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.

Your child needs discipline.
Your dad has no right to talk to your child like that - yes, he can butt in but he must do it firmly, gently so.. like an adult, no bullying.
Call a taxi and leave.

In these circumstances, yes. He was a bully and if you had bothered to read the rest of the OPs posts instead of wading in to stick your size 9 in, you would understand why.

Read OPs updates. I am calling him that because that’s what he has been described as by OP 🙄

reading is free you know

5 years old is old enough to have learned basic table manners & behaviour - don't burp, try to sit still, join in the conversation, and ask to get down when finished.

You need to do your part: engage him in conversation, gently admonish silly behaviour, and generally pay attention to him, so he is a nice person to be around. If he's engaged in conversation at a level that he can cope with, silly or restless behaviour minimises.

Good manners are basically learning about how to get along with other people, and how to consider the comfort of others as much as oneself.

Your dad sounds like a fucking bully and unfortunately Mumsnet is full of delusional knob heads.

OP if you see other cultures, their tolerance for children is much better than the UK. Born and bred Brit here, but I think we do an awful job of tolerating normal child behaviour in our society. Victorian era is still hanging around..

I'd go home, have a word with your son (as I'm sure you will) and tell your dad to fuck himself 😇

My 2.5 year old behaves better at the table than your son. A 5 year old knows (or should know) how to behave, and I think it’s more that you’re embarrassed that your dad called out your poor parenting.

Children often take a telling off by a non-parent family member, especially a GP, better than from a parent, it's the shock factor!

Run away and let your son burp at your table, I'm sure his grandfather will enjoy meals more too.

I'm sure he will enjoy his lonely life when his daughter doesn't visit him again. Because I wouldn't if I was the OP.

Your father wasn't disciplining your child, he was venting his anger at him. Children don't learn through shaming and rage, no wonder your child was upset. Teaching/training a child, in manners as well as everything else, requires patience, consistency and firmness. Your father used domineering, aggressive behaviour, and you should leave until he learns to do better

Your child's behaviour is awful. I'd have removed him from the table at the 2nd rude burp, having been warned at the first one. I would have been very firm about him being welcome to join us and continue to eat when he decides to behave. You say you were dealing with it. But you weren't if he remained at the table still jumping around and burping.

My Dad's like that and now we are extremely low contact.

@1985goingbackagain we have a lot of grandchildren. One incidentally the youngest is a wee bugger. His grandpa is like your dad and stepped up to say NO when he was five. Fast forward two years, the parents have finally run out of patience with doing the gentle parenting system which to be fair worked with the girls and have lowered the boom, partly for safety reasons, partly for socialisation reasons. No-one wants that kid for a playdate session.

Don't make your kid the outcast other mums say no to.

My parents left the disciplining up to me, I wouldn’t have like this. If they did intervene it wasn’t like this, it would have been done with more kindness. Also he is 5, they act out of sorts at times. All of mine are perfectly behaved teenagers and adults now but had their moments at 5

Has he expressed these opinions before or was this out of the blue ? If it was a once off then I would try to have a discussion with him and try to mediate. If it's ongoing, can you get a taxi ?

A five year old boy is a bit naughty at the dinner table, his mother deals with it and gives him consequences. And you’re calling him a little shit that will grow up to be a delinquent??? I hope you don’t have children

My dad has always been very controlling and emotionally abusive towards me as a child so all this is very triggering. @Sparklesbigtoe

I was so surprised at the majority of the replies until I read this.
I had a similar childhood and understood op's position straight away.

People who don't grow up with abuse just don't understand how the abusers twist normal experiences.
Yes the DC should have table manners, arms straightforward.
But through the lens of emotional abuse it turns into a toxic tool to control and shame.

The abusive behaviour is sometimes nuanced and only feel like abuse to pp in that family who "know the code".

Op I would go home. Don't wait for an apology, if you need to lie to appease your dad tell him something like you have bad periods or something he won't question just so you can get home sooner.

She did. She was dealing with it. Have you read the posts?

Are you a single mum OP ?
Sounds like your son needs a male figure in his life, such as your father, who will discipline him if you are going to be this soft.

You need to apologise to your dad and so does your son, he is rude teach him manners and respect. God help the world when these kids are adults.

Hi OP, everyone is always really judgemental about behaviour on AIBU. Don’t take it to heart.
Your 5 year old sounds like a pretty normal one and sometimes kids behave like kids!
I can’t believe people get that wound up be table manners especially when the child is so young.
People need to chill out and enjoy being alive a bit more 😂
Nothing you have described sound like you are raising a feral, future yobo!
You were right to feel put out by your Dad’s actions, it’s your child and you should deal with how you feel appropriate, he should not undermine you in front of your child, this will not help in the long run and he should respect you.
I wouldn’t leave though, I would raise my feelings with my Dad and explain. You parent this child full time and know them better and how they respond to discipline and behaviour adjustment styles.
Your Dad might have been trying to help though, so I would give him a chance to explain and approach from a ‘I know you were trying to help, however ….’

I'm sorry OP, this sounds hard.

It's normal to feel protective of your dc, and I suppose the one happy thing to take from this is that it seems you have built a warmer bond with your DS than you had with your father, for which you are to be congratulated.

IMO, the truth, as is so often the case, is that you are all a bit at fault.

A five year old should not be burping at the table, and I'm afraid I find nothing more irritating than dc who can't rise to answer a question with politeness. Shyness can be very real, but a couple of words acknowledgement should be manageable by age 5, even just a "fine thank you." Perhaps work on some easy responses for when he gets a bit tongue-tied. My grandmother used to say the cure for shyness is to think about the other person's feelings, not your own feelings of shyness, though I understand it can be hard to overcome. It will stand him in good stead if you support him with this, because shyness can come across as exasperating recalcitrance.

I think you were probably being a bit gentle with him - and from what you have said about your relationship with your father growing up, I totally sympathise that you have tried a different approach. But I think if he is wriggling at the table and burping, you need to crank up the firmness a little. We all have to adjust as parents when we aren't getting results, so don't feel crushed.

Your Dad is clearly a grumpy person generally, but having people in the house can be hard when you are not used to it - especially if they belch and don't answer, and then are not being corrected! And weirdly, at the back of it he may be genuinely concerned and trying to shock you into addressing it as a way of helping you. I know quite a few characters like that: they find it hard to do that sort of thing in a loving way, but there is concern at the back of it. But making your DS cry is your Dad getting it wrong too.

I'd stick it out and try to leave on a civil note. I know it's hurtful when people attack your DC, but I think you will feel better in the coming months if you don't leave under a cloud.

Burping qould be unacceptable behaviour for your Dads age.
It maybe is a good prompt from his grandad to know manners as long as it is not an excuse to bully and boss your son.
A weird grumpy old man dynaic would have me leaving
I get it would make a 5 yr old unsure.
Gosh we were bought up strict...no elbows on tables..cutlery together at the end of a meal...now my parent forgets and doesnt install thos in grandchildren!
Somethings arent worth the battle pops!

You either need to speak to your dad or leave. There is no in between. Can you apologise for your son’s behaviour and say he’s picking up on tension between you two? I’m not really sure what you are expecting a load of strangers to do.

You're getting a hard time here, OP. Obviously you know your son's behaviour wasn't good, and you were parenting him, so I don't know why people are queuing up to tell you so and tick you off for it and telling you you're 'soft' and you're 'not coping'
I don't have any advice, I'm afraid; your dad sounds extremely difficult and I recognise the type. I just wanted to say ignore some of the shit you're getting on here.