I don’t know how to get past how angry I am with ds

[MumOfFury]

He’s 10 and yesterday did something outrageously stupid which is likely to cost me several hundred pounds (all the savings I have for Christmas) and was also incredibly dangerous, could have killed him and his brother and could have cost thousands and thousands to fix. The owner of the damaged item is trying to get quotes to get it repaired today and is hoping it may be at least partly covered by insurance.

I am so, so angry with him though and I can’t see that fading anytime soon. He’s sorry that I’m cross with him but keeps trying to justify what he did and doesn’t seem to particularly think he did anything wrong because it was an accident (it was stupidity and he could hear me shouting to him to stop before I managed to get to him to physically stop him).

I don’t know what to do. I’ve take. His screens away but he’s perfectly happy sat in his room reading books. I’m tempted to send him to stay with my mum for a few days. He wouldn’t consider it a punishment but I’m so angry with him I’m frightened I’m going to say something awful to him.

Please be gentle on me. I’m sobbing writing this I don’t know what I’ve done wrong to end up with a kid who genuinely sees nothing wrong with this type of behaviour and seems to have no concern about the huge cutbacks we’ll have to make if I need to pay for the damage he’s caused.

Awww honestly forgive your boy move on and accept it's an adults place to forgive a dc. If you personally are in a bad place accept that's also not his fault. He's 10.

When little my friends covered the top of their neighbours car in ketchup out of pure boredom when they were 9/10 and the police were involved(!) with a lot of witnesses and a car that had been permanently stained with the acid from the ketchup. Their mum was flaming angry and hugely embarrassed. A decade later, honestly it's quite funny. The neighbour was fine once it all got sorted The dc grew up to be amazing adults and none the worse.

I agree with HKM2B's concern about ADHD. Something is not quite right about the child's reaction, during and after. I am not in a position to judge based on one incident but as a mother, OP will know even before this incident if something has always been a little 'off' with her son.

Hopefully it is just this one-off. What a one-off this is.

@Hangingoninthere88 actually if you're not neuro diverse I wouldn't expect you to understand. Being neuro diverse doesn't excuse appalling behaviour. It doesn't mean you don't need to be given tools to deal with situations better.

Being neuro diverse myself I have empathy for others in a similar way. Doesn't excuse behaviours. But it explains them. A lot. And for a parent of a child who's neuro diverse it's helpful to identify it so strategies can be implemented to manage it.

For years people with neuro diverse issues were labelled all sorts of things. Stupid. Clumsy. Called idiots. Ostracised. Thankfully now we can all be a bit more educated and can provide support to make things better for all.

I've shared this so the OP can look into this to help her address (and prevent!) issues going forward. Ignoring it or punishing just won't bloody work!

FFS Go and educate yourself a bit more. If someone was blind and broke a cup no one would criticise them. If you educate yourself about ADHD and the impact it has on peoples every day existence you might have more empathy. But I doubt it.

If you're overwhelmed and you need a break there's nothing wrong with asking your mum to have the dc. But don't frame it as you need him away from you because of this incident. He didn't set out to do any of it. 10 year olds can be thoughtless and do stupid things. They definitely lack common sense. He didn't mean to do it.

Hopefully the lady had insurance.

He is 10
He made mistakes
He doesnt have adult judgement
There should be insurance

Calm down

It's an accident accidents happen 10 year olds Can be stupid at times that's why we don't leave them on their own, I get how angry you are but that's what they have insurance for, shit happens on holiday when you don't expect it to, you need to stop over reacting and calm down. We all do things we regret I'm sure he is very sorry and he is right it was an accident he didn't try and cause damage and cost you money. Pretty sure the glamping place will be doing an insurance claim to minimise costs. Hope you feel better about it soon and glad noone was hurt and nobody was hurt or died.

Oh God that sounds like a catalogue of disasters getting worse as he got more panicked. I’m not sure how angry I’d be. My DD (11) got ice cubes for her drink last night and left the freezer door open which I found this morning after the whole freezer defrosted. I told her, she apologised and I have made a few digs in her direction today but all I really want is for her not to do it again and shouting won’t get me that. I’ll just reminder her of her stupidity regularly! However I am a TOTAL klutz and am always breaking stuff and forgetting stuff so I tend to feel that those in glass houses should avoid throwing stones! Generally angry isn’t my go to.

I do have empathy but by far the most common reason for a kid making a one off mistake of breaking a door and burning a dressing gown is that they've been a bit of a clutz in keeping with a typical 10YO not that they have an actually pretty rare developmental disorder. Mum needs to deal with this, enforce natural consequences and move on not invent a medical condition that in this case just doesn't fit. It's just adding unnecessary stress to the situation

Kids make mistakes and do daft stuff but it is his attitude that I would find upsetting. He should feel bad about it, he should be apologising. He needs to understand how serious this is but it sounds like it will be difficult to get him to realise.

I am so sorry OP, you must feel so bad and it is rotten when you try so hard and it all goes wrong. I hope the insurance is some help.

Absolutely This ^

your poor boy - you can’t expect him to take the blame, he was not at home, so not his fault if things don’t operate as normal.

You are the adult - your responsibility to check the property and how things work… the only person to be angry with is yourself. Give him a hug and be thankful your lack of attention to your kids and the different surroundings didn’t end in something that could not be fixed.

I don't know if it'll make you feel better but my 17 year old had an epic fail with those stupid doors on runs too....
Luckily I was able to rehang.

I would send him to your mum's if she's happy to have him, but be clear it's not a punishment. Just say she's invited him. If he's been in his room all day reading it will be nice to get out. Perhaps send both boys if she'd have them, so you get some space and quiet to think? You're going to be panicking until you see what the final amount is, and then you'll be able to start to come to grips. You and your 10yo need to talk about this more, but wait a little bit as you're still so angry.

If he keeps saying "it was an accident", perhaps he needs to hear that you understand he didn't deliberately damage anything. The fact that even an accident has consequences that have to be handled is important, but maybe not today.

Once you're calmer and able to have a talk with him, I would want to know why he didn't listen to you when you said stop, and why it didn't register that the bathrobe was expensive, etc. It may just have been that things were happening too fast and he panicked, but it's reasonable to talk him through what he'd do if this kind of situation happened again. He should be developing responsibility, independence, good judgement, caution, etc. but he's a long way from it at 10!

I may be way off base here, but it sounds like you and his dad are not really working together to raise the children (not a accusation, these things are complicated) - is it possible his dad has kind of painted you as a bit of a worrier, etc. and that's why your son is sometimes not listening to what you say? I think you do have to get to the point where you can yell "stop!" and he stops; some level of instinctive trust between you.

Oh OP I really feel for you. I can imagine how horribly stressful that whole situation was as it went from bad to worse. The stress, anger, upset, embarrassment.. how you held it together and didn’t shout at DS at the time I don’t know, hats off to you as I’m not sure my mum rage brain would have managed that!!

In terms of punishing him, I absolutely see why you’re so angry with him but I also agree that it was an accident so it’s hard to know how to ‘punish’ him. He does need to understand the repercussions and seriousness of what happened though.
could you get him to write a letter of apology to the owners? That might give him the opportunity to think and process it.

In terms of the monetary issue, most 10 year olds just don’t understand adult budgeting, cutting back due to this, the cost of replacing involved items etc so that will be hard to get him to really comprehend. But I like the idea of taking away any treats that you would usually give until the amount is made up.. that might help him to understand as I’m sure it will take a lot of missing out on McDonald’s, cinema trips etc to make up hundreds of pounds. It will also give you the opportunity to save that money that you would have normally spent and put it to the side for Christmas.

Could you send him on a fundraising trip to clean cars on your street to raise the money for it? Or something similar?

Really sorry you’re in this situation! And yes maybe sending him to your mums while you calm down will be good, as long as she won’t belittle the issue or tell him he’s done nothing wrong (like my mum would!!)

best of luck x

Why do you have a log burner going in August in the middle of a heatwave? (Assuming UK). Also he's 10. Give him a break.

Awwww op it sounds like he's panicked , his 10 year old brain has jumped to "clean it up quick before mum sees" and he's momentarily forgotten how the door opened . I assume yours at home doesn't slide - his little panicked brain has gone into autopilot.
I'm sure the venue will have insurance. This won't be the first time someone has broken something .
It's not been deliberate. You will laugh in years to come . Promise .

I can't believe you're thinking of banishing your 10 year old son for making two foolish CHILDISH mistakes. That's bordering on abusive.

It's also not your son's fault that you're poor. I'm not saying it's yours, but it's definitely not his.

He isn't upset because it hasn't affected him!!

If this was my kid I'd be selling his high value items eg if he had a console/tablet/etc it would be getting sold to fund some of the damages.

I'd also be expecting him to write an apology letter to the campsite owner who has had to rearrange her bookings and deal with all the damage, insurers, etc.

He's 10 and you've said he will be told by his dad if it's him buying all the gifts. I'm going to assume by that he knows all Xmas gifts come from mum and dad. Time for a serious sit down about finances I think. Make it clear how much the family will be affected if there is hundreds of pounds to pay out. I'd have been mortified at that age as I was well aware my mum managed our money very very carefully and cautiously. Whereas yours seems unbothered and unaware.

And yes. Send him to your mum's for a night or two so you get some space to have a cry, a rant to a friend, etc. Or just let him see it. Tell him off. Cry. Why overly protect him from the consequences emotionally for you too??!

Lack of attention to her kids? Do most people sit in the bathroom with their 10 years while they shower to make sure they don’t break anything? What a nasty post.

Of course he can take some of the blame for the door. I can understand him forgetting it was a sliding door even though he’d just opened it (sort of thing I’d do!) and then trying to push it open but the OP clearly says that she was yelling for him to stop banging the door and he could hear her because he was replying- he just didn’t stop. So it wouldn’t have got broken if he’d have listened to what she was telling I’m.

The dressing gown is a bit more understandable. I imagine he was worried about having broken the door (even if he didn’t seem it at the time) and that threw his judgement slightly. An adult would think “well if I’m not allowed to touch the wood burner at home then I’m obviously not allowed to touch this one either” but he’s not an adult. Having said that, he was told specially to hang it up so I can understand the frustration about that too.

I’m really sorry this has ruined your holiday OP, and that your son’s reaction is making it worse. I’ve met several children who are very wedded to the idea that if something is an accident then it can just be shrugged off with no apology necessary, even if it’s an accident caused by them being silly/not listening/doing something they weren’t meant to do, so I don’t think it’s uncommon. I really hope that the insurance will cover most of it for you 💐

This is what businesses have insurance for, surely? I really hope you won't end up having to pay.

I can imagine how this situation escalated and how horribly stressful it was for you.

I'd assume your DS was scared at the point he was bashing the door as it sounds like panic had set in.

I understand your anger and frustration that he didn't listen to you and I understand your exasperation that he put the dressing gown on the wood burner. However, people make mistakes.

Sometimes, people can really struggle to communicate when they know they've got it wrong. I wouldn't take his apparent nonchalance at face value.

If I had an expensive item damaged, I would not be happy to be paid in £10 car washes 🙄

@Hangingoninthere88 if it's a one off, absolutely. Consequences no excuses. If it's a pattern (just what she said didn't seem like a teen-rage brain in action) then I'd defo look into adhd. Not saying it negates responsibility. But if identified it's so much easier to manage. But obviously not as a mean to overreact in response to a one off event.

TBH OP said "this type of behaviour" which suggests it's actually more a regular occurrence than a one off. But that's my insight and empathy at work there 😜

It does seem quite an overreaction on his part.

His mum was next door & could have explained how to turn the shower off if he had stopped to listen.

Or he could have unlocked the door & let her in to do it.

Banging & banging on the door to the point of breaking it isn't accidental!

Presumably the bathroom area was separate to the tent so water would have been easily mopped up?

Perhaps your mistake Op was letting go off alone back to the tent instead of making him stay to help?

I think it's a good point that a door that can be wrenched off its runners isn't terribly safe.

I stayed in a place with doors on runners and there was quite a bit of damage around both the bathrooms where previous occupants had used too much or too little force. No opening windows either - I hate Instagram-able places!