When someone tries to discipline your child without your permission

[MonaRosa]

Hi All

My six year old has several challenges and is currently on the pathway for an autism assessment and also awaiting the results of some genetic testing. It has been more than 2 years since I first visited the GP with concerns. So this has been a tough couple of years for us, to say the least.

I dont know if he has autism or not, but he is on school’s SEN list and we are hoping his ASD assessment will happen before the end of the year.

Here is what upset me today. We were invited to a family barbecue, which I went with my son. I do love my family, but at times these events make me feel like an inadequate parent.

My cousins has kids (a bit younger than mine) and they are very much by the book in the way they raise their kids. Strict routines, sweets only allowed on very rare occasions etc. With the challenges with my son, all of that is out of the window!! That makes me very self conscious as a parent.

The last couple of times we have been with the family, my son started by playing nicely with my cousins’ kids, but ended up getting overwhelmed after couple of hours in full tantrum mode.

On both occasions, I feel like one of my cousin’s husband treated my son badly.

Today, his little cousin was provoking him quite a bit, and my son ended up hitting him with a ball. I know that’s really bad, but I think what my cousin’s husband then did it soooo unacceptable. Despite me being there, and trying to get my son to say sorry (which he refused in full tantrum and trying to hit me), the husband intervened and tightly held my son (very very tightly!!! ), without my permission or even bothering checking if I wanted him to.

I am so upset that he thinks this is OK, and upset with myself that I didn’t confront him.

I said, please let me deal with him, he is very overwhelmed. And his answer was “if you say so” with a hint of sarcasm.

I felt judged for failing to discipline my child. But I am now more upset that I didn’t say to him that he shouldn’t do that to my child.

What would you have done? This now makes me not to want to go these family gatherings as all the other children seem son”normal” and my son so “misbehaved”.

I am sure you can tell how upset I am, and questioning myself as a mother too.

sorry for the rant, and thank you

@mellowfell yep agree entirely. I'm now so proud to say this is my son. He's polite, he's funny, he's mature. He's off the wall but he's great and it's worlds away from what we had. He's 12.

I had all sorts - smacked round my head at parents groups, having to leave every bloody parent group I ever joined, family member blaming my parenting ( pre diagnosis), family member doing same as example you provided, dying going to school thinking wtf happened today.

We are worlds away. Your child is definitely ND by sounds of it. That shit won't fly in the real world and it's not fair but that's reality.

Avoid gatherings for now, make excuses and practice different technique in safer settings. I would absolutely reward for how your little one manages their strong feelings. Make it a priority. Also a pep talk before every event! ' If this happens, this is what I need to see you do '. Don't let it get to that stage.

Fuck the family. Forget them for now and just spend time helping your kid get a grip on this. It will get better ❤️

You know your son gets overwhelmed after a couple of hours so you need to decide whether to leave after 90 minutes or if there is a circuit breaker you can use to support your son if you want to stay at the event longer.
If you put him on a difficult situation where ends up hurting other children you can't be suprised when their parents aren't happy.
You don't need to discipline your child after he melts down, you need to monitor, supervise, distract, support, play with, to avoid getting to that point. It is harder for some than others but you seem to have a handle on the triggers so just need to increase the support at difficult times.

I agree with others that it sounds like you need to anticipate behavioural issues and intervene earlier.

Trying to get any 6 year old in full-blown tantrum to apologise to another child that he is annoyed with is never going to work. Maybe taking him away from the 4 year old he has just hurt and their annoyed parent might have been better sooner rather than later. Your child could then have apologised when calmer.

To be fair you did say your son was trying to hit you whilst in his tantrum. I would think your cousin thought he was helping the situation by restraining him to protect you. You have said that he hits you a lot at home. His son is a small boy so that added another protective element to the situation. Maybe a chat with your family would be a good idea so that you could all watch out for potential triggering situations in the future. It seems a shame to isolate him from his cousins.

I'm sure he's a lovely boy. But family gatherings are always stressful, even for adults! So yes, I'd still stick with stay back for a bit until you have strategies in place. It will get easier.

Well, you weren't parenting him so clearly someone else had to. You can't expect anything else.

You need to watch like a hawk and intervene faster never let them get so wound up they lash out use your strategies to calm and soothe then reintroduce them to the situation

I think that’s a bit unfair to say I wasn’t parenting him. A better description was that I was trying but perhaps not being successful with it. I was there as soon as it happened, I apologised and I removed from my son for the situation quickly

Failing yourself (which can happen) don't blame others.

You need to handle a situation like this before your child hits another. You need to parent closer.

People don't need your permission to keep their own children safe either.

So you think someone else can hurt my child because my 6 year old hurt their child?? The way he was holding him so thought leaving finger prints on his arms. Do you think that’s acceptable?

No, I think you need to realise this situation wasn't anyone's fault but your own.

If your child harms another person's child and you're not parenting them properly, their parents are going to step in, and rightfully so.

It's not great but really you should take more responsibility and supervise your child so the father didn't have to step in to protect his child from your child's violence.

Clearly I don’t want either their child or my child hurt. Perhaps without understanding how trying to parent a potentially autistic child is, you think I am failing at this as a parent. I have an older child, without the same challenges as my younger one, and I would like to think I parented hi fine as he is a lovely boy. Let’s leave it at that. Also to say that I normally avoid these gatherings exactly for this reason, but there was a special reason why I agreed to go and take my son with me today

How/Why didn't you intervene while your son's behaviour was escalating but before he hit his cousin?

What did you do to stop him hitting his cousin?

You failed to supervise the child. You need to stay very close and step in before a situation like this ends in your son hitting another child. It's your responsibility not other parents'.

I really wouldn’t be happy with your cousin’s husband doing this but I can also understand why someone might step in and hold your child to stop you from being hurt.

You’ve said that you’re very self conscious of your parenting around family. Do you think you parent differently around them because of that?

You keep making excuses here, your child was corrected for hurting another child, because you didn't do enough to stop the situation.

Take responsibility for your lack of action, and don't set your child up to fail by putting him in situations where he can hurt another child.

It wasn’t necessarily escalating per se. It all happened very quickly and I intervened straightaway.

It sounds like you want people to agree with you that your family member overstepped the boundaries OP - but honestly it doesn't sound like he did. You are responsible for making sure that your son doesn't accidentally hurt younger members of the family and you didn't manage to prevent that - we've all been there

So did the other childs' parent.
Maybe not in a great way but you shouldn't blame him protecting his child from being hit. You should make apologies for your child hurting his cousin.

How could there have been ‘quite a bit of provocation’ but it ‘happened so quickly’?
You intervened too late. You clearly cannot be far enough away from your 6 year old at this stage, not to be able to intervene rapidly to prevent this, and you were. Again - where were you and what were you doing before and while things were escalating?

For goodness sake with all the parenting comments.

OP, I've experienced this exact same thing. What I believe is happening is the male relative was massively triggered watching your son have a tantrum and possibly at the point it escalated to hitting you, said relative lost control and reacted. I do understand that but that's the reason. It's nothing to do with just protecting the other child whatsoever.

There's no win to this scenario until your son better manages his reactions. That's the answer and that's all there is to it. You're on here because the feelings of guilt, shame, embarrassment, fear and frustration are all bubbling up in you after this incident. I totally understand it as I have lived it. This is what comes for many of us parenting ND kids. It's such a lonely journey. It will get better! Much better!

Get the diagnosis. Focus on managing these meltdowns and look at what the real issue is. It's a natural reaction you're having along this difficult journey. I'm glad you're seeing what's happening now though rather than the denial I was in for a little while.

I did apologise on behalf of my son and checked that the other child was Ok

Simply thank you from the bottom of my heart. I am in tears…no other way about it