H headbutted ds......advice please

[thelineiswhere]

H (definitely not 'd'h) had been drinking bottled beers at home on Sunday afternoon.

He then decided to go to the supermarket as he often does on a Sunday afternoon to buy more bottled beers and some food items for his own personal consumption. (Money is not the issue here, so the shopping thing is a red herring but bear with me).

He was gone for several hours and I suspect he went to the pub for a couple of hours as when he came back he smelt of beer.

I was giving the kids some tea at this point and he dumped his shopping in the kitchen and hung round the table in the dining area adjacent to the kitchen winding the kids up ended up annoying ds in some way and ds told him to go away. H can be very annoying under the influence as he pushes the kids until they snap, I usually walk away but the kids were at the table eating. Anyway he wouldn't go away and was leaning in to them invading their personal space so to speak and ds pushed him away but it was like a hit on h's chest rather than a push and with that h had him pinned up against the wall with a chair and said "d you know what I do to people that hit me..... I headbutt them" and proceeded to bash his head against ds's which bashed back against the wall. Younger child was yelling at h to get off ds and leave him alone.

Ds was shocked and we all kind of yelled at h to stop. He started to tell me it was my fault and if I didn't start to... but never finished his sentence.

I reassured the kids later that h was very wrong to do this and checked ds wasn't injured.

h didn't speak to any of us for the rest of the evening as kids went to bed after a bath/shower.

Has he crossed a line here ? Things have been bad between us, he barely speaks to me at all but I assumed he'd snap out of it eventually like he always does.

[FlossyMoo]

Nail, hit, head there dude I just keep hoping this is a made up thread

[CurtWild]

rock that was my interpretation of what she was saying, not my opinion. We all have busy rl, I have 3 under 4's and work from home, yet I and countless more took the time to read and post whilst OP (who had asked for advice she didn't intend to take) was far too busy to read responses from people who had taken time out of their busy day to post. And then she takes offense at one poster? Deflection, in order to take attention away from her inaction.

[SlicedAndDiced]

I and many posters said that op couldn't be asked to read the thread. Most of us have children and busy lives but still managed to read replies to our own thread! So that excuse was just bollocks.

Op singled out AF probably because she recognised her name a bit more than the others.

[Ledkr]

If be delighted to ruin the career of anyone who hurt my child, thrilled in fact.

[SlicedAndDiced]

Same Ledkr...but then most of us would probably put the physical safety of our children before the amount of maintenance we could get our hands on.

[TzuByTwo]

It is encouraging that the OP has told her husband that he is no longer welcome back, but I remain quite confused over the attitude toward the attack on the son. An adult headbutting his child is not the same as one child hitting another. It really should be reported. Otherwise, it is leaving the door open for it to happen again, and if you do go through with a divorce he is not guaranteed to have limited/supervised visitation just because you say that is how it is going to be.

[theDudesmummy]

I was not saying people have been rude or unjust (I make no judgement on that, I only said I thought there had been unhelpful comments, which is not the same thing). I was saying that the OP is making it about that interpretation.

[theDudesmummy]

By the way, I was glad to read that the husband appears to have been excluded from the home. That is the desired immediate outcome. There should be other outcomes, not least of which being involvement of statutory services and a proper risk assessment, leading to a plan for the future, but at least, for the moment, it seem the children are safe.

[CurtWild]

Ledkr same.

And if OP's H is named on the tenancy/mortgage, she can't stop him from coming home. But reporting his physical assault on their son might help..

Fact is, if witnessing your son being headbutted by his dad isn't enough to make you call the police, a bunch of strangers on an internet forum urging you to do so aren't going to make you.

[Mumoftwoyoungkids]

Op - I am worried about you and your children. You have told a dangerous man that he can't come home. What happens when he gets drunk and decides he wants to sleep in his own bed - not the grotty hotel / beds it he is living in?

He has a right to be in his own house as there is no record of any violence. The police won't see any report from you of his trying to break in as a priority.

You need to talk to your son and the two of you need to be really brave and go to the police. Your son needs to know that it doesn't matter who it is - it could be the bloody king for all you care - no one has e right to hurt him.

And you need the authorities to protect you all.

You need a restraining order so that legally he can't come back to your house. You need the police to have a note on your house so a report from you is treated as an absolute priority. You need social services to see you as someone that is someone they work with not against. You need access to legal aid in case he tries to use money to defeat you. You need to be able to say that your children cannot be alone with him and to have the back up of the authorities on this. And you need your son to know that what happened wasn't his fault but that he was the victim of a crime. By not reporting it may give him the impression that you think it was his fault.

Also you need support from your children's school. They may be affected by this.

I know you think you can manage this yourself but you can't - your son being head butted proves that. Please get help.

[PacificDogwood]

Of course standing by and not doing anything while your child is being abused makes you a bad parent.
So does addiction, 'mere' neglect, being too busy/too bored to engage with your children etc etc. I am not handing the OP a medal for good parenting if the situation she described happened. Equally I am well aware that it is very easy for any outsider to say 'do something' and very hard in the situation. That does not excuse the OP's behaviour, but may explain it. It's very common, sadly.

And yy re the deflection.
This is not about who was rude to whom, it's about a boy (and his sibling) not being safe at home

[Theoldhag]

Op you really need to grow a vagina, balls are soft and delicate things, so are no good to you.

Please please phone none emergancy police and log this abuse.

Your first port of call is keeping your dc safe

You currently are not doing that.

If your ds tells a anyone and ss get involved you will be seen as not safe guarding your children and could lose them.

You need to take this seriously.

Your dc need you to take this seriously.

Poor ds no where safe for him to be

do the right thing op

This could have massive repercussions for your dc emotional and mental health, not to forget that your partner could have killed your son.

[EarthWindFire]

By the way, I was glad to read that the husband appears to have been excluded from the home.

As other pp have said without reporting it she can't exclude him. He has as much right to be there as she does as there is no report of what he has done.

[scarletforya]

I'm sorry if this isn't drama llama / emotive language overload enough for MN relationships threads but I'm a practical, get on with it kind of woman

To everyone else .....I'm done here thanks to AF

What a contradiction, you sneer at MN relationships for being melodramatic and emotive and then flounce over an engineered 'argument' with AF. You're totally transparent OP. Stop being such a hypocrite.

You're spouting some nonsense about the child might blame himself for his Dad leaving due to the headbutting? That can be managed with specialist counselling. The bigger danger is failing to get this dickhead arrested and your son feeling he's not worth it.

You're very confident that you know how to handle it. But to me you seem too wrapped up in your own ego and appearances to deal with it effectively. This is not about you, it's about your son.

[worldgonecrazy]

This has to be one of the worst threads I have ever read on Mumsnet. I hope that it is a sick wind up, because otherwise, there is a child in danger and a woman with her head in the sand, who are both at risk of being another statistic.

Those statistics suggest there is a reason some abused women don't repost on Mumsnet after asking for help - it's because they're dead.

[SkimWordsSuck]

I REALLY REALLY think the OP should report the attack (and have said so early on in the thread) but I still don't think it's helpful to continually attack the OP. She has a hell of a lot to deal with and it's understandable that she is reacting defensively and not responding sensibly.

It doesn't help the children involved to scare the OP off the thread.
Unfortunately I think she has probably already gone and we have now lost any further chances of helping her to see what she should do. It's sad and pointless.

OP, on the off chance you are still reading, I think you should contact some RL help. There must be organisations that can offer help? Perhaps someone who is more knowledgeable can suggest some?

[CurtWild]

OP has been given good advice from people saying she should report this incident. It's called common sense. She basically has her fingers in her ears singing lalala I can't hear you because she has no intention of reporting her H. If people have been a bit harsh it's because they figured the wake up call might spur her into action and people (who have in many cases suffered or had experience of DV) are shocked that her son has been physically attacked by his dad and she stood by doing nothing other than telling him to stop. I, for one, would have risked physical injury to myself and dragged the bastard off my boy, no matter if I was afraid, my maternal instinct would kick in because my son needed me.

[differentnameforthis]

She basically has her fingers in her ears singing lalala I can't hear you because she has no intention of reporting her H. I agree...she has no intention of carrying out her threat of making him stay away, either, imo.

She engineered that argument with AF (who was spot on) and flounced because to was all getting too hard to hear & justify.

My girls do not have to "stand up for themselves" against their father, no child should have to. The op doesn't want to hear it, she wants everyone to tell her it is OK because her dh isn't around for two weeks..

I feel for her son & hope he discloses to someone. If nothing else, he must have a mark, or cut on his face. How terrified must he have been. My eldest is 11 & she would have completely gone to pieces faced with that!

[differentnameforthis]

because it* was all getting too hard to hear & justify.

[MrsCosmopilite]

I've been reading this thread with more and more horror.

OP, I appreciate that things are difficult and you say you're a practical person but there is NO WAY you should be letting the physical abuse of your child go. Your husband attacked him, deliberately and violently.

Regardless of the fact that you are definite that he won't be back in the house, you still need to take action. Are you still concerned about the fallout affecting his/your career(s)?

[ScrambledSmegs]

Ridiculous. I take it all back, OP either has an agenda or a very guilty conscience. Or both.

AF was a little too close to the mark, I bet.

[AgathaF]

I wonder what the OP wanted to achieve from this thread.

[Aaaabbbbcccc]

This comes over as being totally made up. It is so obviously 'over the line' why would the OP even need to ask. She was then flummoxed by the speed of replies and depth of feeling of people giving genuine help that she grasped at the AF straw to back off and pretend it was because of AF. Ridiculous.

[Rawls]

I would like to make a suggestion... this thread has been seriously upsetting and strange, and more than a little suspicious.

So - we know that we can't help these particular children, or even if they exist and that is frustrating and heart wrenching: especially as the people they most need to care for them have failed to do so. But children LIKE these boys exist, that we do know, so if we used our collective energy into supporting them.

There are 551 posts on this thread - if we gave a pound for each one to kids company that would be a decent donation right? then at least AT LEAST we are showing our support for children who are being failed everywhere.

It's hard to just do nothing - which is why this thread is so passionate- so this would show the OP we support her, and show a troll that whatever their motive good shit comes from Mumsnet threads!

www.kidsco.org.uk