Strict parenting which is now worrying me

[Createanewusername]

Wwyd? How to handle the following?

H very strict parent. DS is nearly 8 and is a happy playful boy but can’t put a foot wrong without H breathing down his neck. Caused H and I many arguments.

Today, we had been enjoying a nice morning but when I left the room for one minute I heard son crying and said “dad hurt me. He hurt me.” Turned out that DS had been asked not to jump on sofa but was playing and did jump on sofa. H grabbed son by back of neck in anger(/punishment?) to get him off sofa.

H seems oblivious to the way he behaved. H and DS were soon playing after it happened.

DS is soon off to football so I want to address this with H.

Tough one.
Me and DH had differing opinions when I was pregnant, him much stricter.
We are now on the same page because of podcasts such as Unruffled and listening to 'the book you wish your parents had read' and some others I can't remember now.
He did this off his own back though so not sure how you could persuade your other half to listen to these or look at gentle parenting techniques.
If he likes facts and figures what about looking up some statistics on the subject and having them clearly written out with sources?

Grabbing him by the neck is dangerous. That's not strict parenting. Strict parenting would be banning him from TV for a week. Grabbing him by the neck is assault.

The second my son is out the door, I would turn to my husband and say " The next time you put your hands on my son will be the last day you see either of us. We are no longer willing to walk on egg shells with you in this house, so get your shit together or get out. Your way of parenting is damaging our son and I won't have it any more."

That is the only thing you can do for your son. Enabling a husband like that means that you are complicit in this way of raising and your son deserves better.

👏👏👏

Grabbing him by the neck? That doesn't sound like strict parenting, it sounds abusive to me.

Talk to your H and see what he says, but in your situation, I would be seriously considering whether this was a save environment for my child.

Safe not save

You need to stand up for your son and protect him. Tell your husband that he must never use physical force again on your child.

Strict parenting to me is clear boundaries and respect. What you describe is aggressive imo, and I’d push back against that. Home should be a safe, warm supportive environment.

Would he grab you by the neck if you didn't do something he said? I bet not.

Hmmm I know you say this is a pattern of behaviour with your DH being overly harsh with your son, but it comes across like you are too soft with him to me. An 8 year old should not be jumping on the sofa when told not to, I would be very annoyed by this behaviour, he's too old for it.

There's always a tendency to see the stricter parent as the one that is wrong on here which I don't think is very productive. I think there's a middle ground here.

In terms of the neck grabbing - well if my 8 year old said this about my DP I wouldn't jump to the conclusion he used excessive force, but I trust him. It sounds like you don't trust yours.

Strict parenting is having strict rules. It’s not being harsh, using physical punishment let alone ‘grabbing by the neck’.

I think I was strict as a parent. Certainly what I was expecting from my dcs looked like it compare to their peers. But at the same time, I rarely punished them, took away ‘privileges’ and whatnot, let alone physically punishing the child

Would your h accept ds doing the same y to him when ds is older and bigger than him? He sounds like a bully rather than strict parent.

You can have strict rules and be a good parent but the punishment given today is assault. If ds repeated that at school, you'd be under investigation from Social Services too. It's your job to protect ds from this abusive man. While it is frustrating when kids won't listen, violence is never the answer.

@aSofaNearYou , the problem is that when one parent is responding aggressively/with physical punishment, ime, it actually either sees the child running away in fear (so yes they’ll behave but at what cost?) or they just carry on (the type who will say ‘you don’t hurt me! I don’t care’ when being smacked).

Thats not insisting on good behaviour and compensating for a lax parent. It’s still being a shit parent with very poor results

Btw @Createanewusername , your ds was back being his happy self and playing with his dad because he is very used to his outbursts. For him, this is normal behaviour from a father.

@aSofaNearYou the correct response to a kid doing something they’ve been told no to is not grabbing him by the neck. And the child told his mother the man had hurt him. And OP said the man had done it in anger, or to ‘discipline’ and that he breathes down their necks. Why defend him? There’s no excuse to trying to justify this shit.

This!

There is being a strict parent and there is being abusive and it sounds as if your husband is abusive.

Btw @Createanewusername , your ds was back being his happy self and playing with his dad because he is very used to his outbursts. For him, this is normal behaviour from a father.

I see abused adults doing this too - acting the way that the angry person wants is an easy way to pretend that the episode didn't happen.

The only account of what happened is the 8 year old. Young children do often exaggerate being "hurt" by adults when in reality they have just been touched or stopped from doing something, even more so when they are playing up to the "softer" adult. His dad MAY have been forceful with him in anger, or he may have just firmly removed him from the sofa. As I said, I wouldn't jump to the conclusion it was the former based on the 8 year old's word.

OP knows the situation better and the people involved and can obviously make her own judgment call on whether she thinks her DH was violent. I'm just commenting that from what she's put here, which minimises the naughtiness of the boys behaviour, I get the impression that where he swings (in her opinion) too far into too strict territory, she may sit in the too soft territory.

Does your dh realise that if your ds goes to school and says he has a sore neck and that his df had grabbed him by the neck that school would likely call social services?

Your dh needs to learn to pick his battles and not react in an us I've way, either verbally or physically.

Obviously re-read the OP where it says the man argues with his wife about his breathing down the neck of the child. Shouldn’t need pointed out to you that it’s likely that the man is often too harsh, if not outright abusive. There is literally zero need for anyone to play devil’s advocate for an aggressive man.

Depends how your husband grabbed him 'by the neck'

An open hand around his throat- unacceptable
His arm thrust forward, bent at the elbow so boys chin was in his elbow and pulled the child back towards him- not so bad.

What strategies do you have for getting an 8 year old off jumping on the sofa when he's told not to?

sounds like a big gap between how you parent, you too soft, dad too tough, ( and a boy that enjoys it)

This and I’d tell my husband this - hands off my child

Yes, and as I said, OP seeming too soft with the child makes me question her opinion on whether her DH is excessively harsh with him, or whether her opinion is coloured by being soft herself and they're both being unreasonable.

I have a different opinion to you. You don't have to accept it but I don't need to justify it to you specifically.

Tricky, because grabbing a child round the neck is dangerous, but so is jumping on the sofa. If they were 'friends' again five minutes later, I wouldn't necessarily be too concerned.

Not a day goes by that I don't regret putting my foot down sooner with now exh. He was a wonderful father when they were babies but as they got older, our very different styles of parenting became apparent. Not wanting to undermine him, I didn't step in initially , things very slowly and very gradually got worse. By time I did it step in it was too late, the dc were terrified of his shouting and physical aggressiveness, and now exh didn't know how else to parent. As eldest dc got to early teens, everything was starting to escalate quickly and they started being physically agressive back to their df.

My dc not spent time with their df now in nearly 9yrs. My dc do however feel, rightly, that I should have protected them earlier.

I dearly wish, that as our differing parenting styles first emerged, that we either parted ways or I'd insisted on him going on a parenting course.