DS escalating consequences given by DH

[ThaQuilomum]

Sorry this will be long.

DS age 15 is smart, kind and funny but too into screens. Does very well at school but needs to be told to study and sat on. His phone is controlled by us by Quostodio app so it is limited to approximately 2 to 3 hours per day. He is allowed to game at the weekend for 3 hours ish although it is often longer. If he was let, he would stay on screens all day long. During the summer, he can game some evenings also. He has a few jobs he does. Usually has to be reminded: feed the dog, walk the dog, empty the dishwasher. In July he was involved in gym project in the garage with the whole family - clearing out the garage, painting it and putting new gym equipment together. His best friend is abroad at the moment on an exchange. He looks forward to gaming with him in the evenings as there is a time difference. He socialises mainly online.

It is hard to get ds off Gaming. He recently started playing Rainbow Six Siege Where once you start playing you get peanlties and rank can be affected. But if given a warning to turn off once game is over he will come off. This can legitimately be in 30 mins though once the game finishes often the first team to reach 5. So in theory could be up to 9 rounds.

Dh and I had both previously agreed to give DS a fair warning to wrap up gaming sessions. But last night DH demanded he turn off the console instantly while ds was in the middle of a live match. Dh said it was in the loading screen. Ds said it was actually started.

The Escalation: Expecting an immediate shutdown within seconds I feel set ds up for instant failure. When he didn't comply instantly, dh stayed in the room giving out til the match was over. I was in bed having spent evening ferrying dd to activity and asked him to get ds off the game following what i know needs to be done in order to get ds off and over the high and dopamine hit of the game.

I woke to it conpletley escalated. Dh saying he was losing 45 minutes of gaming tomorrow. This went to no gaming tomorrow, to uninstalling the game and to taking the pc out of the house altgoether. Dh definitely eacalated things. Did not hold his boundary calmly. Said ds was harrassing and judging him ('what do you do all day' kind of comments from ds). He pointed out that dh spends hours and hours every day on his phone. Dh was shouting and in his face and ds was saying he was a bully and treats the girls differently and does not give the girls such punishments.

i tired to intervene and calm the situation down. There was no calming dh down who was getting bedroom keys to lock ds in and telling me to f off and slamming doors. Eventually dh locked himself in the sittingroom downstairs and went to sleep while I comforted ds and he cried himself to sleep.

I woke up to ds telling me dh had removed all his time from his phone which i feel is vindictive. Dh says he doesn't respect him and answers him back the whole time. Last night ds was cursing at dh which is extremely rare for him and he was so dysregulated I can see why although it is not right and it needs to be addressed in a calm way after the fact.

10 year old dd was awake during it and recognised the overreaction and stepped in to tell dh he was going too far. He shouted at her that she had no scream time tomorrow.

he is now not talking to me and dh I think. Seems to be talking to dds. How he is not ashamed of himself and reflecting on this is beyond me..

This happens about twice a month always with ds and I end up trying to support a reasonable consequence and have tried on calm days to explain to dh that he is 15 with a developing brain and his push back is normal teenage behaviour and he is actually a very sweet lovely boy. What would you do in this scenario. It is a constant source of conflict between us and tbh I make no apologies standing up for ds because I think the behaviour is so unfair. I just want consequences to be porportionate. I actually feel ds did nothing wrong initially and then lost it completely and didnt shower himself in glory. But how does dh align all that with thr fact he lost his shit and behaved really badly. Aibu to expect dh to be able to regulate himself and deal calmly with his son. He is a gamer himself which I think makes it worse he doesn't understand.

This is all really disturbing IMO. Why on earth was your husband going to lock his 15 year old son in his room? Imagine if there was a fire.

What are you with this arse? I feel so sorry for your kids having to put up with this control freak.

Your husband sounds like a complete control freak. What is it with locking your son in his room and then locking himself in the living room. Jesus I’ve never heard anything so mad. It’s the summer, his screen time will be higher, his friend is abroad and this is his method of communication. He does well at school, helps around the house……he shouldn’t be living in a dictatorship

I have a 15 year old lad who sounds very similar. No trouble at all, does well in school, does help at home if asked, has to be reminded to do his chores and study- but does it. Games a lot!

Your husband sounds controlling and emotionally abusive, to be honest.

The gaming is pretty normal for teenager boys these days. I also have a teenage girl and she goes out with friends a lot, whereas my son does more socialising online.

Your husband needs to realise how dead embarrassing it’s going to be for your DS to be cut off in the middle of a game as well. My parents used to do it to me on MSN messenger back in the day and it was social suicide.

The locking in the bedroom concerned me as well, but I know you have explained now. But even the threat to do that… it’s still ringing alarm bells for me. Yes children are children but they are their own people as well. 15 year olds especially should be allowed to make some of their own choices. It wouldn’t be acceptable to lock an adult in a room, so why is it okay to do this to a child. My husband would be gone, personally.

Screaming and shouting in a child’s face… people don’t treat animals this way!

My advice. Let your 15 year old be a 15 year old. Get rid of the husband… he’s abusive to yourself and the children. Your son will remember this when he is older.

I don't think he does sound addicted. It wasn't that the son was prioritising the levels, it's that there's no time limit on a game so you can't say to play for X amount of time. Once you are in the game, you literally cannot just leave as you will be sort of blacklisted by Playstation as a flaky player and no longer allowed to join this level of online gaming - thus the son would be excluded by Playstation and could not play in the same games / level with his friends online. It is very very different from wanting to read another chapter (I am a reader NOT a gamer). It's the way Playstation etc set it up to have similar types of players playing in games. It also works that those with a higher score get to play only with gamers of that ability. So not as simple as just turning off.

OP - I agree you need to speak to DH calmly and make a plan for how he is going to manage his own behavious going forward. He may need external help. The part about locking the doors is disturbing.

The father has done nothing to deserve respect.
It's not a given.
The 15 year old sounds like a nice well-behaved teenager who helps in the house and is doing well in school. He has more boundaries than most boys his age
The father is being abusive, inconsistent and by locking him in the bedroom possibly acting dangerously

you have a dh problem.
honestly he is the one who needs to get a grip.
i wouldnt want my kids round someone like him. he sounds potentially violent if he snaps.

all his locking people in rooms crap. just no. it’s a fire hazard.

if he cannot handle himself he has no place around children.

This is a very poor understanding of an abusive situation...my father beat my mother as children we cried out in panic and tried to stop it...it has absolutely nothing to do with comparative size and quiet silent fear to mean someone is truly abusive 🤦‍♀️

People can be brave in the face of abuse especially protecting others

You both are wayyyy too strict with him! Poor boy must feel totally suffocated! If you’re not VERY careful, he’ll grow to hate you both and when he leaves , he won’t visit and if he has children you might not able to see them. I’ve seen it happen before. . I have three adult DC , 2 boys and they gamed like crazy. They’re successful lovely young men and we see them a lot. Pick your battles.

The first thing I would do is remove the keys from the house. Imagine if you were out when this happened and DH had locked him in.

My opinion is that a 15 year old would be given an end time for gaming rather than a screen time limit, encourage him to manage this time on his own and step in where needed. DS would need a consequence for the swearing, but an apology from DH for the rest. I wouldn’t put a limit on his phone either, but I would suggest it was left downstairs at bedtime. He is soon to be an adult so there needs to be a transition period, not just treating him like a child then expecting him to be an adult.

Is your marriage happy? I never feel I need to intervene with DH, and the fact DD felt they had to also step in flags a problem to me with your husbands behaviour. I’m a strong believer of history repeating itself so if your children grow up in that environment they will find themself in similar as adults or be the one to create it.

I don't. Could you do me a favour and read all the replies if you're going to contribute.

Or just give your son a 20 minute warning. ‘Times up DS, if you’re not finished in 20mins you’ll have to just turn it off.’ No escalation, not screaming, clear instruction. If they ignore and start a new game just turn the WiFi off and say sorry but you were warned. Dont need to scream in anyone’s face or tell your wife to fuck it. Or stop your son doing normal things like gaming if that’s their interest just so they do as they’re told as and when you demand it.

Such a good and important list of questions.

the gaming is a red herring here - the husband is abusive and trying to LOCK the son in his room. Totally awful.

100% my dad was awful to my brothers (stepdad to them) didn’t so much as raise his voice to me and I felt confident to be able to step in to calm my dad down as I knew i wouldn’t get the brunt of his anger.

I remember my brother left me alone while he should have been babysitting me. My dad came home early and when my brother turned up he pinned him to the wall. He wasn’t normally violent but he was this time. I intervened and he stopped and said ‘you’re lucky she’s here’. My brothers had very different childhoods to me.

Hi.

Not a familiar dynamic for me. First time attempted to lock the bedroom door. This kind of blow up happens on average 1 to 3 times a month. Usually involves ds. I usually step in when he escalates to these levels. Normally tells me to f off yes. Slams doors. Punched a wall once. Broke a hairbrush once my slamming it so hard on a dressing table. Sometimes cools down the next day and apologises. Always silent treatment for a while.

This is abuse. Please make a plan to safely leave this marriage for your and your kids’ safety and happiness.

OP what you’re describing in recognises abusive behaviours. The violence my not be physical but it is intimidation and silent treatment is abusive too. Your son is getting the brunt of it. I think you need to wait until he’s calm and tell him he needs to get help or else he needs to leave to protect your son

Jesus Christ.

At what point do you say enough?

DH is a control freak and I feel so sorry for your poor son 💔

Your son is literally being scarred by his dad emotional abuse and is going to carry these for the rest of his life.

Unfortunately, you sticking up for DS is going to cause DH to be more controlling (but don’t stop)

Can you seriously not see how insane it is that DH was going to lock DS in his bedroom??

Has DH ever been controlling/aggressive towards you?

Domestic abuse does not begin and end with violence.

Flip the question the other way - how often do you and your children find yourselves tiptoeing around him to avoid him blowing up like this?

you have a massive DH problem as others have said

he shouts and gets angry but then punishes your son for the same behaviour? Your 10 year old was so scared she tried to intervene - that’s the key warning here that your DH is out of control

This is chilling. He blows up almost every week? I think you’re under-reacting to the wider issue, OP. Please don’t normalise his explosive anger. None of you should have to live like this, presumably on eggshells in between?

In fact, there’s a recognised mental disorder around this:https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/intermittent-explosive-disorder/symptoms-causes/syc-20373921

Disgusting behaviour from your husband. Your poor son, he doesn't deserve that. I imagine once he's old enough (possibly in a year) he'll leave home and not speak to his dad much. He might not even speak to you unless you do something about it now.

And this is nothing to do with ADHD - your husband is an abusive bully.

OP your husband is abusive. To you and son and I imagine, if they ever refuse to do his bidding, to daughters too one day.

This is probably going to sound weird because it's not what people do, but it's what I'd do if finances allowed (and I'd change my job or raise my hours if that would make finances allow it). Because even divorce takes time and many people simply won't get divorced from their abusive partners for whatever reason.

I'd rent/buy a one bedroom/studio flat and tell nobody. Decorate it for yourself so it's clear it's your space. Basic furniture, single bed, small fridge, microwave, key meters for gas and electric.
Nothing too cozy or teen friendly, no games consoles or much storage, maybe no washing machine, cooker or TV. Just somewhere to go to decompress, rather than somewhere any of them is going to want to take over or move into (because everyone needs to share it and there'll only be one bed) or feel like they can throw a typical teenage party or bring partners back to. They sound like pretty sensible kids who you could trust to respect the place in their late teens.

When each child turns 16 I'd give them a set of keys and tell them they can share it with you so long as they keep the secret of it's existence, but that they'll need a part time job so they can contribute to gas and electric. It will give them all space to breathe, to be themselves, act like adults keeping the place clean and paying the utilities, and give some respite from their dad's moods.

Because unless you divorce and husband moves out immediately, I can see DS leaving home ASAP and not returning. I wouldn't blame him either.

You've allowed a situation to develop whereby his social life is online, through gaming. So banning gaming (the only other solution I can think of, other than divorce) and insisting DS picks another hobby is both hypocritical, if his dad is a gamer himself, and also unrealistic in terms of maintaining a relationship with DS, because at 15 he'd resent you for destroying his social life and might never forgive you.

But this happens every two weeks. You’ve previously said your dh needs to address this behaviour through cancelling. And yet you’re all still there, accepting this is normal. You are standing by. Nothing has changed as a result.

Almost every week he explodes with rage. That’s awful.