My son keeps hitting OH's affair child

[Tored]

I've name changed as I don't like to discuss this under my regular username but I'm a frequent poster and I'm sure a few of you will recognise my story.

A few years ago my OH cheated when I was 38 weeks pregnant, that ONS resulted in a baby being conceived. My DS is 3 and the child conceived is now 2.

I decided to stay (judge that how you will) and thus I have accepted OW's child as part of a blended family, she comes here weekly.

I have no negative feelings towards her and have grown to like her but the same cannot be said for our DS who is three and has autism.

He has other half siblings he gets on well with (older ones) and shows no aggression towards them but he will not take to this little girl and every time she's here he make a beeline for her to hit and push.

We do everything we need to like keeping them apart and reinforcing that it's not ok to hit, hitting has consequences etc but as he's autistic he doesn't actually grasp that.

Should I be suggesting OH has his contact elsewhere for both of their sakes? It's exhausting, upsetting to see and isn't changing despite best efforts to integrate them.

She has been coming here weekly for approx 8 months now.

Ignoring your step-daughter's origins because actually, I think they're irrelevant in this instance @Tored

Your 3yo son is being asked to accept a younger sibling, so there will be jealousy.

Your 3yo autistic son is being asked to accept a change to his regular routine. It will take time for her visits to become routine and you will need to do some work on this aspect. Eg a visual timetable that shows her photo at your house on x-y days. This can be kept on permanent display and a reminder that X is coming in # of days, x is coming tomorrow, x is coming today. Abs be very clear to your oh and the mother that any changes need to be made in advance of the day.

Make sure your son has a safe space he can go to when he gets upset, that his sibling cannot. Eg a pop up dark tent with sensory toys.

Quite simply, your 3yo is struggling with accepting a younger sibling, which is only natural. But he has the added issue of only seeing his sibling infrequently.

Keep stepping in when your son goes to hit. Whilst it's likely not meant maliciously, he needs to know 'kind hands/feet'. Create activities they can do together eg playdoh, mark making etc where they can be in opposite sides of a table.

Also give both children 1:1 time. This reassures your son that his sibling is not taking his place. But will be around.

The main issue is sibling rivalry in toddler years. My autistic ds has twin siblings 2 years younger so we went through a lot of this in the twins' toddler years. They will grow out of it as they learn to articulate their feelings with words.

Right now, your son is just confused and feels threatened or intrigued by this new person who visits the house but doesn't have the verbal capacity to tell you this.

Op I think your amazing I couldn’t do that, think give your son time he will get used to her

Tbh OP
I’d hide this thread and leave

In defence of the op, from what I've seen on these boards referring to her DH lovechild by 'affair child' is in keeping with MN lingo.

Leave your husband and he can have contact in his own home, and separate contact with your child which will give you a break from managing his behaviour

Well I feel like shit, thanks ladies.

So much for this being a forum to support other mother.

I have tried so hard to make this a happy and welcoming space for her. I have accepted her into the fold and treat her as one of my own, which shines through in the way she feels about me and is around me.

But clearly I'm a horrible person for asking other women to support and advise me on the situation in which my DS is routinely hurting her.

I've been accused of being the person at fault because clearly DS is picking up on animosity from me which doesn't even exist.

I can't stomach any more of these posts, they've ruined my day and served no purpose other than to prompt me to beat myself up.. for what I would love to know.

Ok so some of you don't like the description I gave in my OP. I explained why I did that, to give the full picture.

Enough is enough.

A huge thanks to those of you who have been kind to me and given advice, I'm listening and I'm grateful.

OP, I think the fact that you've come on here to get advice for the benefit of the little girl shows you care for her, you're handling a difficult situation with a lot of class

Where is the delightful catch of a husband in all this? I’d be making him sort it out if I were you...

He must be something pretty incredible to not only stay with him but accommodate the child he conceived while cheating on you when you were pregnant (I doubt it though)

I'm going to leave the thread now as it is spoiling my day and putting me in a down mood.

Thank you all

@TheUnwindingCableCar

Afair child?

Also, I can't imagine knowing a child, a child I have chosen to accept into my family, from birth, and only liking her. How can you not love her as her own person?

I'm not sure it's your son with the issues.

Good God.

Why should the OP "love" a child who isn't hers? So long as she is nice and kind and warm towards the child, that is fine. I couldn't love a child who wasn't mine, although I could be, and have been, very fond of other people's children.

The OP is doing everything right, particularly putting the child's needs before any understandably negative feelings she might have about the child's conception.

@Tored

Well I feel like shit, thanks ladies.

So much for this being a forum to support other mother.

I have tried so hard to make this a happy and welcoming space for her. I have accepted her into the fold and treat her as one of my own, which shines through in the way she feels about me and is around me.

But clearly I'm a horrible person for asking other women to support and advise me on the situation in which my DS is routinely hurting her.

I've been accused of being the person at fault because clearly DS is picking up on animosity from me which doesn't even exist.

I can't stomach any more of these posts, they've ruined my day and served no purpose other than to prompt me to beat myself up.. for what I would love to know.

Ok so some of you don't like the description I gave in my OP. I explained why I did that, to give the full picture.

Enough is enough.

A huge thanks to those of you who have been kind to me and given advice, I'm listening and I'm grateful.

Please don't beat yourself up. Most people have been so kind and very much on your side! I know it's easier said than done, but please try to focus on the positive comments, ignore the bullies because they're not worth it.

I swear, some people just come onto Mumsnet to make others feel bad about themselves so that they can feel better about their own unhappy lives. It's sad, but I do believe it's true.

I'mthe last person to do this, but hug @Tored

I hate MN today.

@saraclara

I'mthe last person to do this, but hug *@Tored*

I hate MN today.

Me too, poor OP. People are so cruel.

I swear, some people just come onto Mumsnet to make others feel bad about themselves so that they can feel better about their own unhappy lives. It's sad, but I do believe it's true.

I agree with you, there are some posters that seem to love sticking the boot in. The OP is right, it feels like we’re on AIBU not the Relationships board.

@Fembot123

I can’t get past ‘affair child’

Do try, or it makes you look very unpleasant.

@Fembot123

I can’t get past ‘affair child’

Well don’t then, just go onto another thread

The fact that you decided to come on here and bully an innocent woman who's just looking for advice with a difficult situation would make plenty of others sick! Catch a grip of yourself.

So many vipers need to read this and take a good hard look at themselves.

I’m really sorry that you’ve had a hard time, OP.

You barely mention your OH, who is surely the most significant adult in this situation as the children’s common parent. What is he doing about this? Is he agonising over it as much as you are?

OP consider family therapy, or at least couples therapy.

Do you have a garden? How are they out there? It could be that your efforts to manage this (totally understandable, you are looking out for her) are actually feeding into this behaviour.
If there's any way to observe where they can't see you could be worth a try.
Can you set aside any time for one to one with your son before she arrives? Not immediately before though so her presence isn't the thing bringing it to an end.
Think you are doing amazing in your efforts to overcome this. The response to a phrase to get across your situation in a title is unnecessary

@Tored I don't have anything helpful to offer hasn't been said already but I wanted to say that you sound like a lovely person who's doing their very best in very difficult circumstances.

There are some really nasty things being said in this thread for no good reason.

Some of the routine and space advice given by minisoksmakehardwork, Tal45 and others has been great, and I think thelegohooverer's tips for handling the aggression is a good next step though, with my DS, we had to do almost the opposite at about this age at least for the first few minutes after an incident.

What worked for him is when he hit or pushed, one of us would hold the hand(s) (and sometimes the feet too) for a bit while the other focused on the other child. We'd say as neutrally as possible that it's our job to make sure he doesn't hurt anyone until he can do that himself. We'd do that for a few minutes, sometimes longer when he got upset, and then he'd have to sit with one of us for a while. That's when we'd wait and then react positively when he engaged with us, but if we started from that, he tended to get more aggressive, particularly towards himself (even years on, if he thinks he's done something awful or gets really frustrated with himself and he's really struggling with executive function like with a cold or stress, his go-to is hitting his head off of the chair he's in or the nearest wall. We have to have very firm boundaries on self-harming behaviours).

Hopefully the other tips will work well and this won't be needed, but it's what worked for us.

In your opinion which makes no difference to me. It’s a disgusting term which I’d never heard of until today and no amount of brow beating and ‘you’re mean’ will make me change my opinion on that so crack on. I’ve said nothing about it being the OPs fault her DS hits his DSS nor do I believe that to be true but get on board with a shitty term, nah.

Hi,

some perspective from an older sister from an mostly non verbal autistic brother.

When my brother showed unwanted behaviour (hitting, pulling hear, breaking things etc) it could have 3 causes.

1. He was not (yet) able to understand the wanted behaviour (e.g. too roughly stroking the cat as he did not know what gentle was)
2. There was a panick explosion in his head, and the energy had too come out one way or the other

(In his case through a glass on the floor, pull hear of the nearest person, unrelated to the trigger of the panic explosion)

1. He was just naughty like any other kid.

Depending on the cause, my parents would respondent differently.
1 . Patiently learn by showing the right behaviour (e.g. sitting together with the cat and hold hand to show what gentle is), needs lots of repetition and encouragement.

1. Try to avoid trigger (not always possible) and provide acceptable alternatives to release the energie (e.g. punch ball in stead of punching someome else)
2. Punish like any other kid.

What i loved about this approach, was that it felt that we were treated equally, because the above also applied to me and my sister. Off course we would understand more, and less of nr. 2, but no one was allowed to get away with murder and it felt we were treated fairly.

Also we had parts of the house, where my brother was not allowed, which was a space to relax and for example draw without being disturbed, or where i could store delicate personal stuff that i did not want my brother to destroy in an outburst.

Sorry for the long post, but i hope you can use this as inspiration. I cannot tell from the examples what scenario he is hurting his sister, but i hope you can find this out.

I am really proud of my parents and love them and my brother and sister very much, and had a lovely time growing up.

PS. Predictability already mentioned was key for my brother, so telling him this afternoon your sister is coming (with picto) gave him mental energy to prepare and could prevent panick explosion.

@Tored

I doubt she would be considering temporarily relocating one of her own children whilst she addressed behavioural issues in another.

It's interesting you should say that as if you read my posts I also said i was considering removing DS from the home (to go out with me) for the duration of her visits, to protect her.

Apologies OP, I had missed that.

I think the way in which your original post was framed has potentially misled me and other posters, which is a shame as this is probably derailing from the advice you need. I appreciate from your later posts that my comments have been off mark. I wish you the best.