hitting children

[girlie]

I am really upset. My ds is difficult to handle. He is 12 and if he doesn't like something or doesn't want to do something, he shouts. It is really difficult not to simply end up shouting and screaming back. Tonight, my dh offered to speed up his getting ready for bed which is usually painfully slow and I get so tired of the nagging. But, within a couple of minutes of my dh entering his bedroom the shouting starts and my dh ends up hitting our ds. I went in to the bedroom and dh looked really wild and hit him again - a hit, not a smack. I find this really upsetting. Ds was cowering on his bed shouting, "No, Dad, no!" This has happened before from time to time but ds is getting older now and I fear that in a couple of years he will be taller than dh and will start hitting back. So, instead of helping, ds is upset, I am upset, and to make matters worse, when ds went to bed, dh would not go to say good night to him which upset ds very much so I stayed and cuddled him for 10 minutes and we both cried.
My dh is not a violent man - he has never hit me or our dd, and I rarely even heard him shout in the 12 years before we had kids. But I don't ever remember my Dad hitting any of us kids and I don't like it.
Am I over-reacting?

Hi girlie, I hope you don't mind me adding a little at this stage, I didn't see the thread before but do have some experience of these problems from a child's point of view, and later through therapy from an adult's.
I know this has been said before, but I'd also truly believe a form of therapy or counselling is the only way to go. Within my family life as a child, agreements were put in place and broken again. As a child I was attacked by my stepfather sporadically. At one point he agreed to stop and relinquished control of discipline to my mother and the outcome was quite horrific. Mainly because rather than recognising and working to resolve his problem, he just handed over the reins of responsibility, then, a long time down the line when he lost control with my sister and brother, he beat them both black and blue - my brother was in his teens and 6'4", a rugby player and extremely good at karate to boot, but the fear caused by an out of control parent is truly paralysing, my sister was not even in her teens.
When you said that your DH looked really wild I think I can imagine what you mean. There was a particular look that came over my stepfather when he lost control which I will never forget, it was one of the things about your original post which has set my heat pounding in fear.
My child is nowhere near her teens yet, so I have little experience of coping with teenagers, except for my sister who's five years younger than me, and who I have been in the position of 'mothering' as neither of us now have contact with our mother.
By recognising what is happening as a serious problem you are obviously part way to rectifying what is happening to your family, though conselling or therapy may seem like over cautious or unnecesary steps, it's really not as it sounds. No, it's not fun, but sometimes it really is the only way to get to the root of problems, properly. It's not just about resolving past issues but developing ways to cope and deal with life effectively in the future.

I can only imagine how difficult this must be from a mum's POV.

Oh, girlie....your dh is not being fair. Absolving hmself from responsibility for the confrontational situations is such a cop out. Teens and pre-teens need more adult involvement in their lives, not less. It should be a joint effort.

Your son is only 12.

Your dh is a grown up.

And yet your dh can't be trusted not to control his temper.

As I said, there may be reasons for this.

But part of being grown up is to tackle those reasons.

It must be so hard for you.

I think you should still talk to dh about this. As he will have to play a vital role in ds's life so if he tries to avoid confrontations, what's it going to be like when ds is even more independant as a teenager and testing both your patiences? Dh needs to learn how to cope with these situations. Have him in the room whilst you're dealing with these situations, and so he can see how you deal with it, and you be there when he deals with them. What happens if you're not around to sort a problem out? He has to do something about this. It'll only just be helping him out to try and control him temper. If he feels like he's going to explode, tell him to leave the room and calm down. And if ds is trying to make more of an effort then fingers crossed there shouldnt be as many confrontations. Make sense?

Have to agree with Tiktok and Tammybear, Girlie. Your DH can't just opt out of one of the bits of fatherhood he doesn't like or finds difficult to deal with. We'd all love to do that, hand over the difficult bits to somebody else, but we wouldn't be functioning as parents if we did. Long term, it just won't work. If your DH just can't face it, then he really needs professional help to make him able to face it. You're not a single parent, why should you have to carry this aspect of parenting alone?