Husband attacked teenage son

[Throwawaynameforthis]

On Saturday night my husband pinned DS to the floor.

We were playing a family game and DS (14) was being annoying, escalating to rudeness. He accused me of “smacking him” which I absolutely did not do.

I took myself out of the room for a minute and the next thing I hear is H yelling, DD15 shouting at H to stop and DD9 sobbing.

As I walk into room DS is legging it out the house looking terrified, quickly followed by DD. From what I can work out H picked DS up by then lapels and got him on floor and was telling him he’d “show him what a smack is”.

I found DS quickly and then DD and went home. H apologised to the DC but I’m so angry. I don’t know what to do. This has been escalating for months.

Is this it? Is there any recovering from this? For me or the DC?

So, the OP is at fault because she walked away instead of parenting her child properly. And the ds is at fault because he clearly pushed his dad to the limits. But the man who lost his shit and assaulted his son cannot be blamed at all, because, well...he is only human?

FFS!

I agree that teenagers need decent male role models in their lives, but I would put the emphasis on decent. They don't need role models who demonstrate violent behaviour and an inability to manage their own emotional responses.

Your boundaries are being eroded. You know this isn’t ok but you’re eventually going to accept it. And the next thing. What will it take? A punch? Knocking your child unconscious?

In the meantime, your traumatised daughter might tell someone at school who will need to investigate and you’ll be seen as failing to protect them.

Do you think your son’s behaviour is a reflection of his environment, you said his dad reacts badly to his behaviour, which is what your son is doing. Personally, if my husband pinned our 14 year old son to the floor it would be unforgivable, your husband has shown a lack of self control and restraint. Pick your battles wisely with your son, arguments/rudeness will happen, politely remind your son you will not engage with him when he’s being rude and leave, don’t get caught up in power battles.

@ILoveAllRainbowsx

Your H did not hurt him. Your son needs to be taught a lesson or he will get worse and think that he is untouchable.

Your H did the right thing and he also apologised for over-reacting. If he had hurt your son things would be different but he did not.

You should be grateful to your H, and you need to support him otherwise your son will not respect you or your H.

I agree

I agree with you about the benefit of taking a reluctant teen to counselling.

But you are your dh need to work on how to manage his behaviour.

There is a lot of extremem catastrophising on this thread about both your dh and your ds. As I said up thread our ds was pretty much as you describe from 13-16. He is now 18 an dliek a different person. Over the last year he has grown up enormously, and that crappy behaviour has stopped.
He even said to me the other day - sorry for being such an obnoxious teen.

Some kids are much worse than others as they head through the teen years. Dd1 is clam and genlte and never been any nother to anyone.
dd2 is just starting out, and I have the feeling that she is going to make ds look like a wakl in th epark.

If you haven't had a challenging teen, it is hard to understand just how good they are at pressing buttons. The challenge as a parent is to not allow those pressed buttons to get to you, to not react, to not take some of it so personally. As time went on, and we got better at it, sometimes all it took was for dh and I to exchange a glance, and suddenly we were 2 parents tryign to parent a teen, instead of someone at the receivgin end of a tirade of teen anger.

You and your dh need time together, and time with help/counselling to work out how to handle these situations when they arise. And usually they do blow up from no-one, eg nice family afternoon, ends with teen blow up out fo the blue.

its probably taught the son that if he winds people up to that extent in the real world then he will probably get slapped, which is true.
I have teenagers and this age is horrendous for attitude and backchat.
Its a really difficult balance when it gets to this age as they are full of testosterone and it does get a bit much sometimes. I hope this was a wake up call for both of them and you

We went through this with both our sons, although it never got truly 'physical'. We called it 'old lion, young lion'. The 'young lion' trying to assert their independence and the 'old lion' trying to continue his authority.

When it got to the point that they 'bowed up' with each other, that was when I insisted on counseling. DH needed to learn to allow our sons growing space and our sons needed to learn that aggression is NOT how you get your point across.

Interestingly enough, removing myself from the conflict and letting the two of them deal with each other was exactly what the counselor said for me to do, but only once we were assured that they both knew that physical aggression was not the way to resolve the conflict.

I think you need to insist on family counseling for your DH, your son, and for you.

I think the real question is: Is this a permanent pattern or did your H just lose it?

From a science point of view teenage boys need to create their own identity that is not of their father's . This process can be very volatile and it is hard for all parties, but is a natural process. They are struggling with 2 conflicting emotions: they love their dad (who at one point was god to them) and they also despise everything about them. It is a slow process to reconcile these 2 feelings.

There is a limit to how rude your son can be and he does need to be put in place above that limit.
What would you feel if your H just slapped him in the face? From your post it seems that your son was asking for it. And I know teenage boys...it's really hard to stay even human at points. Our son pushed it to the point that my H slammed the kitchen door so hard that the wall mounted breakfast table fell off.

On the other hand: if this is a constant "thing" then it leans towards abuse.

Many people (most?) over the age of 40 were hit once or twice by their parents. I personally abhor it, but I don’t really see how what your husband did was necessarily any worse.

Was it sufficiently violent to leave a marks/bruises? Has he ever been violent toward you/other children?

Some serious discussion/counseling is obviously required but I wouldn’t break up a family over it if everything else is functional.

I would insist on family counselling or couple counselling with a focus on providing a united front.

If by a united front you mean never standing up to a husband who is treating the kids unacceptably when they do it, that's the worst thing a mother can do.

My mother never stood up for me when my dad was a wanker to me and I'm justifiably resentful. Her excuse for not doing so was that they were presenting a united front (i.e. her just standing by while he was an arsehole.) Luckily, after they split up as I was on the cusp of adulthood, she changed and became a supportive person. Otherwise she probably wouldn'tve seen me very often at all.

@Throwawaynameforthis If you don't stand up for your DS in front of your DS, he will rightly resent you and it could effect your relationship with him long term. I'm glad if you stood up for him to an extent when this happened. I think the answer would be to boot your husband out, at least for a short time, so that your DS sees that you are supporting him when it comes to saying that your DH's behaviour was virtually as far as you can possibly get from ok.

@Throwawaynameforthis

I’m taking on board all the comments.

Counselling is an interesting one: I’ve offered it rather than demanded it as I didn’t think the issues with DS behaviour were significant enough to warrant a demand and there seems little point in dragging a reluctant teenage boy into something that he didn’t feel would be beneficial.

He is arrogant and argumentative and spends too much time (IMO) on his computer but he does exceptionally well at school, both academically and behaviour wise. He has naice friends; plays sport inside and out of school (when it was possible) and is self motivated.

He’ll make dinner with a bit of cajoling and stick a load of washing in without too much complaint. So on the whole although he answers back and argues black is white I’ve treated his obnoxiousness as fairly standard teen behaviour.

But I will revisit the issue of family counselling.

He’s also a teenage boy who has been assaulted by his father.

Teenagers don’t open up easily, especially boys.

The counselling is also not all about him. His behaviour contributed to a situation (although your DH is absolutely to blame) that led to his sisters being scared. It won’t do him any harm to contribute to something that benefits the family as a whole, even if he doesn’t think he needs it.

The thing is, OP, your ds will most likely emulate his dad's behaviour. So if your dh models a lack of self-control or using violence to resolve issues, then your ds may internalise the idea that this is just what grown men do. Your dd's may also learn that this is just how men behave.

I wouldn't be able to forgive dh for behaving like he did, but if you are going to stay together, I think you do need to talk about what happened as a family, with the help of a counselor, so that your kids are able to process what has happened and truly understand that what their dad did was neither normal nor acceptable. He needs to take full responsibility for his behaviour and demonstrate that he is taking steps to address his anger problem.

Also, and while I know anecdote doesn’t equal data, on several occasions when I’ve known families go to counselling it’s been the child or parent who felt it was least needed who benefitted most

From your post it seems that your son was asking for it.

@TheSunIsStillShining WTAF!

No-one deserves violence and 'asks for it.' That's the worst victim blaming ever.

SoulofanAggron

you are projecting.

In a healthy relationship a united front means that as a couple you have worked out somestrategies that work when the teenager is being a complete arse. which, I can promise you, they are at times. It means working out how you will work together, at what point to you step in to support, eg when ds was really rude to me, and dh heard it, he would back me up and say - no, it is not acceptable to speak that way to your mother.

It does not mean backing them up when they are abusive.

No child is ever asking to be hit.

@steppemum Do you acknowledge that he was abusive in that case?

@BadDucks

I think some of these responses would be very different if it was the 15 year old dd being pinned to the floor and threatened.

How is showing violence to our sons meant to help them grow in to men who don’t use violence against women (along with the “well you pushed me to do it excuse” you hear so much in domestic violence situations)

Violence breeds violence it does not teach respect and boundaries

This is 100% true.

All of you women posting on here who condone this are condoning violence as a means to end family conflict. if you want to know where that ends, read the Irish newspapers to-day.

I disagree with the idea that the one and only solution is to kick the DH out of the house.

Simply because of that happens and nothing else is done, said children will still their dad and nothing will have been done to make the relationship between the teen and the father less volatile. How is that going to help? Or is the idea to say that none of the children should ever see their dad ever again??

I agree with family counselling and BOTH teenage ds and the father to have some anger management.
Clearly the OP’s DH has already done so. So he is taking that seriously.
As for ds ‘not needing counselling’, I’m afraid I wouldn’t give him the choice there. It needs to be a family thing where you ALL, teen, mother and father, learn how to deal with agressivity as well as how to assert your POV wo resorting to been obnoxious.
Atm it seems that none of you know how to do that. Incl the OP. Leaving the room isn’t a solution either.

So nothing is changing? You're happy for your children to learn that when men are angry they become violent and that's fine??

Your ds doesn't need to be put in his place, he needs to have appropriate behaviour taught by example. Your daughters need to learn zero tolerance for violent adult men. Their father isn't going to teach them this, so YOU have to step up.

I'm so sorry this is so hard. I understand your being incredibly angry.

I hope you can all work things out. Whatever happens your husband is your son's father and they may be able to work their relationship out.

I have no words of wisdom for you but hope you can all find a way forward.

I agree with other PPs and will do family counselling. So glad to see a change in Mumsnet where the majority are not saying for the OP to leave the husband.

@AlexaShutUp

The thing is, OP, your ds will most likely emulate his dad's behaviour. So if your dh models a lack of self-control or using violence to resolve issues, then your ds may internalise the idea that this is just what grown men do. Your dd's may also learn that this is just how men behave.

I wouldn't be able to forgive dh for behaving like he did, but if you are going to stay together, I think you do need to talk about what happened as a family, with the help of a counselor, so that your kids are able to process what has happened and truly understand that what their dad did was neither normal nor acceptable. He needs to take full responsibility for his behaviour and demonstrate that he is taking steps to address his anger problem.

At the same time, the ds needs to learn to stop constantly pushing buttons and be obnoxious. That’s not a good trait either and the fact his dad reacted in less than suitable way doesn’t mean the teen shouldn’t address his behaviour too.

@AlexaShutUp

The thing is, OP, your ds will most likely emulate his dad's behaviour. So if your dh models a lack of self-control or using violence to resolve issues, then your ds may internalise the idea that this is just what grown men do. Your dd's may also learn that this is just how men behave.

I wouldn't be able to forgive dh for behaving like he did, but if you are going to stay together, I think you do need to talk about what happened as a family, with the help of a counselor, so that your kids are able to process what has happened and truly understand that what their dad did was neither normal nor acceptable. He needs to take full responsibility for his behaviour and demonstrate that he is taking steps to address his anger problem.

I don't think this is true at all.

Its equally possible that by not addressing the boys escalating abusive behaviour towards his mother, the father could actually be showing his son that being abusive towards women is the best way to get what you want.

Could he have done it in a different way? Yes probably, but it seems like no permanent damage was done and the boy has just learnt a valuable lesson that you can only push people so far.

[quote trashaccount]@steppemum Do you acknowledge that he was abusive in that case?[/quote]
I have already acknowledged that he was abusive in previous posts.

But, unlike others on here, I think that one incident like this is not the end of the marriage or the relationship with the ds. (unless is it symptomatic of the whoel relationship)

I think dh needs to apologise and reassure ds that it won't happen again, and that they would benefit from help and suport, family counselling is a great idea.