DP struggling with my children

[trytrytrytry]

DP and I have been together 6 months. We have spent a lot of time together without my children (9 and 7, 9yo has ASD), and the two of us get on really well. He has met my children a few times, and in the few hours that they have been together in the past they have all got in fine.

However, we are spending a few days away together, and he is clearly struggling. He doesn’t have children of his own, and he is getting really short with mine. They aren’t naughty, but they do make mistakes, and they do do stuff without thinking about the consequences (stepping in puddles that then splash other people, for example). A lot of his interactions with them are negative, and it feels like he is telling them off all the time.

I don’t know how to help with this. I understand that it must be hard for him to suddenly develop parenting skills when he isn’t used to it, but he is usually such a calm, gentle man, and this is a side of him I haven’t seen before.

Help!

*Can't

If you have no experience of kids, and especially kids with SN, then you have enough respect for their parent to acknowledge that they are best placed to deal with their own children and you don't jump in.

Except when the little darling won't stop splashing you with a puddle.

Yeah say something if they are impacting on you directly. That wasn't the case when the kid was lying on his mum though was it? But he felt the need to jump in and have his say anyway.

He's shouting at your children because he currently doesn't know anything else. He knows absolutely nothing about children, childcare or parenting. Nor does he understand about unconditional love. This is a really important aspect of parenting and something that is incredibly difficult for none parents to get their heads around even when they have a long established and good bond with a child.

It's all about perception.
He sees a situation as black and white. Child laying on you. He has found this annoying on your behalf. He is trying to empathise with you because HE would find someone laying across him hugely irritating. You have confirmed that you are not happy with the situation because you have asked the child to move/adjust himself. He leaps in with what he sees as this empathy and helpful. WITHOUT understanding the X factor of unconditional love. He can't understand this. He has no experience. He can't know that you didn't feel annoyed initially because of the love you feel for your son. He can't know that. He doesn't love your son. He doesn't love ANY son/daughter. All he sees is that YOU the person he DOES care for is uncomfortable and he wants to stop that.

The only way for him to learn about this is to spend time together and to communicate that you are quite able to speak to your children. That you know how to deal with them and don't need to be 'protected'.
Meanwhile you need to realise that behaviour you are willing to put up with (because of unconditional love) is not ok around other adults and they need to adjust as well.

All of this takes TIME. Hell it takes time when the man is already a father. It is going to require a lot of patience from all of you. Which means that, it MAY be too much for any one of you. However there is no race. Have plenty of couple only time. Set YOUR relationship on a firm foundation. All the time talking to him about what it's like to have children.

He's a grown adult. Saying he is shouting at her children because he doesn't know any better is really pathetic.

Tbh I have learnt from MN how many people dislike children generally. I think a great many people are just emotionally unsuited to being around children. If they have their own children, the love they feel will mitigate the annoyance at how children generally are which let's be honest is often often noisy, thoughtless and chaotic.

Before I had DS, I know there is no way that a child splashing me by accident would have annoyed me. I also didn't mind the noise a lot of children make. I now now from MN how unusual that makes me.

DH for instance was clear when he met me that he didn't want to go out with anyone with children again. He had done that before and had struggled. Weirdly he is much much better parent to DS than I am, less selfish, more patient etc and yet I am much better with other children generally and always have been. I might have made a good step mum (though I have no illusions about how hard it would have been) but DH would not make a good step father despite being a brilliant dad

If you already have children, you need someone who does not constantly get irritated by children when they are just being children. It is difficult to find these people but they do exist I promise you.

Otherwise you need to keep the relationship separate from the children

I think for both you and him, and definitely the kids, the best thing is to end it now.

I have a DS with ASD and I think it was unfair of you to put the child in a position where he was staying at your DP's house and you hadn't set 'rules' for your DP beforehand. Surely with teachers and other adults who are going to be responsible for your DS you give them a heads up on what some triggers may be, how to handle him? Sounds like you didn't do this with your DP.

I don't blame him for what he said about the puddle or the neighbours. Sounds like me was going for a 'man to man' style of talking. They are after all HIS neighbours, not yours - he's got to have the lasting relationship with them. But yes he does sound too negative and the shouting at your DS for not moving straightaway is really not on. OTOH, your resentment and martyrdom about your DP not saying thank you for you getting up with your children isn't on either.

Overall though, I think you need to look at how you can take more responsibility for the choices you make that affect your children rather than being passive, and actively making sure that they and the person they are going to be spending time together are aware of how the other ticks first.

I don't get this advice. Surely 6 months in, no ties or commitments, is the perfect time to end things. Persevering with a relationship when it is already clear that there is a conflict around the children and mismatch in expectations is a surefire way to end up in a few years with the kind of thread we see in stepparenting or relationships- blended family gone wrong, everybody miserable and kids walking on eggshells. It's perfectly sensible to end a relationship in these circumstances and nothing to do with being a martyr.

For god sake !! Why ? The OP is 6 months in to a relationship that has made her very happy. The boyfriend has literally met the children for a few hours in this time and this weekend (Friday-Monday) is the first time he has spent any time with ANY children.

You are seriously suggesting that someone with a so-far successful and happy relationship should end it because a man with absolutely no experience with children is not a parenting expert over the course of a long weekend ? I call that complete unrealistic madness. - I believe that anyone can walk away from any relationship for any reason they fancy. But don't invent stuff !

Finding a decent man is hard enough especially when you have children. The way that some posters on MN casually advise to dump partners is breathtaking, because I like most people assume that most adult females quite like to share their time with an adult Male (or another female if that's your choice). The encouragement of women on here to martyr themselves to celibate single parenthood for fear that their choice of partner is not absolutely perfect - is deeply depressing.

No one is advocating the OP staying with a controlling, arse who wants to boss her kids around and make them miserable. It's just that you don't need to throw baby out with the bath water. Just slow down, give him some 'childcare training'. See if he's willing to listen and learn. Then make your decision. Judge and jury after 3 days is simply not fair or realistic.
(That's not to say you can't dump him - or him you, for any other reason)

I am finding it hard to know where the balance might lay between giving him a chance to learn, and allowing my children to be collateral damage in that.

I have tried to explain how I like to parent (calmly, quietly, with explanations rather than punishment, trying to focus on the positive rather than focusing on all they are doing wrong). Basically, I'm trying to do the opposite of the way that I was parented, which was physical and emotional abuse from a narcissistic mother who had me walking on eggshells the whole time and made me think I was constantly in the wrong. This may give me a heightened radar for a person that might replicate that experience/feeling for my kids. Maybe I have overreacted that someone getting pissy over puddle splashing or being noisy is OTT, but it's important to me that my kids are raised in a positive, caring way rather than be told a lot that what they are doing is naughty/wrong/bad. I don't want them to have the same guilt I did.

It's a catch 22 surely - he can't learn without having experience. He can't have experience without spending time with children, who in the process might be upset by how he talks to them. I know I can't protect them from everything, but I can manage how they get spoken to in their own home.

FWIW, I'm not desperate for a relationship. And yes, I'd like this to work. But I will put the kids first. It's just whether we work on trying to improve things or take things slower WRT his time with the kids. He said he's prepared to read some parenting stuff, and maybe we should look at some step parenting books, because we haven't, and I don't think either or us anticipated how difficult that transition might be.

Finding a decent man is hard enough especially when you have children

Well maybe for some women finding a man is not the be all and end all. You think posters advising OP to end things are odd, I think posters advising OP to stay in a short term relationship where there is already conflict and discomfort around the children is odd. I've read some awful accounts on here of what some parents subject their kids to for the sake of being in a relationship and it's not something I can fathom at all.

I will never understand the idea that a man has to "learn" to treat children properly. Does it take a lot of instruction for someone to know "don't shout at my children"??

Does he shout at other people when you're out and about? Other people's children? Probably not.

Yet somehow it's okay for him to shout at yours? Even when you've told him that YOU will take care of any discipline, and you clearly were already in the process of doing so?

This is someone marking his place in the group - basically a message to the children that HE is in charge.

And quite frankly, I'd be pretty angry at a man who felt the need to step in when I'm disciplining my children. I don't need someone translating my comments to my children, nor do I need someone to up the volume and create a power struggle. At that point, I'd be struggling to keep from telling him to back the fuck off. I'm quite capable of dealing with my children. I don't need a man to "help" me by barking at them after I've said something.

I have tried to explain how I like to parent (calmly, quietly, with explanations rather than punishment, trying to focus on the positive rather than focusing on all they are doing wrong)

Actually that’s very unusual and not how most people parent and not how they are treated at school or clubs so this isn’t a lack of parenting issue and more a lack of compatibility issue.

Most people take the shit sandwich approach, far more positives than negatives but not anti negative.

You need to be clear that your kids are not ever to be spoken to negatively and if that doesn’t sit right with him then you’ll need to call it a day.

You and your children deserve so much more than this OP

He said he's prepared to read some parenting stuff, and maybe we should look at some step parenting books, because we haven't, and I don't think either or us anticipated how difficult that transition might be.

I will bet money that he will next be bringing you parenting books and suggesting you look at them, saying "see? You need to be firmer with them, do it my way, check this out...." and be pulling apart your parenting instead.

Yes GingerIvy he's apparently very capable of being lovely to the other children who were there- he didn't jump in to undermine their friends parenting. Thinking he can talk over the OP is concerning in itself.

Don’t let him ‘practice’ parenting on your kids, OP.

If you don’t want to end it, just keep the relationship between the two of you.

Give him time. Of course it's not OK for him to shout at your kids and it's not his place to discipline them, obviously make sure that's clear to him, but imho you won't get a proper feel for how he might be as a stepdad until he knows your kids better. Provided he treats them right in future, give him a chance to get to know them, then they won't just be someone else's kids to him IYKWIM. You can always re-assess further down the line if it's still not working.

Why does the OP need to give him time? I genuinely don't get the motivation of those trying to advise the OP to ignore her own instincts and persevere with a man when she is uncomfortable with how he has treated her children. So far we've had that she should stick with him because it's hard to get a man, the poor man can't possibly know not to shout at kids, and now to stick it out because...why?

It makes me wonder how many of these posters have themselves subjected their kids to crappy partners and are trying to normalise it.

Actually that’s very unusual and not how most people parent and not how they are treated at school or clubs so this isn’t a lack of parenting issue and more a lack of compatibility issue

It's how lots of my friends parent, therefore I didn't think it was that unusual. I'm not naive enough to think that they will never be spoken to negatively, but do think that explanations go further than telling someone off in a negative way.

Thinking he can talk over the OP is concerning in itself

Yeah, that's one of the main worries. We might have different styles of parenting, or different opinions on things. But stepping in when I am in the middle of sorting something out myself with the kids isn't ok.

Your parenting sounds fine OP. It's similar to how I parent and I also have a child with ASD and find that calm explanations work better than more confrontational styles. For my child being shouted at or overloaded with other people getting involved would just lead to an unnecessary escalation.

It’s definitely not okaythat he went over your authority and that won’t get any better unfortunately.
What I don’t understand is, and I know OP you’re happy and like spending time with this man and I totally get that, I was totally vilified on MN (maybe rightly so) because I got into a relationship with a man who initially seemed wonderful with my kid but who it turns out, isn’t so great with him. Now I’m being told to leave ASAP, get an exit plan etc and that’s totally fair, but why is one man on here being made into an abusive bully but another man, who none of us have met except OP, being given benefit of the doubt? These things are not black and white. Me and DP started on a slightly better footing than this man, I think, but we’re in a nightmare scenario for all concerned now. My DP isn’t abusive and loves me a hell of a lot, but doesn’t love my kid!

OP I think as a parent you’re a bit of a push over and need to toughen up a bit when your children are doing things they shouldn’t.

It’s all good and well “focusing on the positives” and not “punishing” them but this teaches no lessons when they’re jumping in puddles and getting other people wet. In stead of focusing on the positives on jumping in puddles for god sake grab your child’s hand and tell them if they’re not gunna listen to you then they can’t do fun things.

Your partner can read all the books in the world but he’d be wasting his time. If you’re happy for him to be around your kids but they’re being annoying and naughty then imo he has every right to correct their behaviour. I don’t mean screaming at them or smacking fgs, but they need to be pulled up on their wrong behaviour.

I also think you could learn a lesson from all this and look at your own parenting style and make some changes. It’s not okay to allow your children to continue jumping in puddles and getting people wet just because you don’t agree on punishing them, or because you like to focus on the positives

ANY child who was splashing me would piss me off. If I was out in public and some random kid was doing this I’d tell the child to stop and tell their parents to control their children.

MissyEm I guess in OP's case posters are weighing up the chance that staying with this man might have a negative impact on her kids and some disagree. In your case it's already happening- you have to keep your child and partner in separate rooms. No child should be forced to live with an adult who barely tolerates them, it's incredibly damaging. For me, I think that what you are experiencing now is what may happen to the OP down the line- the warning signs are there.

I agree and I wish I had had some warning signs prior to moving in and getting my kid settled here