of anticipation and pressure. Was he in a bad mood?
You dont have to be inflexible and strict to have a well behaved child. Hopefully you want him to learn how to calm down and be polite in these situations, not just be scared of getting in trouble for getting angry.
You think your kid has problem behaviour for throwing a cup at 3yrs old, but look at your overreaction to it and how your behaviour has punished a lot more people, and now everyone is fighting.

I agree with this and with Parent A. If the child had apologized I would have let him go on the day out. The fact he refused to despite knowing he is in the wrong is the worst bit. Why does he then deserve fun time?
and I fail to see the fuss about the impact on the rest of the group who still got to go, just without a naughty pre schooler in a bad mood among them

Everyone saying you’re expecting too much from a 3 (nearly4!) year old-think expecting a child of this age to not throw drinks at someone is a pretty low bar?!
I’m with you OP, I would have spoken to DC first obviously but if they are absolutely refusing to apologise can see how you would end up having to cancel activity. I also think it’s a totally natural consequence that if you have treated someone unkindly (and haven’t made it right by apologising) then you won’t be able to have this nice planned time with them.

Complete overreaction on your part and you’re setting yourself up for years of battles over behaviour. Of course there should have been some consequence for the behaviour but cancelling the whole day out is a step too far.

I would have done the same. If either of mine at that age had thrown a mug at someone, they would not have gone on a day out.

I am appalled by some of these posts. DS 2 when about 4 kicked out in anger in a restaurant and kicked my DSM. I pulled his chair back, grabbed him, and took him out to the car. We sat there for about thirty minutes while we had a ‘discussion’. I took him back in when he had calmed down to apologise.

If we had been out near our home I would have driven him home.

Much to mull over here, thank you.

I am a strict parent, I always knew I would be. I have very high standards of behaviour for everyone in my life (my Mum says I used to tut at other children!) and I do not want to raise a poorly behaved child. I hate the bastardisation of gentle parenting, it drives me insane the way some people I know talk to their children. I think children should have rules and consequences and be told off when they misbehave. I also do want my child to say “sorry” when they hurt someone, even if they don’t feel remorse yet. That’s polite, to me. Same as I taught him to say please and thank you before he even knew why he was saying them.

I also don’t really care about “spoiling” the day out for other people, my job isn’t to parent them and I know full well they had a nice day, not really much harm done.

I will however ruminate on some of this. I don’t want to needlessly be harsh if there is a better way of making sure bad behaviour doesn’t feel rewarded.

And I’m relieved to see some people agreeing with me, I don’t think I’m a Victorian monster parent!

Stupid consequence for a child of 3.5, I doubt they gave a damn about the day out with family tbf.