DH being horrible to DS or have I lost perspective?

[LostNorthener]

DS is nearly 5. He's on waiting lists for ASD and ADHD due to some pretty challenging stuff v early on - verbal delay, can't follow any sort of instruction, can be very aggressive, has tics. Nursery recommended the referrals. He's down brilliantly at nursery and almost all aggression and meltdowns had disappeared or at least really reduced. He loved the routine and I've made big progress at home too. Nursery and the local authority confident that he's ready to start mainstream school in Sep.

Since nursery is closed now for summer his behaviour has plummeted. We are back to throwing things, slamming doors, lots of tears and hurting himself over tiny things. In 10 days we have gone back 6 months!

DH is in-between jobs and taking a break over summer so has DS full time and it's not going well.

This morning DS threw a glass on the floor because he couldn't find a toy.

DH dragged him into the sitting room. Started shouting. DS then went crazy throwing books off shelves, throwing shoes, a vase got smashed. I was just busy keeping younger DD safe. DH shouting top of his voice "you stop it" physically retaining him. DS kept saying "I want mummy for cuddle" and DH shouting "I bet you want your mother but you've got me and you're not getting a bike, or seeing your mum, until you pick up all this stuff and behave yourself" DH was very loud in the shouting even when DS was just sitting still crying. The throwing lasted 5 mins but the shouting lasted much longer. At one point DS was shouting "leave me alone" and DH was shouting "you leave me alone" at each other over and over.

I ended up going in the room and DH shouted at me "DS is not allowed to see you until he's picked up everything he is a horrible boy" DS crying on sofa. I say "how about we pick things up together DS" DS nods and we tidy-up the whole house - DS doing it with me helping him. DH storms out saying I'm so fuxking soft etc

DH has now left house

Do I sound too soft?
Or do people think actually I should have stepped in much sooner
If me and DH split (we have some other issues) wouldn't I be causing more harm to my son as God knows what DH would do if i wasn't there
DS always wants a cuddle after a meltdown- DH says I'm rewarding him. I think I'm comforting him
Does my DH sound horrible or just he has his boundaries as he would say.

I don't know if this is parenting or AIBU or relationships but putting here. Any thoughts welcome as I feel totally lost here.

You should really have stepped in earlier, a grown man shouting like that isn't going to magically calm down a distressed 5 yo, regardless of asd.

I don't have any experience of this sort of thing, but it might be worth secretly filming how your husband deals with your son's meltdowns, once you get the diagnoses you could probably show SS that your husband is not equipped to look after him properly, and that shared custody isn't in your son's best interests.

Hopefully someone else more knowledgeable than me will come along and give you better advice, for now just try to be there for your son as much as you can, sorry you're both having to go through this.

Oh OP that sounds so distressing for you and your little boy. No you are not being soft at all, you approached it completely correctly- with a loving but not permissive attitude. Your DH handled it really badly. However I will say, having a similar child myself, it can be really hard to get it right and stay calm. If DH can reflect and acknowledge he got it wrong then you could move forward

Your DH is completely out of order. He also sounds overwhelmed and unable to cope.

Can your DS go to a summer club instead of being with DH full time?

The current arrangement is not working and could be really damaging to your DS’s progress.

I agree with the above poster, whatever about the longer term issues with your marriage etc, could alternative childcare be found now for DS?

Hey, I think it's understandable that your DS behaviour is challenging got your DH, BUT if your DS has SEN than this needs to be taken into account!

Your DS is clearly struggling, the structure of nursery is gone for the summer and he's finding it hard to adjust.

I think that for a child that age with possible SEN your approach is the right one.

DS is clearly struggling and feeling overwhelmed by his emotions (regulating emotions is a hard thing to do most adults struggle to do that in a healthy way) and I think being there to support him through that is OK.

Once he's calmed down, you can talk about what he can do instead of throwing glasses on the floor when he feels frustrated.

Hopefully when the assessment is done and you get some results, whoever you're talking to will be able to explain to your DH that your DS has it tougher than other children and yelling and shouting is not the way forward.

I would have done as you did.

I wouls try and give DH the benefit of thr doubt, he's clearly struggling too. Can you ask nursery how they deal with situations like that to get an insight as to what works for them? Maybe you could do that at home too?!

This was awful to read. So fucking upsetting.

Your H is a mess. Has no emotional regulation and took his shit out on a very small child. He needs to be very ashamed of the damage he’s done.

You should have stepped in. He needs to acknowledge what he did was wrong and he must never behave like that again.

Your H needs some therapeutic intervention to allow him to work through his inability to process his own emotions.

DS asks to go to nursery every morning. He really misses it. Makes me feel miserable that home is a worse environment for him.

I do the whole "are you feeling angry right now? It's OK to feel angry but use your words to tell me, we need to be kind to our home and kind to each other" type things. DH rolls his eyes. I feel totally pathetic doing it.

I say to DH that nursery staff weren't shouting and screaming in his face. They were calm and consistent. But to be fair he didn't have those kind of meltdowns at nursery. More likely he would hide in a corner.

If I get a diagnosis for DS maybe I'm more likely to be able to argue he needs to stay in the family home if we split?

Sorry to go to splitting so quicjky but this is a pattern. It hadn't been that bad recently but this is how DH reacts and he doesn't see an issue with it. Lots of " i am the father" comments

Also DH isn't always the nicest to me (sulking, random insults)

Your DH was awful- is he often like that? Yes you should have stepped in but also you shouldn’t need to. Would he consider parenting classes, perhaps specialist help for dealing with ASD.

What are your other issues?

To clarify I say "you feel angry right now" talk to DS, not DH - though he could benefit from the same!

Was anyone helping him look for the toy?

That could have avoided the entire issue…

What has been the schedule for DS since he broke up? Is he being kept occupied or expected to entertain himself?

Is he out at park etc?

Is he being talked to and told of what is happening that day?

TBH, I think dealing with DS as your DH is awful and bordering abusive. DS must have been scared? He is only 4.
What is their relationship usually like? Does DH have much patience with him and does DH currently have the kids all day while you work? If so, is DH getting down time?

I am in absolutely no way making excuses for the DH here but you’ve given a perfect description of undiagnosed ADHD challenges for some people there, which is not unlikely given the DS’s own challenges.

Any man telling me I can’t comfort my child would find himself in big trouble.
You aren’t too soft at all, you know how to manage your son and your DH doesn’t, the question is can he/will he learn?
If not then he can’t be left in charge of him

You should have stepped in earlier. Shouting at children aggressively is never OK.

You also need to look at meltdown proofing your house if you have a thrower, glasses, vases etc anything that can cause damage and isn't essential needs moving out of the way for the foreseeable just like baby proofing your home.

If your DS has ASD or Adhd then that means his behaviour is part of his disability, you don't shout at people for things they can't help (or ever). You need to have some better processes in place for when DS gets overwelmed, in our house the first thing I do is shut the curtains, give DD her noise cancelling headphones / shut off any unnecessary noise (and I don't talk to her) and reduce any other sensory inputs, she then has a grab basket (I'd keep one on each floor, in the car, bits in a rucksack for out and about) of different things, spinners, textured balls etc that she can use to reregulate herself which takes about 10 mins.

Keep in mind that ASD and Adhd both have genetic links so if your partner can not keep his cool and self regulating then it might be worth looking into for him.

He sounds unable to cope with parenting in a grown-up fashion. Some DC are more challenging than others and sometimes even the calmest parent loses their temper but any of this dominant ‘I am the father’ shite is plain wrong parenting.

If he’s also unable to cope with conflict in other ways (sulking, etc) then I wouldn’t waste a lot of time and energy trying to change him enough to live with him. Sorry.

^Do I sound too soft?
Or do people think actually I should have stepped in much sooner
If me and DH split (we have some other issues) wouldn't I be causing more harm to my son as God knows what DH would do if i wasn't there
DS always wants a cuddle after a meltdown- DH says I'm rewarding him. I think I'm comforting him
Does my DH sound horrible or just he has his boundaries as he would say.^

to answer directly,

no I don’t think you sound soft at all, I would have stepped in sooner.

It’s telling you are worried what would happen if you weren’t there. You are basically saying DS isn’t safe around DH.

A cuddle after an emotional explosion isn’t rewarding. Reassuring IMO, your little one had big feelings.

DH sounds horrible and threatening. Shouting and bullying never makes a tantrum better unless child is scared of parent.

I'd very much doubt that if you were to split, DH would want to have DS a lot of the time. He'd be completely overwhelmed and he knows that.

If you're really thinking of splitting, than you need to think what's best for your DS.

He's only 4 and if he does have SEN that won't dissappear and you'd have another 14 years of living with DH... that's a long time of you're not happy

Dear GOD. I’ve no experience of raising a child with SEN, but yelling like that at a child in obvious distress is brutally cruel.

Sounds to me that your DH has undiagnosed ND issues and also has an old school approach to parenting. I’m still undiagnosed but can relate to how he is behaving (awful I know and I for sure no longer parent that way; my husband does but is slowly learning although he resists most discussion of ND on his side - despite his dad and siblings either self-diagnosing or showing very clear traits). It’s sounds like a very tricky situation, somehow he needs to understand that ND kids get overwhelmed and they need help with that.
I believe that your intervention was the right thing to do, if anything, get in there earlier. Also your DH could do with learning how to manage ND. There are various books that could help. Have him speak with the nursery staff etc so that he is learning for himself from them and not from you.
On the plus side, it is helpful that this has been identified so early and that your son has responded well to a different approach at his nursery. Good luck with everything xx

There a lot going on and you are at different ends when it comes to parenting

tbh it sounds incredibly frustrating and joyless
It’s very easy to slag off Dh don’t honestly know if I could cope waking up every morning knowing this is how my day is going to pan out he sounds broken and unable to cope

his style sounds extreme and counterproductive limited info so don’t know if you are too soft
the only thing that stands out is you are both parenting very differently and he will definitely be confused by you 2 overruling/undermining each other

have you had a chat about what works and what doesn’t and agreed actions ti deal with things

The shouting from DH was because "we can't tolerate DS destroying our house when something annoys him" (his words). He seems to think that by me being reassuring to DS that I'm basically saying "destroy the house mate, nobody cared about that vase anyway"

I'm trying to model kindness, and being firm by telling him to tidy up (with me helping) and yes I always talk to him afterwards.

DD goes to childminders still during the week as we didn't want to lose her place - so we are already paying childcare costs despite having a parent at home full time until Sep. So seemed a bit ridiculous to pay for childcare for DS too. But maybe I will need to do that. We are losing all the progress made it seems, and it's so upsetting for all of us.

Splitting - could DH request to have DD 50% of the time but not DS. That would be his preference possibly - and I worry that would screw up the kids.

@CornishPixiePasties I can see your pov, and you may be right about ADHD, but you are making excuses.

An adult who should have taken responsibility for his own emotional state/issues took his fury out on a small child.

If he has ADHD that’s his business to self reflect and take steps.

Don't excuse aggressive men so easily.

I'm 55 and if someone shouted at me like that I'd be a wreck.

You are married to an abusive man. You need to accept that and remove your kids from him.

A diagnosis won’t increase your chances of staying in the home unless you are quite wealthy.

To stay in the home you would need to be able to pay the mortgage. Unless your dh earns a lot and is paying huge amounts of CSA that’s quite unlikely. Could you buy him out? Possibly you could. I don’t know your finances.

But if keeping the home means keeping your husbands name on it, then he has to be able to also house himself. Could he get 2 mortgages?

If you are thinking of splitting you really need to realistic about what you would like from the divorce.

Your dh needs to understand that a typical traditional parenting style will simply not work with your ds. Whether he has the wit to understand is another matter. I had a ds with asd where shouting or even raising your voice made everything worse. He needs a routine at home like he has a routine at nursery. In all likelihood your dh is not capable or willing to do this. You need childcare for ds in the holidays.

I have a child with ASD who tantrumns and can have epic meltdowns if they don’t have structure. I don’t understand why between you and DH you can’t give him structure at home? You and DH MUST be consistant with him and keep him occupied otherwise this will happen every holiday.

1. Wake him up at the same time as he would at nursery. Breakfast at the same time. Get DH onboard with this it will make his life easier. DD wakes at 6 every morning, eats breakfast, has a shower, and is ready by 7. She is always in a must better place mentally when we stick to this routine.
2. Younger DD if old enough should be in a private nursery throughout the summer if possible. It will reduce stimulation and make your DS calmer.
3. Structure activities around the day. DH and I take turns to have 2 weeks off each. He usually takes her bike riding for 4 hours everyday from 7-11 (they both love it). They then go to a cafe for lunch. In the afternoon they chill together with a movie or they’ll do some gardening / diy. When it’s my turn we go for long hikes, swim meet friends and relatives, do paid for activities, and cook / bake together. I do a lot with her but to help her cope I make a timetable for her so she can prepare.
4. All of the above is about preventing meldowns. But during one the priority is not to calm down your DS but to keep him safe. If he isn’t hurting himself then the best thing you can do is not to give him any attention (positive or negative) during one. No hugs but no shouting either. When he’s calm prioritise talking about how he felt during the meltdown and also how you felt and at that point you can start to talk about what to do when he gets angry next time (breathing techniques etc).