Abusive or undermining? Or both?

[NoodlesPoodles]

Parent A and Parent B have been together for 17 years, married 13. They have two children- 8 year old and 4 year old.

Today the 8 year old was ill and slept most of the day on the sofa. The 4 year old pestered the older sibling a lot and eventually started trying to roll on top of her which, of course, upset her when she’s feeling ill.

Both parents told the 4 year old off. He got angry at being told off and started doing things deliberately to push everyone’s buttons (eg. hurling the remote controls across the room) so Parent B put on the 4 year old’s favourite programme to help diffuse the situation. Parent A went into another room to do something.

Shortly afterwards, the 4 year old started trying to upset the ill 8 year old again by putting his feet on her and trying to lay on top of her. Parent B picked the 4 year old up and put him in the entrance hall (very small) of the house, and closed the door, holding it firmly shut with their hand so the child couldn’t get out. 4 year old started getting upset and asking Parent B to open the door. Parent B didn’t let him out and then turned off the light in the entrance hall. The 4 year old started screaming at being in the dark. Parent B switched the light back on and told the 4 year old off again then switched the light back off. The 4 year old screamed again at being alone in the dark.

Parent A intervened and told Parent B to stop frightening the 4 year old. Parent B let the 4 year old out.

Parent B thinks Parent A deliberately undermined them in front of the two children and that Parent A should support Parent B when they are disciplining the dc.

Parent A thinks it was cruel to shut the 4 year old in a dark place by himself as a way of teaching him a lesson. And that the lesson was lost anyway due to the fear he felt. They also think it’s abusive to punish a child by playing on their fears.

What do you think?

Parent B is a knob. Should have tried positive distraction techniques at a much earlier stage.

There's so much here to unpick.. I mean a four year old being deliberately unkind to a poorly sibling for attention.. a) where has nastiness for attention been modeled and b) two adults around is surely enough to ensure sick child and well child's needs are met so that level of boredom doesn't kick in.

Secondly... I can honestly say if anyone, parent or not, intentionally locked my preschool/reception age child in the dark for punishment they wouldn't be living with them for much longer.. the level of sadistic cruelty there is staggering.

Any parent that can listen to the terrified screams of their offspring and CONTINUE to inflect the cause has some deep seated psychological difficulties.

@loopyapp

There's so much here to unpick.. I mean a four year old being deliberately unkind to a poorly sibling for attention.. a) where has nastiness for attention been modeled and b) two adults around is surely enough to ensure sick child and well child's needs are met so that level of boredom doesn't kick in.

Secondly... I can honestly say if anyone, parent or not, intentionally locked my preschool/reception age child in the dark for punishment they wouldn't be living with them for much longer.. the level of sadistic cruelty there is staggering.

Any parent that can listen to the terrified screams of their offspring and CONTINUE to inflect the cause has some deep seated psychological difficulties.

I think you're over estimating a just turned 4 year old. He's usually sweet and kind and loving- however he's getting over illness himself, he'd been at pre-school and was very tired as well as hungry. He's also going through a phase at the moment where he's become stubborn and difficult (past month or so). His behaviour today was a tiny snapshot of what he's usually like. It was just unfortunate that poorly dd initially got the brunt of it.

I accept that between dh and I it should have been a walk in the park dealing with both kids. Unfortunately one of us does 99.9% of the parenting and the other does 0.1% of the parenting. I'm exhausted doing it alone, and no amount of asking dh to step up to the plate changes anything. He makes hollow promises that are forgotten the next day.

I agree that shutting the 4 year old alone in a dark place was horrific. Dh also lied to me about who was turning off the light. He said ds was doing it but the light closest to the door in the entrance hall is the wc light whereas the entrance hall light is over a metre away from the door ds was banging on and his arms wouldn't stretch that far. Plus why would ds turn off the light when he's scared of the dark. Dh lies a lot over silly things that he doesn't need to lie about but this is the first time he's lied about something serious and lied about one of the dc.

I don't think my dh has a very good grasp as to what is abusive and what isn't. He was beaten with belts, slippers and wooden spoons by his parents as a child and doesn't accept that this was wrong. He thinks it was normal. So when I told him that shutting ds in the entrance hall to frighten him was abusive he said I was over reacting and that I'd undermined him in front of the children. I tried explaining to him later on this evening why it was wrong and he got defensive, said I was being silly and then tried back tracking and playing the incident down.

I don't understand why you didn't put the sick child in bed.

The younger kid could have more easily been kept apart then.

That's abusive, plain and simple. I honestly couldn't be with a person like that and I wouldn't leave them alone with the kids - imagine what they do to punish them when you're not there.

Is there any reason the poorly child wasn't put in another room/ in bed if they needed to be separated ?

Mu xh did stuff like that. Get rid of him.

That’s a horrible thing to do to a small child. I agree that parents need to support each other when they are disciplining children, but not when they ‘discipline’ is just cruel.

That’s disgusting parenting. Sick child should have been in bed. 4 year old in a separate room or taken out. There are two parents in that house so one per child to keep each one occupied.

@coodawoodashooda

Mu xh did stuff like that. Get rid of him.

This is the beginning. I bet there are other examples you let slide.

That would be game changer for me.

Your h is cruel. An utter bastard for doing that, the shutting in the hall was sufficient but he must have taken some perverse pleasure in switching off the light repeatedly

I’d be asking him to consider staying somewhere else. It’s entirely impractical atm, but he needs to know the gravity and severity of what he’s done.

It’s cruel and damaging for both of your children to witness/experience this. The fact that he sees no problem with it is very worrying.

Both parents failed the 4 year old who was obviously intent on bothering sibling and wouldn't be distracted by TV.

One parent should have taken 4yo out or otherwise distracted them. From your subsequent posts it sounds like you were hoping your DH would step up and he didn't. So the situation escalated.

I dont think any of this is a huge deal. 8 year old should have been in bed. 4 year old should have been less annoying and not tormented his sister. Dad shouldnt have turned the light out, mum should have not directly undermined the other parent.
Maybe you all need a nap

It is very poor. Putting the sick child to bed would have been best idea.

@Branleuse

I dont think any of this is a huge deal. 8 year old should have been in bed. 4 year old should have been less annoying and not tormented his sister. Dad shouldnt have turned the light out, mum should have not directly undermined the other parent. Maybe you all need a nap

It's very cruel.

@SkiingIsHeaven

I don't understand why you didn't put the sick child in bed.

The younger kid could have more easily been kept apart then.

Because the sick child wanted to be downstairs close to me.

Thanks for all your help focusing on the non-issues here rather than the actual question which was dh's treatment of our ds and whether it was right of me to intervene. You've helped enormously 🙄

@Branleuse

I dont think any of this is a huge deal. 8 year old should have been in bed. 4 year old should have been less annoying and not tormented his sister. Dad shouldnt have turned the light out, mum should have not directly undermined the other parent. Maybe you all need a nap

We're all exhausted from the constant grind and working long hours, and getting over illness. So yes, I think a nice long nap would do us good.

@Branleuse

I dont think any of this is a huge deal. 8 year old should have been in bed. 4 year old should have been less annoying and not tormented his sister. Dad shouldnt have turned the light out, mum should have not directly undermined the other parent. Maybe you all need a nap

It is a big deal. Would you seriously like if someone deliberately did things that frighten you? How would you feel? What would you think of that person? Why do you think a child is a less of a human being and should tolerate this from a person that is supposed to love, nurture and protect them?

@NoodlesPoodles

Thanks for all your help focusing on the non-issues here rather than the actual question which was dh's treatment of our ds and whether it was right of me to intervene. You've helped enormously 🙄

It was right of you to intervene, your DH is a cruel asshole and you should divorce him. HTH. Children don't have the same emotional regulation skills as adults should have. Yes, you should have diffuse the situation earlier but it is no excuse to locking a scared child in a small and dark hallway.

@NoodlesPoodles

Please, please don't think this is a personal attack on you or your son but in short I think its you who is underestimating your wee one and his behaviour given your update about your husband.

Your son is watching his main male role model and considering what you've told us about him, picking on a poorly female sibling makes a fair bit of sense.

Other more articulate folk will come along and explain in much cleverer ways than me but in short your husband is modeling abusive behaviour in his marriage and towards the children. His own childhood goes a long way towards explaining it in so much that people with trauma in early childhood are more likely to exhibit that behaviour themselves, however it is a choice.

He knows how it made him feel as a child and he's choosing the lazy option of repeating the cycle rather than working through his trauma and being better than his parents.

How you model how one responds to abuse is up to you. You can either show them that we quietly accept it and 99.9% of the parenting as the female parent or you model that abuse and sexism is unacceptable and leave.

You can't and won't change him. You can change how you respond to him

Parent B is abusive and parent A was right to undermine them.

Switching the light off to punish/scare the 4 year old was cruel and B was correct to intervene.

Temporarily removing a child to a safe but boring area for a short time when they are being a pain and have ignored a warning to stop is fine. I

The root of the problem is A who does 1% parenting and goes straight to cruel mode when annoyed.

Sorry I got A and B the wrong way around.

4 year old was asking for parental attention. Better to direct him towards something constructive. Or if as you say he was hungry and tired to address those needs first.