DH dishing out awful advice to kids

[GreySweater]

My husband offers no help when it comes to trying to coach DC through tricky situations at school. Infact worse than this, he is a total moron. I'm just sick of it now. DC are 11yrs and 9yrs - so it feels like I've had years of this. Examples: If my DS comes home saying someone has been mean to him 'punch him in the face' is the advice my husband gives. Or if someone laughs at him - his advice: 'go right up to him and say 'in yer face ya loser''. Etc etc. I'm so tired of trying to give considered words of wisdom, role playing with the kids so they can practise, trying to coach them to challenge the kids that 'dish out', when my DH comes our with utter shit like this. Just had a flaming row a few mins ago, when he came home from work and DS mentioned something that happened today and DH came our with more idiotic advice. I just exploded. I then went back to apologise to DH and explain why I'm so frustrated and feel so unsupported and even undermined when the kids are trying to work through these situations. And he just said 'yeah well you should be sorry' and no recognition of my frustration with him. He is a dick. Rant over.

I could never get anything out of DCs (or DGCs come to that) about school ..... it was like drawing teeth

What a dick!

I would sit down with him when calm and explain why you think his approach is wrong and ask for you to be a united front. I would also say that if they take his advice he can deal with the calls from school.

As a side note are they having a lot of issues at school? Just with it being an ongoing issue!

Is this a continued pattern of other children bullying/picking on your child that hasn't been resolved? I think that although the ignore them/ask them why they are bothering you/ tell the teacher/ rise above it type advice is all very well in practice, there does come a point where actually doing some of the thing that your DH suggests actually might not be the "ideal" behaviour, but it might get something done! Particularly with the oldest. Secondary school (whether he's there now or will be next year) can be brutal and you do need to stand up for yourself.

If it's a one off someone said something mean, then agree explore the other options for dealing with it first.

I am with you. But I have friends who are very much in the punch them back camp. Difficult when you share parenting, to be on opposite sides. I wonder if you both need to accept that neither is necessarily right. Maybe give DS both sides and talk through the consequences (especially in DPs strategies).

Does your DH behave as boorishly as he advises your children to behave?

TBH if it’s an on going bullying issue and the school aren’t getting it sorted your DHs suggestions would most likely work. Ok your kid will be in trouble but the issues will probably stop.
It’s a bit dog eat dog on the playground

I agree with your husband. The quiet kids end up being a target, a few instances of them sticking up for themselves normally shows would-be bullies that they aren't to be messed with 🤷‍♀️

@SummerHouse

I am with you. But I have friends who are very much in the punch them back camp. Difficult when you share parenting, to be on opposite sides. I wonder if you both need to accept that neither is necessarily right. Maybe give DS both sides and talk through the consequences (especially in DPs strategies).

I think this is a very balanced comment. It also made me think, none of us are carbon copies of our parents and parenting doesn't exist in a vacuum. You're playing probably the most important role in their lives right now but they'll be exposed to other role models with varying personalities throughout their lives and they'll draw on all those experiences as well as their own personalities as they find their way through life. So I wouldn't worry too much if what your DH says isn't from the perfect parenting handbook, you're doing a great job and most kids in this country don't even have one parent modelling good conflict resolution skills.

Lovely and very helpful comments, thank you. I have gone for a long walk and feel better. I'm going to talk to DH tomorrow about it. I think I'm also a bit sensitive as we had such a tough time with bullying towards my daughter in previous years. I spent a lot of time working through that with teachers and daughter. A lot of it was on my shoulders (I felt so anyway). So I just wanted DH to kind of 'step up' on this and he just has a very different approach to me