Partner accidentally hurt child

[Sccrumb]

My partner accidentally hurt our child. It led to a big injury for them. He kept blaming our child. They are 3 nearly 4. In my eyes he kept nagging our child all day and wound the child up. It all came to head at bed time. I left them alone for two seconds and our child had hurt him physically and he accidentally hurt them back by reflex.

We are meant to be getting married soon. We live together and also have an older DC and baby. I can't look at him the same despite the fact I know he would never deliberately hurt our children. It was such a scary injury and I couldn't sleep from fear that our child would go downhill over night. He on the other hand, slept quite soundly.

What do I do? Help me. My head is a mess and I'm extremely hormonal being pp.

You’re not saying if your child has been to get medical attention. This needs to be done urgently rather than being on MN. Please seek medical attention for your child and then safeguard you and all of your DC. Get professional help too.

Even if you accept it was a reflex, it is still his fault. As you say he had been getting more and more wound up all day. You'd asked him to calm down and supported him to step away if he needed to. He ignored you, and chose to remain in the situation and get increasingly wound up. This resulted in an excessive reflex injuring your child.

Any sensible adult, upon realising they were getting so wound up, and having the option to step away as he did, would have done so. They would have recognised that they were beginning to lose their shit and removed themselves from the situation to protect their child.

So at best he pig headedly chose to ignore that he was losing it despite you telling him. He failed to recognise that he was presenting a danger to his child and failed to act on it.

So even if he didn't kick him on purpose, he is still entirely to blame for what happened. Indeed, if he had regulated his own emotions and behaviour better I suspect your four year old wouldn't have been so disregulated themselves. Children reflect their parents emotional state back at them a lot of the time.

Im3 sorry, but I just don't see how he can be trusted around your young children. What if the same happened with the baby?!?

OP, you are minimising your DP's behaviour. What if DC had ended up unconcious and in hospital from the actions of your DP? SS would rightly be involved. Your DC need protecting by you, from your DP.

There is no excuse for his behaviour. An adult should not retailiate "on reflex" to a child.

You cannot trust this man around your DC, you must see that? He should be getting treatment for his aggressive temper if he allows himself to get wound up and cannot walk away from it.

What will it take for you to see his behaviour for what it is? Does he need to hit you, or "accidentally" kill somebody?

Please get medical advice, children can appear to be fine and suddenly deteriorate. Stop making excuses for your partner and look after your vulnerable children. I see this time and time again and never ends well.

It wasn't exactly that because pp's partner doesn't have anger issues and I'm assuming doesn't admit that her partner could hurt them one day because of how he gets angry.

He will have used heavier force because he was angry, not to mention caused the situation in the first place by not walking away as you said.

It sounds like DP doesnt have the skills or knowledge to deal with a child that is having a meltdown. It escalated to the child attacking him and him reacting by pushing him off. It sounds like he would have through the child would take a few steps back or land on the bed but the force used was excessive.
I do think DP needs to have parenting course and family therapy with your son to learn how to cope with young children.
If you stay without doing anything then things will just get worse, the relationship will just get more and more strained between father and son. The dad here needs to learn how to parent a difficult child. It really shouldnt have got to the point where the son is attacking the parent. There should have bee so many steps before this point so it didnt get to this.

So your partner has physically abused your child and you have condoned it by making excuses and not taking him to hospital as you know it will raise safeguarding issues. This also makes you guilty of child abuse.

Lets hope next time (and by the way you describe your partner and your lack of duty of care to your child there will be a next time) your child is only injured and not killed.

You know that taking your child to hospital and making your partner leave are the right things to do but you have chosen to spend your time posting on a forum and defending what your partner did.

My partner didn't "lash out". He was injured by DC and he hurt them out of reflex. As I said, I saw the bruise on my partner. It wasn't a small thing DC had done. It is very plausible that he did fling out from the pain.

What I'm not happy with is the anger prior to it because that he could have controlled.

No an accident would be carrying him down the stairs slipping and dropping him on his head. This doesn’t sound like an accident sorry

I hate threads like this, why bother posting if you’re going to give a vague explanation of what happened.

How did your child hurt him? Was it an accident or deliberate?
What did he do in response? Was it a reaction to pain or in anger?
How was child injured?

Seriously why do you do it @Sccrumb ?
Why be vague about it? You can’t expect helpful responses if you give half a story.

My partner did not lay hands on my child or strangle them. That is much more deliberate and the two are not comparable. Jesus.

OP it worries me that your response to my post was saying that your child was hurt because he fell into something when you had said your partner had kicked him (which has now become a shove from a leg). Please don’t minimise this. I think you know that this is wrong and you really must put your children first. Young children do not always regulate their behaviour but adults need to always be safe around them.

What was the injury?
Why haven't you sought medical attention? If it's because you know questions would be asked then you know how serious this is and are protecting your dh over your child.

@LuigiGhostDog I have already explained multiple times. The vagueness is due to keeping a low profile.

Child hurt dp.

Dp flung out via reflex from said injury

DC fell back and got hurt in the process

DC got serious injury

Dp has a bad bruise

Your posts get more chilling as the thread develops OP.

"My partner didn't "lash out". He was injured by DC and he hurt them out of reflex."

That's pretty much the definition of "lashing out".

Open your eyes, OP. There will be more injuries, and social services involvement (quite rightly) in your future otherwise.

My thought too. It WILL happen again.

Yet you admit you've already warned him that his anger could hurt DC one day?

That day is today. He needs to leave and get his anger under control and you need to put your DC first and protect them.

It doesn't sound like an accident, lashing out is not an accident.
OP, it's worrying me that you still haven't said what the injury was, and whether your child has been seen by a medic. You've said that it was a big injury. You also seem to be saying that DP is not accepting responsibility. Adults should not be lashing out at small children for any reason, and if your DP doesn't understand this, then there is every chance it could happen again.
I suspect you haven't actually taken the child to be checked over because you are scared what the consequences of that might be.
Your responsibility is to your child, if they have a head injury you need to get that checked. You keeping an eye isn't sufficient, how would you know if there was, for example, internal bleeding or swelling? If getting them checked leads to questions being asked, that is a good thing.
Woman up, OP and do the right thing by your child.

@Letsgoforaskip no I said DC described it as " then daddy kicked like this" where as my partner said he flung his leg out via reflex

This is how children die and both parents go to prison.
One party excuses the other and allows it to continue.
It is NOT normal for a parent to lash out at a child in any shape way of from. No excuses.

OP, you have posted on here asking for help and are getting good advice, but you are still minimising this. You are still making excuses for DP.

Why didn't you take DS to A&E if you were that concerned about him? Why don't you contact SS yourself and see if they think it is nothing?

Have you done a Claire's Law request on DP?

@skyeisthelimit because we had someone medical check him over. He has been fine since.

You sound like my mum. Her excuse was always “well I wasn’t there so I couldn’t say for certain what happened” she knew but was just too pathetic and weak to do the right thing.

It is very much comparable. Kicking a child hard enough to make them fall and (in your own words) causing a serious injury) is also abuse.

Not taking that child to get medical attention continues that abuse.

It is highly unlikely a toddler can inflict that much pain on a grown man. And if they do - no one should react in that way to a child.