DP told crying 4 year old: “You won’t have any more treats ever if you don’t stop now”

[Charlatan109]

We’d been to see a panto. It was fairly fun, quite long but with an interval. 4yo had eaten ice cream, small pack of wine gums, lolly and had been on stage with about 80 other kids from the audience at the end. After we left she wanted something from the theatre gift shop (I said no, the shop is closed-it was), then a comic from the newsagents we walked past (again I said no, come on, let’s go to the car). She started crying, stomping her foot. I leant down and tried to reason and say she’d seen a show and that was really good so a comic as well is too much.
DP (her dad) steps in and just picks her up and starts walking and said to her “You’ll have no more treats ever if you don’t stop now”.
I think this is a really pointless and horrible thing to say to her. Because it’s just so negative, totally unenforceable and isn’t clear what she needs to stop doing. She cried for another 10 mins or so walking to the car and in her seat.
Although DP did move the situation along, I think how he acted was unreasonable.
Do you agree or not?
Is there anything I could/should say to DP to address this? He hates confrontation and tends to dismiss/minimise emotions rather than confront issues or discuss things to resolve them.
Do you think this is a reasonable thing to say to a child?

You can sometimes say things like that in the heat of the moment. It doesn’t sound totally unreasonable unless he’s an unreasonable person full stop. It sounds like you could be over analysing his parenting. Only you know if he’s a good day or if he is always negative. I’m sure I’ve probably said a lot worse than that in my time.

It's fine imo.

*good dad

She sounds tired after a nice but long evening.

With the magazines and treats, does she get them more often than not when she asks? If asking for things leads her to getting what she wants, she will be disappointed when the answer is no.

My children are older now, but when young they rarely asked for things like magazines because we didn't buy them. Going to a show or day out was the treat so they didn't have all the extras on top.

He just sounds like a tired, frustrated parent who wanted to get home after a long event with an overtired and sugared up kid.

There is no point in stopping to reason with a crying, tired, over excited child who just wants and wants and wants at that point. No, he wasn't horrible. Was it pointless - sure. Did he say the perfect thing - no. Neithe rof you needs to over analyze every single word your partner says. It wasn't harmful. Someday you are going to say something that isn't the perfect response and I am surprised ou haven't yet in 4 years of parenting. Not everyone has endless patience. He is human and was a bit exasperated and didn't need to stop every 5 seconds because there was a new want and you wanted to hear her out on each thing and let her whine and cry and beg for things all the way to the car.

no it's not fine she's literally 4 she doesn't have the headspace to process that he's exaggerating also i don't like that he just picked her up op i used to hate when my dad did that especially when he was 'angry'

That sounds fine to me.

It’s shit parenting as there’s no way he’s going to follow through. Pointless unenforceable threats don’t help in the long term.

If it was a one-off and hun losing his patience after a long day, I would shrug it off but if it’s part of a pattern of behaviour, I would pull him up on it, for the lack of effectiveness more than anything.

If it’s a one off then I would leave it. Most parents will have said something pointless that they can’t follow through on at some point.
If he is always doing it then I might talk in about not saying things we aren’t going to follow through on ad it’s a waste of time and include us both in that rather than pinpointing him.

shit parenting because, as you said, it's completely unenforceable and just confused the child. But we've probably all been there now and again when dealing with a grumpy child.

I am pretty sure I’ve said things that I’ve never followed up on 😂. It’s called parenting when you’re tired, overwhelmed and not perfect 🤦‍♀️. Personally OP you are inviting a load of mumsnetters to rip him to shreds over something fairly insignificant. Are you a making a mountain out of a molehill or is this part of a greater pattern?

It's one of those things that parents say in the heat of the moment. It's completely unproductive because, like you say, it's unenforceable, not well communicated, not a consequence linked to the behaviour in a way that a 4 year old can understand, doesn't actually communicate to her what her "crime" was etc etc. It's a bit shit. But I think we can safely say we've all been there, especially when we're tired and frazzled after a long day. It's not the end of the world unless this is how she's generally disciplined on a daily basis.

I think the issue is more that you seem to feel unable to just have a normal conversation with him later about it. It doesn't need to be a confrontation. Do you have a better method of dealing with that kind of thing that you can share with him? Or, if not, can you use it as an opportunity to come up with some methods of discipline that you can both use for consistency's sake?

I will say though, if she's tired and excited and full of sugar then it's going to be extremely difficult for her to have any kind of impulse control or reasoning ability.

It seems a really silly thing to say to me. He's clearly not going to do it, so he's teaching her that he won't follow through on his words. Plus it's pretty mean spirited. It sounds like an exhausting outing for her, she needs help to control her emotions when tired, not ridiculous threats.

Gosh, are we always supposed to be perfect parents?

Nope. At least, I don't strive to be, my DC seem fine enough.

DH and I have had a similar conversation about making threats that are impossible to follow through on. DS is 4 too and a tantrum at this age is worse than when they were smaller as they have a much better vocabulary!

DH admitted that in the heat of the moment he blurts out the first thing he can think of. (E.g. If you don’t get back into bed, I’ll put your toy in the bin). It ended up with DS very upset and DH feeling awful once the situation had calmed down.

The best thing was to have a pre-prepared consequence ready to go. Then it’s on the tip of his tongue if needed. Easier for us as DS is only a nightmare at bedtime so we know the scenario going in. It’s got much better since for both of them.

Everyone says things in the heat of the moment, no I don't think you should raise it with him. Tbh your approach of trying to reason with a tantruming 4 year old isn't great either.

We've all done something like that at some point. My kids haven't suffered from having occasional ludicrous threats to get them moving. I still haven't followed through with setting the dragon on them.

Dont say anything to your husband. If my husband told me he needed to address something with me and that I was unreasonable because I didn't word something perfectly or use the most effective parenting strategy during a cranky moment, I would also not take that on board.

It isn't your job to police your husband or to tell him how to parent to decide he is unreasonable and that his actions / words need to be addressed. Especially over something so ridiculously trivial. You aren't his boss or his mother and have no role in micromanaging his life from an authoritative position.

I may have said something like that in the past when tired and frustrated after a long day. No one is perfect.

It's a bit dramatic to be so bothered about one throw away comment at the end of a day of excess. It's unlikely to scar her for life. Unless of course there's a huge backstory.

It depends really. Was this a one off, frustrated tired thing, or is this his usual way of dealing with feelings?
You could talk to him about how frustrated he seemed or if he could think about doing things differently next time?
It sounds a bit more like he doesn't feel comfortable seeing emotions being expressed.
I'm guessing that everyone who says it's completely fine, also struggles with emotions. Lots of people were brought up like that. It doesn't you can't want something different for your children.
Would he read something like Philippa Perry's The Book you wish your parents had read?

Its no more pointless than trying to reason and talk logic to a crying, tired, overwrought 4 year old about what she has already had!!

Sometimes you just have to take action and say no

Obviously what he said doesnt make sense in the long run but you can talk about that and different responses to difficult behaviours at another time and not in relation to this one incident. You need to agree what your respective responses are going to be to tantrums or upset behaviour

Why would it need to be from an authoritative position? Couldn't you just say to your husband "you know earlier when you said XYZ to DC? I reckon you'd have had more joy if you'd tried to do ABC instead. She was so tired and overwhelmed, I just think making big threats is escalatory. It's hard though when we're all tired isn't it? Very easy to say things you don't mean etc etc". That's just a normal conversation for two people who are supposedly in love and jointly raising human beings. It's sharing knowledge and skills and experiences. I wouldn't be at all offended if my husband said this to me because it wouldn't be accusatory or confrontational, it'd just be coming from a place of wanting to make things easier for all of us. I can't imagine having a marriage where we couldn't talk to each other about parenting techniques for fear of being accused of micromanaging or policing each other.

You'll get lots of replies saying 'its shit parenting.' It's real parenting, kids are allowed to see parents make mistakes and say stupid stuff, that's how they develop the coping skills to realize that no one is perfect and everyone makes mistakes and how most things can be rectified.

At the end of the day, it dealt with the situation efficiently and effectively. She was upset but she was overtired and sounds a bit like she's not used to hearing no. It wasn't amazing parenting but it wasn't awful either. Every single parent, including you, will have done something that's not perfect.

I've done that a few times around that age. Best parenting moment? Definitely not, but it is what it is.

As a one (or 10 ) off throughout the years it's not the end of the world, but if it's frequent, or worse the main way he deals with her/her tantrums then you do need to have a talk with him.