Just walked out on kids

[patiencehasgone]

Just that, really.

9 and 12 years old. Constantly fucking bickering.

Do not listened to me when I ask them to stop. Or listen full stop really.

They started arguing over a fucking face towel, so I said ‘nope, not having this be my life’ grabbed my bag and keys, got in my car and have driven round the corner and parked up.

not really sure what I do from here really.

Once, she left the house as a result of their bickering for 20 minutes.

On the back of that, your conceit is that the lesson learned is abandonment when things are hard?

I bet they don't learn their tables that quickly.

No, a little bit older, one was local to me. Just in case it becomes habit forming. I've fallen out with other mums because they see their daughters and sons the same and don't intervene when their son is punching hell out of the girl. There's a lot of posters on here who won't forgive their parents for allowing their brother to bully or assault them. There are 12/13 year old children who have killed adults. I tend to read country wide news.

My health visitor told me if DS was really getting to me I should go and walk round the garden until i calmed down and this was when he was a baby! Surely OP hasn't really done much more than that? I've always been told it's better to leave DS somewhere safe while I calm down than snap and potentially hurt him, I'd assume the same applies to older kids as well. (I live in a flat, the garden is communal so I'd have to go out of my front door and then another door.)

When my 2 boys were like this [ages 10 and 7] they were intensely arguing/fighting in the living room and not listening to a word I said. So I picked up the phone which was in there and made out I'd called a children's home.

I started telling the fictional person on the other end their ages and names and whether they would need pyjamas and some toys etc.

As I continued talking the arguing petered out and I could sense they were still. When I put the phone down and looked round they were sitting on the settee quietly looking at me. I just shouted 'Joke!!]...and followed up with a warning that I'd had enough and that upsetting me had consequences.

I've told people about this and most have laughed, only the ones without kids looked askance. I'm not bothered. It worked. The atmosphere was different afterwards but they got the message.

We still laugh about it now and the 'boys' are now in their 50's with children of their own. They were not permanently damaged and they still seem to like me!

So much judgemental hyperbole. You’re fine OP. Sometimes kids push your buttons and leaving DC of that age for a while to catch your breath is absolutely fine. Children as young as 6 walk to and from school on their own in many European countries while over here people lose their minds if an 11 year is left alone for 30 minutes. And we wonder why young adults lack resilience.

Anyways I wouldn’t take the scolding comments from posters here too seriously. I was warned on another thread that I was abusive, my DD would be mentally scarred and alienated from me for life because….I couldn’t work out how to reinstate her lost Roblox account😂

The whole reason it’s suggested with babies (and is a great idea in that case!) is that babies do not have the awareness that older children have, and there is no reasoning with them. A 9 and 12 year old are aware of the concept of abandonment and can be reasoned with, so disappearing without explanation isn’t the same thing here.

I am absolutely stunned by the number of posters who think this is ok! I’m not talking about you, OP, as it was a “heat of the moment” thing, but not the right thing which I think you think the same. However, other posters who AREN’T experiencing the stress and “end of your tether” thing that you must have felt earlier, think that there’s nothing wrong with it! (And yet, posters are regularly condemned for leaving their dogs at home for a few hours!)
When we were children, my mother often threatened to “pack her bags and leave”. This was in Ireland when separation/divorce wouldn’t have been very common so we wouldn’t have any experience of how that would pan out. In fairness to Mum, she was a full time teacher in a multi-grade classroom (and was an excellent teacher who put huge effort in every day) and had 5 children to deal with also, so I can only imagine how stressed and tired she must have felt at times. Dad was a hands-on dad, who did his fair share of cooking and cleaning every day, so it wasn’t all left to her, but I can imagine it was still stressful. But I remember how upsetting the threat used to be, even though she never did it, obviously, so your children may have been quite anxious this morning when you actually left.
Put it behind you, though, and hopefully they’ll cop themselves on after this. Best of luck!💕

Pmsl you’re correct @Procrastination4. If the same thread had been written about dogs instead of kids they’d have been OUTRAGE 🤦🏼‍♀️

I think the difference here is your use of the word "often" - you say your mother often issued that threat.

Here the OP has just once found she needed to put distance between herself and her bickering children. I don't think one instance is going to prey on their minds or scar them for life.
Maybe if it became a regular thing coupled with threats that she was never coming back it might be different but this just sounds like a one off so it's not the same thing at all.

That’s the kind of advice that’s given by HVs as they are aware that babies are incredibly vulnerable and susceptible to harm if their caregiver is stressed/exhausted/angry. They would always prefer the baby to be safe in their cot while the caregiver takes a walk that stay close to someone who has reached the end of their tether.

i have yet to hear a health visitor recommend a parent takes off in their car because their tweens are arguing. I must have missed that in my parenting course(s).

God, I wish more people would leave their dogs at home! I'm sick of seeing dogs everywhere I go and in places dogs should not be.

And don't get me started on the number of stupid people dragging their dogs out in 30+ degree heat because they haven't trained them well enough to be left at home alone for a couple of hours.

My mum did this Op. I was not scarred for life, in fact for me it barely registered as an event. I think you did the right thing if the alternative was absolutely losing your shit in front of them - far better to step out and the deal with things calmly when you’re back.

I’m less bothered by the OP leaving her kids for half an hour while she drives away as a one off, than I am a load of people online normalising that and congratulating her. That is much more peculiar and I would hate for the OP to get the idea that it’s okay to do that regularly, because it’s not.

You're not showing them how regulate their emotions if you can regulate your own.

What do you do from here? You calm down, turn around, go home and act like an adult.

I don’t think driving off- presumably without telling your children, (do they know you have left or where you are/when you are going to return)- is absolutely fine at all, which some responses seem to imply. It’s not really very fair on them and a sign that things aren’t ok for you.

Equally, I don’t think it is going to irreversibly emotionally scar your children. They will most likely be fine, but there might be unintended consequences for some children. And, if you leave suddenly without telling them/ or just saying “I’m going out” obviously angry with them, but they have no idea where or when you will be back you must acknowledge the risk that they might panic/over-react (e.g. go out looking for you). It’s not great, if we are being honest. I do sympathise with the impulse- mine fought like Cats and dogs at times, it could be exhausting- but I don’t think I can shrug it off as absolutely fine either.

My father did this when I was about 10 years old. I remember it quite clearly- I was upset and really worried, my older brother shrugged it off as Dad being daft. I then became quite anxious about anything which I thought might upset him so tried to keep things to myself if I thought they might anger or upset them. When my parents realised my dad made a sincere apology, explaining that he had been in the wrong for leaving like that but that he did because he was about to lose his temper. He also made clear our behaviour had been pretty awful, but was honest that his response wasn’t fair either. He never did it again (he did sometimes go into the garden for some space). This reassured me and I was ok.

So I guess what impact it has depends on your children/their response and also how you explain what happened.

Going forward, I think you need to work
out why you became so overwhelmed and if there are things you can put in place to support you/changes you need to make to impove things so that you don’t need to do this again.

I don't see the difference actually.
The OP's kids were perfectly old enough to be left alone for all of 30 minutes and far better that than the OP totally losing it in front of them.

Honestly, the sanctimonious nonsense in some of these posts!

It’s okay that we disagree.

Yes it is but your post contained the sarcastic "I must have missed that in my parenting course(s)" line which is what I was referrring to.

I still think removing yourself from a volatile situation when you feel you are going to lose it is far better than staying and losing it. The OP removed herself because it felt like the right thing to do and I don't see it's any different to removing yourself from a crying baby.
The kids in this case are far older so going a bit further and for a bit longer is also fine.

I think the responses would be different if a woman was saying her DP/DH had done this too.

I had my own key from the age of seven, walked myself home from school and spent two hours by myself until a grown up came home

Of course that would have been uncomfortable for the kids. But maybe that will make them think twice before they display this shitty unacceptable behaviour again.
Short sharp shock. Not nice but well needed.
They sound insufferable. I wouldn’t want that to be my life neither.

Children absolutely should be taught that their behaviour can have an impact on other people's feelings and that they should consider how their actions affect those around them. You also have to teach them that feelings are never an excuse for bad behaviour.

I agree, removing yourself from a situation that could become volatile is a great idea. You could go in the garden, I have been known to lock myself in the bathroom, just stay in the vacinity as you can still monitor the house while you take some deep breathes.

Me too, but that was AGES ago and time has moved on.

Oh god can you imagine!! LTB x 1000.