DH hurt our daughter

[MooPointCowsOpinion]

She was arguing with her sister and he got frustrated that she wasn't listening to him, so he picked her up roughly to move her away. She has recently broken a bone and the way he picked her up made her shout in pain as he put pressure on the break. I was out of the room less than 2 minutes, it escalated that quickly while I was gone.

I'm livid with him. Can't even speak to him. He has apologised and hugged me, apologised to dd but said 'I'm sorry if I hurt you' which has pissed me off even more.

Where do I go from here? I think if you need to roughly grab/push your child to parent them (bar life threatening situations e.g. Pulling out of traffic) then you're not parenting them, you're just an arsehole.

I also grew up getting the shit kicked out of me by my step-dad so I know I'm always on edge and I have a very negative view of men.

How old is she?

How old is DD? Assuming small, it sounds like an accident/oversight to me. I've lifted my small DC away from each other when things were getting out of control - not rough, but not with grace either.

Sorry I'm a drip feed knobhead she's 6, doesn't get picked up/carried anymore.

How rough? I think perhaps you're being too harsh.

If this is totally out of character, and the kids were fighting, pulling them apart could've just been reflex.

Unless you think he hurt her on purpose?

I'm not sure about this. I don't think it's necessarily unreasonable to pick up a child who's so engrossed in an argument that they're not listening to you and put them down somewhere where you can calmly talk to them.

It sounds like an accident to me but I appreciate that I wasn't there.

That's abusive. I don't think it was an accident that it escalated quickly whilst you were out of the room and not there to see it. Don't know where you go from here, honestly.

She's 6? I would do this to my 6yo. There's not talking to him when he goes for his brother and lifting him up and carrying him away seems to me the most sensible thing to do.

Doesn't sound like he was intending to hurt her at all! Maybe you are projecting a bit too much?

If she was arguing with her sister then he's probably moved her away to stop it getting out of hand, especially if she's recently broken a bone. He's not been massively careful but that's not the same thing as deliberately hurting her.

It was armchair parenting really, ineffectually saying her name in frustration then he jumped up and picked her up from behind to put her on the sofa. I think he was unnecessarily rough, there was no need to grab her, they were both arguing and our other daughter is much younger and smaller, so easier to pull away if that was his intention. I need to ask him wtf he was thinking but not in front of DDs.

Has the broken limb have a cast on? They're pretty protective.
Obviously I don't know you in any way shape or form but I do think you need to have a real think before voicing these thoughts. Would your DP really hurt your daughter intentionally?

How do you know he picked her up 'roughly' if you were out of the room?

I'm confused how you know what was going on when you weren't in the room.

Do you have reason to think your dh is generally too rough with your children? I wonder if there's any back story here.

Yes, you weren't there? He sounds pretty sorry, but you sound determined to stay pissed off.

I was out of the room for 2 minutes, so I heard him calling her name. Walked back in to her shouting in pain and him holding her up.

if he has no kind of form for violence of any kind, why wouldn't you believe your DH that it was an accident?

She's old enough to also play up a bit on the injury. My 6yo nephew is an amazing dramatic when he gets removed from trying to bash his 2y0 brother and will give it a lot of "owwww you really hurt me and roll around" when that certainly hasn't been the case.

I've definitely lifted my 6 year old away from arguments with both his younger and older siblings on occasion.

I'm honestly not seeing anything here. I also think you need to consider whether you're reading too much into this given your own past.

My 6 year old isn't a drama llama, but his (now 9 year old) sibling certainly was at 6.

I guess there is a back story, there must be for me to be on edge. I think he is very critical of DD6, and I'm becoming more and more protective of her as a result. This feels to me like an escalation. As an isolated incident I guess most people would say any parent can make a mistake, I totally get that.

It's hard to judge really. Ds1 had form for rugby tackling his younger brother to the ground from behind and Dh got pretty aggressive moving him out of the way. We were damn lucky ds2 didn't get hospitalised falling flat on his face several times.

Ds1 always came running to ne saying dad really hurt me but in reality hs was just upset hs got moved our of the way and found guilty.

You know your children best to judge the situation?

Overreacting in my view. He lifted her out of a squabble. She either made a fuss or was accidentally caused pain. By making such a fuss you have undermined him. You probably need to apologise for making massive assumptions.

I remember visiting a friend when her daughter was about this age. Apparently she had a telling of about 9 or 10 o'clock that morning. I was there when the dad/husband got home from work. The little girl stopped playing with my child when she heard his key in the door, started crying and ran down the hall, through herself into him and said, "Mummy has been horrible to me, she has been shouting and I didn't do anything." He proceeded to ask his wife what had been going on. She was so convincing, you would have thought she had been having a terrible time when actually she had been laughing and playing for the previous 2 or 3 hours. Kids can be a bit dramatic, particularly if they see a reaction.

OK

So tell us the back story.

Threw not through.

I've lifted mine away from each other, the 4yo regularly screams that I scratched/squashed/pushed her

I'd be inclined if there is no massive "he beats them regularly" dripfeed to take it as normal parenting.