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.

If I were the OP I would expect better from my child at anyone's table.

You're dad was correct in disciplining your son as he clearly wasn't listening to you. If you leave now you will be sending your son the message that his behaviour is ok and it will only get worse as he gets older.
Be the parent and start to discipline your son. It shouldn't be your dads job.

Updates almost always change the story when the OP's not getting much support, I wonder why?

Op, you knew your ds was behaving badly and you were dealing with this. You say it's out of character for him, and i believe you. He might be finding the different environment hard and acting out a bit - particularly if he's picking up on a level of coldness from his grandfather perhaps?

Fwiw an open ended, generic 'how's school?' type of question would leave many 5 year olds scratching their heads I think. Most people might follow up with 'do you like your teacher?' Or 'what do you like doing at school?' I.e. something tangible and specific that a 5yo can catch onto. My mil has always been hopeless with this child-friendly back and forth, and thank goodness that fil knows how it's done! Mil has never been particularly maternal and dh experienced his upbringing as cold, critical and authoritarian.

Whatever others on here say, your dad did overstep the mark considerably, particularly in his criticism of your parenting. I can well imagine how you were likely raised by him. I bet you felt you couldn't do anything right, no matter how hard you tried.

I wouldn't leave though. When ds is in bed I'd take the opportunity to tell him how upset you were about his criticism of your parenting. I'd also be giving him some tips on what helps engage your ds in conversation. He's 5, not 25 ffs.

🙄

No one needs a bullying controlling man in their life

I honestly don’t think you’re overreacting, and I also don’t think what you’ve described sounds particularly unusual for a 5-year-old.

Five-year-olds are still developing impulse control and emotional regulation, so getting up repeatedly at dinner, being silly, struggling to sit still and occasionally not responding when spoken to can all be completely normal at this age. It doesn’t mean they have no manners or that they’re not being taught them.

Of course he needs boundaries and reminders, but there’s a big difference between saying “please sit down” and repeatedly criticising a child and telling their mum she’s not bringing them up properly. Especially if he’s shy and sometimes freezes when spoken to, I wouldn’t automatically interpret not answering as rudeness.

The fact that he ended up crying after being repeatedly told off isn’t surprising either. That’s a lot for a little five-year-old, particularly when he’s away from home.

I’d probably take him away from the situation too. You can absolutely acknowledge that his behaviour wasn’t ideal while still protecting him from being made to feel like he’s a “bad” or “rude” child. You know your child and your parenting far better than anyone else does.

But it is well known that children, especially boys, with a father in the picture are better behaved. You can take it to extremes and look at the prison population for evidence of that.

People on these threads often seem to fill in gaps imagine their own particularly lurid version of the scenario. Like there's a difference between

He kept getting up from the table and standing on the chair and deliberately burping really gross smelly burps right in my dad's face and then laughing muhahaha when he was told to stop

and

He kept getting up from the table, and burping

By page 12 it's become MULTIPLE BURPS that the OP FAILED TO INTERVENE ON even though OP hasn't even said how many times. Like this old Sesame Street skit

Not my child, you’ve tagged the wrong person @justasking111

MN skews older so it’s probably grandparents typing it lol

(I do agree with telling off for something mundane/as a one off, but I don’t agree with grandparents having free reign and often it can cause a lot of damage, especially when they try to undermine the mother parents)

It's a good opportunity to start a bit more discipline with your son. When he is at Granddad's house remind him to behave politely as Granddad wants, then start using this as the basis of changing your acceptable behaviour rules, for consistent reinforcement of social skills..

Does he not eat at a table at home? Perhaps explain to him that some people do things differently in their houses.

Did he say all these things about your parenting in front of your child? If he did, THAT is inexcusable: far worse than either burping at the table or shouting at someone for burping at the table!

I was shy, introverted, and used to physically vomit out of nerves when I was a child. No one knew what was wrong with me, but this was when children were told to pull themselves together, behave, get on with it, stop being silly, etc. (late 70s to mid 80s)

Anxiety and any sort of neurodiversity were unheard of, or mocked. Only the "really naughty or special kids" were autistic, for example.

But I still knew my manners and it was unheard of not to obey your parents. Especially when they told you off. You knew they meant business.

This.
I wouldn't want my child around my abuser.
Your father is the same as he slways was, a bullying prick.
They don't change.
My father was one.
He never got to meet my children, I wouldn't allow it.
Mind yourself OP.
Rethink visiting in the future.

Look, I know from experience its shit losing a parent as a child, however, you're projecting your past onto this and asking OP to second-guess their disclosure of abuse based on your experiences with your deceased parent.

Your dad may have been strict rather than abusive, that does not mean it applies to everyone else and its unfair/harmful for yourself and OP to tangle your stuff with other people's and ask them to conduct an internal "but was it really abuse?" test.

I can't unpack any further than that without it being hurtful.

I mean this gently but you can’t have it both ways.

you are complaining about your fathers behaviour growing up as way to explain your own behaviour. But then when people Rightly ask why you went for an extended stay you get annoyed and say it’s complicated and he’s improved.

you need to be a grown up, hiding upstairs crying is not ok.hopefully your son didn’t see you, but I fear he did.

in addition it feels like your son was repeatedly poorly behaved at the table, but you appear to fhink it reasonable to say he was about to start behaving, why do you feel this, as surely you stepped in the first time. And he didn’t behave at that point, so why after multiple times, is it a way to justify why you feel your father shouldn’t get involved?

look your son is five, he should know how to behave at the dinner table. Not to repeatedly get up or burp. That’s incredibly rude, even at 5.

and him not responding to questions or s good morning, this is concerning. If it is he freezes so much out of shyness you need to seek some help. If it’s he’s just rude and you’re justifying it, you need to stop and discipline him better,

I don’t go for punishments, I always spoke to my child and explained, I also explained there would be consequences the next time and if they did it again, then the consequences were carried through.

so the first time he did it you should have said sharply do not do that, sit down, don’t purposefully burp and this is why. If you do this again there will be no dessert and it’s bed.

and if he did it again, the second time, he should have been put to bed.immediatly. Children need to learn from us, understand there is consequences but importantly learn manners and how to behave.

I’m a bit surprised at some of the replies here OP.

he’s 5!! Yes of course you need to teach manners but he’s still young and you were dealing with it.

it’s harder with shy kids too as they get so upset so easily.

your dad needs to butt out and leave you to deal with it.

I think the history and previous abuse is causing you to think about the context. So for others this one instance isn’t going to seem much. But for you there’s more to it. Some GPs just don’t know how to interact with small kids and are more of the type to want kids to “behave” and be quiet.

I think stick it out but maybe ask dad to let you deal with any cheeky behaviour? Then next time don’t visit for so long or don’t stay?

Child misbehaves, dad tells him off, child cries, dad is abusive and controlling … Good God! No wonder we have so many out of control teenagers.

"Children need to learn from us, understand there is consequences but importantly learn manners and how to behave."

So if you know much of early learning, role model-imprinting and neuroscience, kid's brains are still at their most malleable until around 6. A lot of the messaging gets written on their neural wiring the same way as a computer hard drive accepts the information - verbatim, without query, especially so when the information is given to them during an emotionally intense situation..

The messaging from the larger person was "anger gets the results I demand and your mum is still scared of me"

The kid was 5 and acting up, not 15,

Her dad still has the same controlling issues he had when raising her, how her kid behaves is largely non of his fecking business

he's not the person she needs imprinting instructions onto her child's still forming brain.

Well thank you so much for sparing my feelings 😳

Did you read the OPs updates?

No I didn't think so.

Your dad overreacted. Fine for him to correct him but a torrent of telling offs to be pair of you seems over the top and not exactly conducive to a pleasant family visit. I’d have just said ‘ok dad I’ll deal with it’. Maybe your son was acting up out of shyness or feeling weird about being in a new environment. Obviously people are falling over themselves to tell you your parenting is shoddy and your kid has no manners but really, do all 5 year olds behave perfectly all of the time?

If you want to stay I would let the dust settle and speak to your dad today. Apologise for the behaviour but ask him to leave the discipline to you in future.

Yabu. At 5 he was rude to keep burping. You need to teach him basic table manners. Apologize to your dad and start parenting your son