To feel annoyed with my mum for actually saying that I should not go on a day out with a group I belong to as my dh is unsuitable to look after our dc

[Sails]

She is serious. She said I should feign illness, make out I'm not interested hide the leaflets make some excuse rather thann leave him with the dc. In some ways she makes valid points he does lose it with them has little patience not very safety conscious (ds2 is 15 months) all points made by mum. However I still think this it is none of my mums business and I can't believe she is being like this. Says it would worry her sick if she knew he was in sole charge of them and she cannot believe that I am even considering it.

OK then, the alternative is to allow your children to grow up in an environment where they are constantly tense and miserable cos of their dads 'moods'.

That sounds like a good plan, doesn't it?

No?

If not you need to start thinking about what to do. Why not start by talking to your mum?

Don't underestimate the effect of his behaviour on your children. If your mum is concerned enough to bring it up then it's pretty clear your DH has a big problem.

If he won;t do anything about it - you MUST.

agree with everything Chipping and Janos have just said.

It is up to you to protect your children and now is the time to do it; you MUST withdraw your consent to his being such an appallingly bad father and frightening his own children. They only get one crack at childhood - every day is precious as I'm sure you know only too well.

And yes if necessary, last resort time, you CAN leave and you CAN protect your children by getting legal representation and taking with you evidence of how he has frightened the children and cared for them inadequately and how you have had to curtail your own life to be present as their protector; they CAN make any contact he has supervised.

your husband is acting like a jerk, worse than a mischevious toddler because he is the adult and should know how to control his emotions better. He needs to get help, soon.

It makes me incredibly sad that your children are scared of their own daddy. This is wrong. The occasional outburst of shouting is normal in any family but it sounds like your h has no idea of how to deal with young children on a day to day basis(distraction, humour, negotiation). He gets into confrontations like the 3 year old has spilt his pint. Would you like your sons to grow up thinking this is the way fathers behave and repeating the pattern on your future grandchildren? No?
Then get him sorted or get out is my advice.

I'll say one thing on your dh's 'side' and one thing only; being the non-practised parent, doing parenting tasks in front of the practised parent, is very very difficult IMO and is likely to lead to uncharacteristic behaviour that may not occur when the non-practised parent actually has some time being the only parent there. He may even feel that you somehow expect him to be so aggressive with his son (people get weird ideas sometimes).

Having said that, then yes I would say there is a problem. What Janos said. I'm not quite where Chipping is, but not far off.

You need to tell your DH that if he doesn't go to parenting classes or otherwise address his unpleasant behaviour, then he will have to move out of the house. (SS/local domestic violence unit will back you up on this even if the house is in his name).
Hopefully it won't come to this, but there is no point in glossing over aggressive and fundamentally selfish behaviour from men or making excuses for it. ANd yes, nearly everyone yells at their children occasionally when tired and stressed, or when the DC are being particularly challenging, but his attitude doesn;t sound good at all.

FWIW and others may disagree with me, I don't think the safety issues you have listed sound that serious. I have never used a stair guard and prefer to teach my kids to negotiate hazards safely, as long as I am within earshot. While he sounds a bit ditzy, it doesn't sound on this issue (to me at least) that he is being negligent.

However the anger sounds more problematic - it sounds like he has totally unrealistic expectations of how toddlers behave and few strategies for dealing with the situation.

Some constructive ideas...

1. Parenting courses? Anger management courses? Perhaps he just needs to be shown the skills to deal with the kids behaviour in a more appropriate way.

2. Are there any dads who you consider to be a good example - could you arrange for them to have a day out together with kids so that your DH can see that his kids challenging behaviour is normal and can watch how other dads deal with it?

3. Could you arrange for them to spend MORE time together, I know this sounds counter-logical but IMO the dads who spend least time with their children are usually the ones with the least idea of how to manage them. Perhaps more solo interaction in short bursts, in a controlled way and maybe not dealing with both kids at once, and then build up to the full day with both children?

You need to deal with this - your poor children can't go on "walking on eggshells" as another poster said.

how odd - somehow my apostrophes on kids' got edited out both times - still you get the gist.

H is actually off all week with me and today things have taken a strange turn. He seems to be letting ds1 do anything he wants eg playing with him for ages (till past 9) in his bedroom before breakfast despite dh telling him loads of times that he wants breakfast, not passing comment when ds1 later hit and pushed ds2 for looking at his new toy (not touching it as ds1 was playing with it). When I asked why are you letting him do that and (in the case of breakfast) if you want to come down for breakfast just do so dh said he daren't tell him off in case he gets accused of bullying and bellowing and he is damned if he does and damned if he doesn't he is accused of that because that is what he does! When dh is at work he has breakfast and gets dressed before playing/tv etc. I told ds1 off very crossly when he started behaving like this towards ds2 but h just said I'm saying nothing!

H is actually off all week with me and today things have taken a strange turn. He seems to be letting ds1 do anything he wants eg playing with him for ages (till past 9) in his bedroom before breakfast despite dh telling him loads of times that he wants breakfast, not passing comment when ds1 later hit and pushed ds2 for looking at his new toy (not touching it as ds1 was playing with it). When I asked why are you letting him do that and (in the case of breakfast) if you want to come down for breakfast just do so dh said he daren't tell him off in case he gets accused of bullying and bellowing and he is damned if he does and damned if he doesn't he is accused of that because that is what he does! When dh is at work he has breakfast and gets dressed before playing/tv etc. I told ds1 off very crossly when he started behaving like this towards ds2 but h just said I'm saying nothing!

In a way, that sounds quite positive. Annoying, obviously, but maybe he's starting to take on board that he doesn't really know how to discipline the boys appropriately? Maybe you could sit down this evening and see if he has any ideas on how to improve things?

hmm, it's still rather aggressive behaviour, but presented in a passive way. The options aren't

Be a frightening, scary father, or
Do nothing

Hope you can help him find some reasonable strategies. Good luck.

I'd introduce H to the joys of watching Super Nanny now that he has a newfound interest.