AIBU to think my husband is too harsh about five-year-olds cartwheel?

[Fawncard]

Me and DH are married 7 years.
We have a 5 year old DD, DD and DH constantly clash. He thinks it's funny winding her up but she often gets upset about it and he sometimes wont stop until she is in tears. Like let me be clear its mostly just childish stuff like taking the cup he knows she likes things like that he will always give it back to her but he seems to enjoy seeing her get annoyed which is starting to become a red flag for me.
Anyway over the last 2 days DD has being trying to do a cartwheel.... she thinks she can do a cartwheel (she cannot do a cartwheel and does not want advice on how to do a cartwheel she wants to do it "herself") she has been practicing and practicing. When she asks me to watch her I will find something positive, "well done you are working really hard at that" "woah that one was much higher" etc etc. But DH just keeps going "that's not a cartwheel" and keeps giving her unwanted advice and putting on videos of kids doing actual cartwheels which is annoying and upsetting DD and today she again ended upnin tears and DH just seems so unapologetic about it.
He says he doesn't want her to be "delusional" but at her age I wanted to be a bloody unicorn 5 year olds are allowed to be delusional.
He thinks I'm being too soft I think he's being an arsehole. AIBU?

This.

What a fucking arsehole!!
OP, he’s horrid. DD is 5 FFS. “ DH”needs to cut her some slack and back off. Hope DD kicks him in the face, during her cartwheel practice!

I agree!

Husband is acting like a twat indeed. What adult keeps taunting a 5 year old until they cry?!

Since this sounds sadly like something that's been passed on from parents I'd suggest DH (aka the twat) gets some much needed therapy to try and put an end to this ridiculous behaviour. People that treat kids like this don't deserve the privilege of being patents.

Oh this is quite sad. She knows her worth to him is dependant on how good she is at things so she wants to impress him with the things that she is good at. This is actually not the positive thing you think it is, she is just begging for approval. He is really messing up her confidence and sense of self-worth at such a young age.

Her DH is responsible for his abusiveness, while OP is responsible for doing nothing about it. I wasn’t the first or most recent poster to mention the OP’s inaction.

Men are not socially conditioned to be emotionally abusive. Your post doesn’t even reflect what the DH is doing or why. It’s almost like you’re talking about a completely different man.

Let's face it, most adults couldn't do a cartwheel.

He sounds bullying and awful. I hate when adults deliberately upset small children it’s not funny. There was one the other day where a poster said they could see a family hiding from a child in a theme park and she was crying and distressed and they were laughing.

So she’s working on a new skill that she wants to master, and he is just repeatedly telling her she’s doing it wrong and showing her examples of other children doing good cartwheels? What awful parenting. Also he sounds quite dense- does he think the children in the videos he is showing started out doing perfect cartwheels? Or could it be that they too started out where DD is and practised and practised until they mastered it?

He actually sounds really cruel. He is getting parenting very wrong.

Maybe next time he says ‘that isn’t a cartwheel’ you could say to him ‘And that isn’t parenting’.

I’m sorry OP, I wouldn’t want to be with a man like this. He could crush her self-esteem and any ambition she might have. Children in this situation will often eventually just give up trying. There’s no point because they can’t be instantly perfect at something.

Yes. He's undermining her. It's very unhealthy. Her confidence will go and she'll connstantly be trying to prove she's good enough. If it continues you might have to have a serious think.

He is abusing her. He enjoys watching her cry. He is a very sick and warped man. What do you think is going to happen when she tells her teacher what’s happening?

My dad did this to me while my mother downplayed it. I haven’t seen either of them for 20 years.

Why are you letting him bully your child?

Yep he in an arsehole and you can tell him that from me.

When people grow up and look for partners, they look for what feels home. At this rate, home is going to feel like someone who belittles her until she cries.

I’m not sure how you make someone not be a twat though if he ignores your suggestions. Counselling? Make him listen to Dr Becky 24 hours a day?

This man is a horrible bully.

I don’t think he realises the damage he is causing and he is bullying your daughter. So sad to read. I think as parents we should take all the good aspects of our upbringing and keep clear of any that caused us damage whilst growing up. Your daughters self esteem will be in bits if doesn’t stop and she will have no relationship with him.

He’s a bully and the fact that he was bullied as a child is not an excuse. I’m 100% for building resilience but you do that by allowing them to make their own mistakes and supporting them when they try. I would be concerned that your daughter will grow up to be overly sensitive and not receive constructive criticism very well as a result of her current upbringing. How can you best protect her?

I have a 5 year old daughter and if my husband was bullying her to the point of tears for fun I would leave him

Being critical doesn't ever build resilience.

It destroys joy and confidence.

This is emotional abuse. I don’t care if he’s ND, that’s no excuse for a grown “man” to bully a five year old. Standing by and allowing this to repeatedly happen without removing the child from harms way is also abusive.

If there’s a type of “humour” I hate, it’s humour at the expense of other people (especially children) being upset. My family was (and still is) a lot like that.

Lord, even remembering it makes my blood boil.

The worst part is that he finds it amusing to upset her - thats the huge red flag here - no one should find that fun, we expect kids to grow out of that sort of behaviour (if they ever found it fun to upset others) at a pretty young age. No adult should enjoy distressing any child, let alone his own 5 year old.

Too much advice where its not wanted could be tackled, but that enjoyment of hurting her feelings would make me want to run a mile I'm afraid 🙁

Can you get some video of him “playing” with her like this? Then when it’s just you and him together show it to him? See if he can recognise looking at the videos how negatively it’s sounding to your daughter. Remind him of his own experiences.

He'll insist that it's different. He won't see it.

You need to spell it out clearly and bluntly to your dh, @Fawncard - ”Dh - if you carry on with your current approach you will destroy DD’s confidence. Making her cry is not good parenting, nor is winding her up. If you carry on parenting like this, you will lose her love - is that what you want? Do better.”

But you've told him and he's still doing it, even though its upsetting her. He's had you verbally tell him clearly, and he can see the impact. If he genuinely cant help it (even though its much more likely to be learnt behaviour off his dad) then you need to intervene in the moment every time. Preferably with 'if you keep doing this she will hate you and you will struggle to do your job of parenting her properly'

He's ND so I think he genuinely doesn't realise he's being a prick.
This is an excuse you're telling yourself to cope with the fact your child's father is not a very nice human being.

I am diagnosed autistic and god knows I put my foot in it sometimes, but I can't imagine being unkind to a 5 year old.

Do not let this continue unchecked.