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Original poster

I massively lost my shit with ds

272 replies

NastyOldBag · 13/03/2020 20:08

And now I feel awful.

He’s 7yo and it’s the first time I’ve ever been absolutely furious with him. I’ve just split up from Dh and with that and the stress of trying to keep my elderly parents safe and well I’m just done in and exhausted emotionally and physically.

I was doing a little experiment thing with him and ds2 where you put pepper in water and show how soap moves it (trying to encourage hand washing). I was in the middle of chatting to dc’s about it and ds1 just decided to leave the room. I said
‘Ds can you come back?’ and he just ignored me and went and sat in the sitting room. I sat next to him and told him that he can’t just walk out, if he’s not interested in something, I don’t mind if he doesn’t want to do it but he needs to just say so before he walks out of the room. He continues to ignore me and picks up his Yugioh cards. I said ‘ds, I’m talking to you, can you at least respond to acknowledge you can hear me’. He says ‘whatever’ and points to the door signalling me to go, something Dh did and which I used to absolutely hate. I told him that was really rude and that he needed to apologise immediately or he’d be in big trouble. He rolls his eyes and says ‘whatever, just go and play with your pepper’. At this point I just lost it and grabbed his cards out of his hand and threw them out of the window.

Ds is now finally asleep having sobbed about his cards for a good 40 minutes. They immediately blew all over the garden, it’s absolutely pouring down outside and I refused to let him out to get them. He gets £4 a week pocket money which is enough to buy a pack of 5 cards. I threw about 50 out of the window, he’s been collecting them for months.

I now feel absolutely horrible. He’s due to see his dad tomorrow and I know he’s going to complain about me to him. He goes to a yugioh club after school once a week and now won’t be able to go as he has no cards. His parents are splitting up and I’ve just thrown his favourite thing in the world out of the window.

Should I go and see if any are salvageable?

OP posts:
topkay · 13/03/2020 22:24

Well done to you. You have done no wrong in my eyes. I honestly cannot believe some of the comments here.

NotALurker2 · 13/03/2020 22:26

@AnneLovesGilbert But it is his fault he was rude to his mother.

EKGEMS · 13/03/2020 22:26

Cut this mother some slack along with the child. This piling on is over the top. Pretending to be perfect parents is only fooling yourselves. I highly doubt the OP is ever going to behave this way again

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Frankiecandle · 13/03/2020 22:28

No neither can I, topkay

I can't believe that any decent parent would think that this is an ok way to behave.

aSofaNearYou · 13/03/2020 22:32

@mouldyoldonkey it feels like willful misunderstanding to say he did nothing wrong as he should be free to go wherever he likes. She wasn't forcing him to stay, but of course it is rude to just deliberately walk off without explanation when someone is talking to you. None of us could honestly say that isn't rude. It wasn't an innocent, absent minded blip as he didn't apologise when she alerted him to it.

That part alone was obviously bad manners, and the things he said afterwards when she discussed it with him were clearly well over the line of acceptability.

alfier · 13/03/2020 22:32

@NotALurker2 teaching a child to treat others well is good. doing it by chucking their stuff out of the window isn't. and acknowledging that the rude behaviour is probably a cry for help at the same time as telling the child it isn't ok behaviour, and helping them with it is good, i think. not punishing.

this isn't aimed at the OP by the way who has already said that she has realised that she went too far and asked people to please back off a bit.

stophuggingme · 13/03/2020 22:32

See the perfect parents are out in force tonight.

And as for being “deeply ashamed “Hmm
how about the child’s father who has obviously belittled and dismissed the OP via a waving hand akin to swatting a fly away in front of his eldest child being ashamed.

rayoflightboy · 13/03/2020 22:34

Half of the posters on here if your dp threw something belonging to you out the window would you be fine with it.No of course you wouldnt.And i bet many would be telling you to ltb.

Op is the adult and what she did is as bad as what her dp did to her.Except now shes doing it to her son.His rudeness didnt deserve that

So if her ds is supposed to know right from wrong and not be rude.How come op doesnt know whats right or wrong..

wowbutter · 13/03/2020 22:36

Wow no wonder we have such a huge behaviour issue in this country.
You did nothing wrong, he should treat you with respect, and he got punished.

Stormyjupiter · 13/03/2020 22:39

I just don't see neither mum's or ds's behaviour is right. It's not ok for OP's ds to be rude, but also Op's behaviour isn't right either. Quite shocked to see some comment that saying the Mum did the right thing. It teaches the child if you hurt someone, you can hurt them back. That's wrong.

Thingybob · 13/03/2020 22:40

If that's the worst thing you ever do as a parent OP then you will have done a brilliant job.

FWIW I was recently reminded that I did a similar thing to three sons about 25+ years ago. It was pogs then that was the craze, overpriced rubbish that they collected. I can't remember what the trigger was but I threw hundreds in the bin as a punishment and I never made amends by replacing them. However, my sons survived that incident to become happy, law abiding, respectful men and your son will too. Flowers

stophuggingme · 13/03/2020 22:41

Yet another parenting thread where some contrition is milked as an excuse to virtue signal and project for what we spurious reasons some of you have

It’s immaterial to those of you that do this that the OP already feels shit.

It’s really about telling the rest of us you are better

Hmm
Lweji · 13/03/2020 22:43

Shockingly rude and disgusting?
He's 7, fgs.

EmotionalFlood · 13/03/2020 22:43

Thanks not here to judge! Hope you're feeling better and you're bound to be stressed. I'd also have been furious with my son if he tried this behaviour. Not correcting rudeness is why so many children are horrors now Envy it's easy to pass judgement until you're in that situation Thanks

KatherineJaneway · 13/03/2020 22:45

YANBU

oxoxoxoxo · 13/03/2020 22:55

Agree salvage any cards you can find - you shouldn't have thrown them out of the window but should have confiscated them instead. But we all lose it sometimes, and you've been under a lot of stress.

His behaviour and language was absolutely unacceptable! Whether the pepper experiment was boring him or not, he totally can't just leave the room and speak to you later as he did. You need to knock that on the head, and an appropriate punishment is completely in order.

Only you can judge whether he is struggling with your break-up or whether he would behave like that anyway - so your punishment may depend on that. I don't think you should apologise, or he won't accept how badly he's behaved. Maybe just say - 'this time you can have these ones back (any you can salvage) but don't ever speak to me like that again'! If you can't rescue any, you probably need to find a way to replace most of them without losing face......

Good luck. Hope things settle down for you soon. Sounds like you're well rid of your ExH!

Dutchesss · 13/03/2020 22:56

@Dutchesss Are you serious? So you think being rude and purposely disrespectful to someone should not cause an angry reaction? Good luck sending kids out into the real world with misinformation like that. When you're mean to people, they get mad at you. That is perfectly normal and predictable.
@NotALurker2
This is why we have so many people in abusive relationships believing it is somehow their fault. The child does not need to feel responsible for the OP damaging his property, he is merely a seven year old copying learned behavior.
Yes it should be explained that his behaviour was rude, but no he should not be made to feel that he is responsible for the anger and damaged property.

alfier · 13/03/2020 22:58

It’s really about telling the rest of us you are better it isn't, it is because some people still think punishment is the way to go despite there being decades - decades - of peer reviewed research to the contrary.

Most of us commenting are not attacking the OP. I know the theory but like most humans have lost my shit from time to time.

AudacityOfHope · 13/03/2020 23:03

I dunno, I chucked my sons dartboard out into the garden tonight because he smashed play doh into it, lied about it, then shouted at me.

I didn't lose the plot, just calmly sent it soaring out the back door.

Sometimes it does them no harm to realise parents are actual humans with feelings they can't trample all over.

Halo1234 · 13/03/2020 23:03

No judgement. U are stressed and acted on impulse but u need to fix it. U cant not accept responsibility for your actions. Apologise. Acknowledge it was wrong. Replace the cards. Dont do it again.

Thing is when he looks back on his childhood he wont remember his cheek. He will remember his cards being destroyed. Not being able to go to his club. Fix the memory. Buy him more cards.

LovingLola · 13/03/2020 23:08

I dunno, I chucked my sons dartboard out into the garden tonight because he smashed play doh into it, lied about it, then shouted at me.

Are you in the middle of a break up with his father?

AudacityOfHope · 13/03/2020 23:21

What's that got to do with it?

AnneLovesGilbert · 13/03/2020 23:33

What's that got to do with it?

Because this little boy is going through a time of huge upheaval and upset. Your story is irrelevant to OP.

Original poster
NastyOldBag · 13/03/2020 23:36

rayoflight please don’t tell me that what I did tonight is as bad as what my Dh did to me. You have no idea what has happened in my marriage and absolutely no idea just how hurtful it is to read that.

I said in my op I know I went too far. I’m not trying to justify my actions, I apologised to ds before he went to sleep and I’m going to do my best to make it up to him tomorrow. Please stop now .

OP posts:
Hannsmum · 14/03/2020 00:01

I do think you overreacted a bit by throwing out the cards but at the same time, he was very disrespectful to you which shouldn't be acceptable in any way.

Pls get his cards back for him if hes paid with his money but at the same time let him know speaking to you like that wasnt on...he might be taking the seperation hard so also pls be easy on him next time