To leave early after my dad told off my son?

[Sparklesbigtoe]

Will try & keep this brief cos I didn’t get many replies on my longer one and I’d really like to know if I’m overreacting or not. 5 yo DS & I are staying with my dad for a few days. Yesterday while we’re eating dinner he raised his voice (not quite shouted) at him & told him he has no manners and he doesn’t want to eat dinner with him again and that he needs to go straight to bed. DS wouldn’t sit still, kept getting up and burping at the table. All bad behaviour I know and I was dealing with it but my dad butts in. He goes on at him so much DS starts crying. He then suggests I’m not bringing him up properly and not teaching him any manners, says DS is rude for ignoring him earlier that day when he asked him a question (I wasn’t there but he wouldn’t have ignored him, he may have not understood or frozen out of shyness, which happens sometimes). I took DS to bed and went to bed with him and haven’t seen my dad since. I feel extremely unwelcome here now and just want to go home. Problem is we’re in rural Wales and the only way we can leave is to have my dad drive us to the train station. We’re due to stay till Sunday. What would you do? If I end up staying, what do I say to him today? He’ll never apologise to me or ds or admit he was in the wrong.

Triggering?

I know. It’s hilarious. That poster has an agenda that she tries to shoehorn in most threads!

Did you enjoy sticking that boot in?

If that's what you want to call it , then yes.

A metaphorical boot being stuck in to the Op will be far better than the literal boot that her dear son, when he is a teenager and later a man, will probably stick in to her...or you...or me...or my child...or his teacher...or my mother.

Society's oafs start somewhere, they don't leap-like Venus-fully formed from the sea.

They are often little shits and become big shits simply because people like the OP allow them to be so.

This boy burped through the meal; this was out of character and a one off. Yes, it is unusual and unpleasant behaviour at the table and chastisement was required. But come on, some perspective is needed.

Some people are really inflating this episode way out of proportion to the behaviour, and making sweeping judgments about a five year old that are really quite unfair.

Your extrapolation from this one incident is absolutely ridiculous.

Wake up and smell the coffee!

OP's son doesn't need discipline from OP's dad who was abusive to her when she was a child. The leopard doesn't change its spots.

He may be a bit harsh but you’ve massively over reacted

A 5 year old messing about at the table doesn't mean he's going to end up a wrong 'un.

Don't be so bloody dramatic.

Your dad sounds controlling and authoritarian to be honest, he obviously thinks your way of parenting, removing priveledges etc, is not "effective" enough for him and he "had" to step in and correct your son as what you were doing "wasn't working", it is absolutely not his place to intervene, but he is so used to undermining you it comes naturally to him, he still sees you as a child, he actually sounds like a bully, he could have just raised his voice and set a consequence, but not stopping until he made your son cry then sending him to bed, then berating you too.. IMO for some men that is the goal, to break you down into your weakest form to make themselves feel more powerful/superior.. it doesn't 'teach' anything other than to be afraid of them, anyone defending him has just been lucky enough to never experience it first hand.

I really think you should rethink going to spend time with him in future.. if you disagreed with the way he dealt with your son, you should have been able to stand up to him in the moment, but because of your complicated history of always been made to feel small, you just can't, I would have been the same with my dad.. you never grow out of that fear that they have instilled in you to "be good (blindly do as they say or else)". So it's better to not give him the opportunity in the first place. I would also be finding a way to go home early to be honest.

I do not think they're perfect parents. MN is quite a child unfriendly place at times.

OP I'm with you. He completely over reacted to fairly typical 5 yr old behaviors and spoke out of turn. I wonder if the above posters noted how rude it is for an adult (who should know better) to behave like this to another persons child at the dinner table.

Ooh, I have sympathy with your dad - burping is revolting, it would really put me off my food. A one-off might be unavoidable, but repeatedly? I would have to leave the table.

Without being there it's impossible to say whether your dad was too harsh - you say he fell short of shouting, which would tend to suggest not.

I don't think it's fair to blame you for this, it sounds as though your DS was in an attention-seeking mood where he wrongly thought this was funny. But he needed to be told and your dad told him - hopefully he will know not to do this again - and you can all draw a line under it, no need to rush home.

What you could do to keep the peace is to ask your Dad's advice on how to stop the bad behaviour of your son.....even if you don't want to hear it. Admit you may not be succeeding as well as you could.

I really disagree with this, I'm sure her dad would love to tell her exactly what she is doing wrong and how his method of discipline (making a child cry and sending them to bed over and extremely mild table manner issue which could have been resolved in the moment) would be much better .. and it also give him the green light for his 'discipline' to escalate, as it sets the expectation that OP will bow down to his "superior knowledge and experience" while she is in his house, and he has proven since she was a child that he is an emotional abusive bully who will look for any excuse to throw his weight around.

Yeah, fuck that.

Ignoring the rest of it, was DS deliberately burping or was it just kind of happening to him? I know someone who was diagnosed with severe Crohn's Disease at age 7 and he did this. He was also very restless. He had pain when eating but he just didn't know that was abnormal.

I voted you are NOT being unreasonable.

It sounds like you were doing your best to deal with the situation.
Your dad shouldn't have interfered.
He should have left you to discipline your own child (which you were doing) and left it at that.
I don't blame you for wanting to leave.

Yes.

OP, the first time he stood up and burped, you should have removed him from the table. I hauled my 5 year old out of a restaurant when he got annoyed with me (can’t remember why), tried to kick me under the table but caught my DSM instead. I just got up, pulled his chair out, grabbed him under the armpits and hauled him out to the car. He stayed there for for about 20
minutes until I knew he was ready to apologise properly. I told him he would have to eat his dinner whether it was cold or not and there would be no complaining or there would be no ice cream.

If people think that’s harsh, well, if i’d done that in the 70s my DM would have smacked me and there would have been no ice cream.

I understand your Dad has been a difficult person, but my DF or FIL would have shouted at mine in the same circumstances I think.

Your DS is 5 years old, they can’t sit as long, they fidget, they often can’t really control or stop burping so I don’t think this seems particularly ‘bad’ behaviour. However your father is an adult and should know better. Shouting at your son till he cries is bad behaviour and completely unnecessary. What kind of grandfather is he normally. I would be wanting to leave too - take your son away from his narky grandfather.

Children don't live in a bubble, they'll be exposed to other people who will correct them when they misbehave and it's affecting them.

It would be different if your son were a toddler, but I don't think your dad overreacted. I would have had the exact same reaction, if my 4.5 yo was behaving the way you described. I would have got him out of the table myself.

Raise your child to behave. Grand parents are absolutely at liberty to correct bad behaviour of their grand children. Clearly you weren't prepared to do it.

Sorry OP but I'm with the Team Dad.

If my child repeatedly burped at the table I would give them the bollocking of their lives. They would definitely be crying.

I'd be utterly humiliated!

For all these people that have this view that the grandparent was correct to intervene, would you be happy with your parent making your child cry and then insisting they go straight to bed as punishment?

I'm amazed there are so many people that agree with what he did to be honest.

I don't think OPs strategy was working, or a good one even, but I also think her dad's 'discipline' was completely OTT and unnecessary.

so you’re siding with the abusive bully?

So you're describing disciplining a child as 'abusive bullying'?