I massively lost my shit with ds

[NastyOldBag]

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?

It's interesting isn't it. All those calling OP a "dragon", "batshit" (original), "abusive" etc- what does that say about you and the way you treat another parent who's admitted a momentary failing and feels terrible about it?

Clearly your own perfect nature doesn't stretch to compassion for a struggling parent whose child was frankly way out of line.

OP you didn't need to ask here and get a hammering, you know you over reacted. It's tough when you have lots of different stresses to manage, it's also triggering when a child mimics abusive behaviour, but think about the environment he has been in for him to mimic that and how this and the separation have affected him. You say he's usually a polite well mannered child, so this isn't a pattern of his behaviour. It's worth asking at school if they have any support for children whose parents have separated, he won't know how to manage his conflicting emotions, at seven he misses his dad but is probably also aware that his dad made you upset. That's a lot for a child, plus whatever he's witnessed on top.

I hate all the stupid sneering comments on threads like this about how parents who aren’t mean and spiteful must be “perfect”. It has nothing to do with being perfect, and more to do with understanding the limitations of a seven year old whose world has been turned upside down.

It honestly makes my stomach turn how gleeful some of you are at the thought of meting out over the top punishments to small children. I always thought I was fairly strict with my kids, and I certainly expected a level of politeness that surprised others, but this breaks my heart.

But they are not "perfect". They just dumb mums who let their kids control them.

@gingersausage the OP fucked up. She is hardly beating him with a stick on a regular basis. Yes, I'd feel like shit if I did this, and I'd apologise, but I'd also recognise that he had been incredibly rude and disrespectful and that he needed some form of discipline. Everyone messes up sometimes and that's fine.

@LoveIsLovely
He doesnt need punished. He needs educated. It's not his fault that he was raised in a home like that. Its jot his fault that he saw how his parents behaved and learned his behaviour from them.
He is 7. He is not emotionally mature enough to tell himself "what dad does is not the right way to handle frustration. I shouldn't do what dad does". Children are hard wired to copy their parents. That's all he is doing.
He needs to be taught why it's wrong and why his dad is not the model to copy.

Why do you expect a 7 year old, whose role model has taught himself terrible behaviour, to he able to control himself? And say he should be punished because he couldnt.... but then also say that he needed discipline so if he OP (the grown adult) couldnt control herself then it's just "discipline". Its not. The OP threw a proper wobbly over a 7 year old, a 7 year old whose world had been upended and who is just copying the behaviour he was exposed to in the family home. No one should be trying to excuse her behaviour as "discipline". That's not disciple, its bullying and horrible behaviour... which is exactly what she should be teaching her son is wrong.

She needs to start modelling the correct way to deal with frustration if she's going to undo the lessons he learned from his dad.

Agree with your post 10:19Weregoingonanadventure

You should have confiscated the cards, not thrown them out the window.

Wow how spiteful of you. Well done he's going to remember this for life

Yeah, I remember being a little shit and getting one of my possessions broken. Do you know what I think of it now? Good on my mum, I deserved it. She never did it again though so was clearly ashamed. Knowing my mum had a breaking point allowed me to see her as more human. More like me.

Half of the posters on here if your dp threw something belonging to you out the window would you be fine withit.Noof course youwouldnt.Andi bet many would be telling you to ltb.

Yeah, but I would also be saying LTB if someone said their DP tried to ground them for poor behaviour and told them they couldn't see their friends. People do that to their kids all the time.

You know you overreacted, but your son was rude and actions have consequences...so I am sure he will think twice before acting like that again.

I hope you managed to sort things out with him this morning

It was OTT, you know that, but he was also being a disrespectful little bugger. I imagine him copying his father’s crap behaviour really pushed your buttons. If you can’t salvage them, then perhaps you can get replacements. It should be clear than any repeats of that behaviour means confiscation, however.

Some posters really did hit every branch when they fell out of the dipshit tree.

OP KNOWS she shouldn't have thrown the cards!! Duh. Say something useful.

Poor souls, all of you.
You’re not coping as well as you’d like and that’s very understandable. I had a couple of these moments when DS1 was around the same age. I struggled, being a single parent to a boy who was missing his dad. And dealing with his dad was all uphill around that time. It’s just bloody hard and there’s no shortcut AND 7-9 is a tough age! I’ve found it as hard as the teens!
Replace the cards.
Hugs heal everything.
Tomorrow’s a new day.
Nothing terrible happened here, really! He won’t be scarred! That’s bloody nonsense. You’re human. He’s human. You’re allowed to break! Fuckin’ hell, it can all be a bit of a tightrope walk around times!
And maybe next time, if he doesn’t want to play with your pepper just leave him be. Choose your battles and breathe. This parenting gig is tough! Don’t be hard on yourself OP.

Tightrope walk AT times, not around!

Some of these posts are just so over the top. The ones that have adopted lovely MN lingo and call her 'batshit'; the ones that say the boy deserved it, the little brat; the ones that say OP is abusive and the ones that say he will learn from it that destroying someone's property is a way of controlling them.
Firstly, the boy is 7, not 2 or 3. He will not be thinking breaking someone's property is something that he should be doing from now on, he will be questioning what he did wrong and what his mum did wrong and he will feel sad and resentful and hopefully a bit embarrassed but will get over it.
Secondly, the OP is not abusive for calling out rudeness and disrespectful behaviour. I don't mean disrespectful in an extreme parenting sense (you know, not Bible-bashers' need for respect kind of sense), just that we don't behave so rudely to anyone and if we do, people might get angry.
Thirdly, he is not a little brat, he is definitely also struggling with the breakup and the change in the family situation so is perhaps not so much in control of his behaviour like OP wasn't in control of hers when she threw the cards.
Fourthly, the OP is not crazy for losing it. We all lose it sometimes (at least I'd like to hope we're not numb), especially when under extreme stress.
In conclusion, the boy needed to be told that his behaviour was unacceptable, the OP overreacted.
My mother once hit me when I 'talked back'. It was actually a joke but she thought I was being serious, I was 12 though and as an apology she bought me new shoes. I was so happy when those shoes got lost. Now, I have never forgotten it but now being a parent myself I can see why she could have lost it and yes, she was going through a breakup at the time.

@LoveIsLovely - you’re not wrong! Mums are human too! I could describe what an abusive mother is really like. (It involves physical abuse, broken bones, starvation, neglect, and psychological abuse, humiliation, etc)
OP has admitted to being stressed out and has apologized to her DS. There is nothing in her post that gives me the impression that she resents him for existing or blames him for repeating behaviour learned from his father. She takes complete responsibility for her reactions.
Throwing the stupid cards out of a window will be something they both laugh about one day, because hopefully now he’s been removed from the influence of that awful man, he will grow up to be the kind of guy who will understand.

If someone's partner destroyed their possessions because they were a bit cheeky, it would be considered abusive. Why is it any different if it's a child. I think you did a really horrible thing 😞 he is a child.

This is why I like time outs.

In my home, maddening behaviour got a time out. It gave both of us time to calm down and apologise if necessary.

Throwing cards out is an aggressive and vengeful response. Of course you regret it, but what's important is how to avoid responding like this in future.
You should identify what you did that caused the situation to get to that point and think of strategies to avoid getting to a similar point in future, and strategies to defuse the situation if it gets there again.

And you need to work with him to help him find more constructive ways to communicate with you.

But children learn most and foremost by example. You must model the behaviour you expect from him.

We've all had our moments. Apologise, give him a hug, and offer to go halves on replacing in bulk if he has money in his money box to do that.

When I'm being driven up the wall by DS I try to count back from 10 to give him warning a consequence is coming. I take a slow breath between each count and only commit to a consequence if I get to 5. This gives me time to think what will be reasonable and proportionate .... And because he knows that there will be a consequence, makes ds behave in about 75% of cases before I even have to get that far.

I don't see what he did massively wrong? To get punishment? He walked out of a room in his own house? He was a little cheeky. But to throw everything out when his parents have just split?

I think that was a massive overreaction. I would go and get them. Say sorry. We are all human. Mummy lost her temper. I shouldn't have etc. Let's forget it.

He was a little cheeky

He walked off when someone was speaking to him, ignored her twice, pointed at the door as if she were dirt under his shoe, said "whatever" twice when she told him his behaviour was unacceptable, then said "just go and play with your pepper". I'm struggling to even imagine someone aged 7 saying that last comment, it's so patronising and snide, as well as assuming a level of authority that no 7 year old should have over their parent.

I think we can all see that OPs response was too far, including her, but I'm struggling to believe people are actually saying his behaviour wasn't rude.

Yeah, but I would also be saying LTB if someone said their DP tried to ground them for poor behaviour and told them they couldn't see their friends. People do that to their kids all the time.

This is something I think all the time about some of the responses on here. I’m not saying that it’s ok to treat children however you like because of course it isn’t, but children are not adults and you are ‘allowed’ to treat them differently. If the OP had confiscated the cards for 48 hours so her son couldn’t go to his club then I’m sure most posters on here would consider that fair. If an adult confiscated a possession belonging to their spouse because they’d been rude to them then that would be considered abusive. It goes both ways too, the behaviour from the OPs son (while appallingly rude) is being partly excused because he’s a child under a lot of stress. It probably wouldn’t be excused coming from an adult.

I think he absolutely deserved a telling off and perhaps temporary confiscation of the cards. It was wrong to destroy them because the lesson he learns from that is that it is ok to damage other people’s property if you are angry or believe they have done something wrong.
I would apologise to him for destroying them and tell him that although it was wrong of you to destroy the cards rudeness will not be tolerated so you will replace the cards and as long as there are no further incidents he can have them next weekend. If however he is rude, then you will be keeping hold of them until his behaviour improves.

And yes of course he should have the manners and respect not to just walk away or tell you to leave a room just because he is bored or what you’re saying.

@aSofaNearYou and @Halfterm

What you said.