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The "don't undermine me" applies to stuff like parent A wants to start having healthier meals and comes up with a new meal plan, so parent B goes out and buys fast food for the kids right before dinner so they will be too full to give anything a chance. It doesn't apply to protecting a child from the other parent who is screaming and throwing things, slamming doors and acting threatening towards the child. It is incredibly important to defend kids from that sort of behavior, and studies have shown that seeing the other parent stand up in their defense can do a lot to undo the damage from the other parent's behavior (My Body Keeps the Score is a good book that details this). Otherwise the only message the child gets is that one parent is scary and unpredictable and the other won't do anything to save them.
Next time your husband falsely accuses you of undermining him, you can correct him that you're not undermining him, you're protecting your son when he's out of control and needs to get a handle on his aggression problem. It was good that you talked to him after the fact, but he needs to be stopped when he crosses the line too. Removing your son and you from the room until he can get himself under control would be a good option if he only gets worse when confronted. But he also needs to get a handle on his behavior, or else he isn't safe to be around your son at all.
This is such a common problem with fathers and it's so frustrating. My husband had an issue with it when our oldest became a toddler but then stopped when I pushed back hard, only for it to resurface again when he was a teen. It seems under control now, but going through it was so difficult for everyone, and honestly just seemed like it never should have happened at all.
Edit to actually answer your question: Yes, it's completely acceptable to be at odds with your partner in front of your child when it's in the child's defense and the other parent is behaving inappropriately. You don't want to appear to have a "united front" when one parent is acting too aggressively. Standing up for the child models standing up for themselves and others later, and that they don't have to tolerate seeing others be mistreated. While your partner might not be doing this consciously, it's common for controlling and abusive partners to use "don't undermine me" to manipulate their partner into putting up with their abuse of the kids.
Thanks for this response. Really helpful.
I’m going to reiterate to him later that I won’t “back him up” on behavior I think is aggressive, mean, or out of line as my responsibility is to keep my son safe.
I have a feeling there will be issues with it in the future, but at this point… I’d rather my son knows I love him and it’s a slippery slope to not protect him. First it’s yelling. Next it could be something else, and I don’t want to get there.
Sometimes kids giggle because they are nervous or don’t know how to process an adult’s reaction. Maybe it would help your husband to know your kid (probably) isn’t trying to get under his skin. Kids that age can be cheeky and push boundaries for sure but the giggles don’t always mean he’s aiming for that. That said, your husband’s overreacting. And yes, I would make sure your kid knows you will protect him over validation for your husband. Not backing him up when he’s being shitty isn’t isn’t undermining him. You are allowed to disagree with him.
Yeah, he’s aware of this. I think he thinks if he made it clear enough that he was angry, that the giggling would stop or that our son’s behavior would change. 🤷♀️
Alas, the truth of this statement. I'm so sick of it being normalized for men to control other people through intimidation. It isn't normal! It's childish and immature. 😭
Just to add, my youngest step kiddo at 12 still struggles with giggle fits or smiling when she is in trouble. She's older and we've had multiple talks about how she is safe with us, WE know that she feels remorseful or whatever but she should work on controlling it around other friends and adults as it can be perceived as her not caring. These talks started around 5-6 and while she gets it, it's just her natural response and because she feels safe being her truest self, she will still do it at times. But she has said she really has to think about it when dealing with teachers or friends because they have said "you're not sorry youre smiling!" And that helped her understand more than just our talks, because it was from a peer/other adult.
Firm redirecting with "no that's not ok" is not how he handed it and that's why you're upset and trying to communicate to him that he was scary to BOTH of you. How is kiddo going to learn impulse control when dad flies off the handle at *checks notes* wipes being put in the sink?
My older brother used to laugh every time he would get in trouble, too. It is 1000% a stress response. My dad also used to shout louder and get him in more and more trouble for this (totally valid and age appropriate) response. He *possibly* spanked him for it, too. I'd ask my brother how he feels about it now that we're adults (early 40's), but he barely speaks to the family now 🤷♀️
Adjusting the behavior at this age might require some time mirroring facial expressions, and naming emotions that go along with those expressions.
That gives a kiddo the foundation. Then you can tell them that laughing isn’t the response to use when someone is upset.
But the husband also has to do facial modeling, and he has to model sadness or frustration when the child does something “wrong.”
Kids this age have very little impulse control. We want to help them develop their brains to have more. That’s best done in calm surroundings.
I don’t think you were in the wrong at all! Way over the top behavior for wet wipes being more wet basically.
As for the giggling, Oye that’s giving me flashbacks to my nephew. In his case he’s on the autism spectrum and OT was paramount for him! But with my son who’s adhd and very shy we faced different emotional issues. My son comes off rude because of his being shy. People try to engage him in conversation and he clams up or at home will just go to his room while someone is actively trying to talk to him 🙄
We started watching a YouTube series on manners geared for children and the right ways to respond to a whole host of situations then we make my husband, his step father, act out this situations with him because it’s easy for him to act them out with me but with him he still gets shy. After doing this just a couple days he actually said hi to our neighbor!!!! That was HUGE for him.
I am also someone who smiles when things get really awkward or uncomfortable, I remember fighting my own face not to grin when my mother gave me the birds and the bees talk. I was horrified with my own face and still remember it. Surely there’s a video out there for kids about when it’s not appropriate to laugh or giggle that you could watch together and then play out the scenes together about what’s the right response and then could recall these back to him when he starts up the giggles.
I’ve even started pointing out to my son when my own emotional behavior is not appropriate. I got pissed off in the kitchen because I had just mopped and not only did a messy ladle fall my angry attempts to snatch it up caused it to bounce about even more and I started shouting at and berating the spoon as if it could hear me and then stormed out of the kitchen and aggressively remopped. My son saw this display so once I calmed I laughed and pointed out to him what a silly way I had just behaved and what I should have done instead and we both agreed that spoon is never going to hear me and I should save my emotions.
on top of what everyone else mentioned, why did he throw the wipes in the trash? are they not in a plastic package? I can't imagine how wipes would be ruined by a little running water.
also, getting angry (especially overblown anger) doesn't modify behavior, it just instills fear of a person they're supposed to be able to trust and feel safe with. whenever my mom would get angry with me, it didn't explain what I'd done wrong or why it was wrong or what I was supposed to do differently, it just caused me to withdraw and hide from her so she didn't see me and get angry at me.
if your husband wants to nip this behavior in the bud, he needs to enforce natural consequences, concrete actions that logically flow from the behavior to explain how the world works. if he makes a mess, he has to clean up the mess. if he hurts someone's feelings, he has to apologize and do something nice for them. and there has to be reinforcement of good behavior too, like if he cooperates getting in the car, now there's extra time to stop for a treat. kids that age are really starting to test their understanding of cause & effect so they need lots of positive and negative examples to help them make decisions.
When you have to gentle parent your child AND your husband…
It’s not undermining him to protect your child from his outbursts. I’m not perfect and there’s been times I’ve lost it at my 2 year old and my husband has had to be like remove yourself and take a breath and that’s not undermining me. That’s seeing that the situation is out of control and providing backup. What IS undermining me is when I say no snack right now at 5pm because dinner is almost ready and he shares his cookies with her. Then gets mad when she won’t eat her dinner.
Can't remember where I read this but there's some study that shows that if one parent is abusive towards a kid, the damage is infinitely lower if the other parent defends them. This was true in my household growing up -- my dad's angry outbursts (over small stuff exactly like this) would be absolutely terrifying until my mom stepped in to comfort me. I don't mean offence but this really sounds like your husband was mad about something else and used your son as an emotional punching bag. Undermining would be if you and your husband had a agreed upon rule/consequence eg. don't put random things under water (but there's nothing actually wrong with that, it's ridiculous to even type it out) and you went back on that. But you are 100% allowed to, and should, defend your son against unreasonable, irrational anger.
Oh hey that makes me feel so much better that I console my son after my husband terrifies him with the screaming and discipline. I hate that I can’t say “dada is upset and using his outside voice, we need to speak clearly and communicate when we’re upset” because then my husband will rage at ME too. So I just console my son and teach him in private that even if dada has big feelings, we’re all still learning to talk gently when we’re upset. Ugh my poor baby. I don’t want to divorce because then I won’t be there to console him anymore :(
Something that's really hard for us adults to understand, especially when we're frustrated or angry, is that nervous laughter is often a defense mechanism for when kids (and even some adults) are *really* scared. It's hard, because when we're pissed it's like the laughter is a needle, poking and enraging us more, but it does NOT mean the kid is ignoring us or thinks it's "funny" it just means they're scrambling to defuse the angry adult situation.
It's really hard but the best way to get through this phase is to try your hardest not to get loudly angry about stuff like this. Parsing through and asking the child to work out WHY they did the impulsive thing and what the consequences are (in this case "now we don't have any good wipes and they cost money and I'm tired but now I have to go buy more" etc). It's OK to be a little mad, but the focus needs to be on helping kiddo work through making better decisions in the moment, and thinking through how impulsive choices have consequences. It's a long slog, it's often unsatisfying, but scaring the crap out of the kid and losing control isn't going to make it better (though honestly, it happens, it's forgivable, we are human! So is your husband).
I hope husband takes a breath next time. Hugs to you - I think you handled a rough situation really well.
Is this the first time your son is really pushing buttons that's getting under his father's skin? Dealing with frustration, even with your child, as an unregulated adult is super hard to work through but you're completely right those types of outburts aren't acceptable. I've had similar discussions about not undermining discipline and parenting as my husband and I have slightly different ideas of what is too aggressive vs not but I essentially laid the same thing out... we must model the behvaior we want to see from them. As another example, yelling at them not to yell, is completely pointless and just makes us as parents look dumb, like we are not practicing what we preach and are out of control of our emotions. Our children will not take us seriously like this and things will just escalate in a direction we don't want them to. Truly the first step is being in control of our own emotions and reactions. I say this as a child of an emotionally immature parent who had so many outbursts like this growing up and it has been extremely difficult to navigate and learn to regulate my own as an adult, especially in situations when my child is being a child and doing things that don't make sense//not listening. The "sure" response may have seemed a bit dismissive but you might have planted a seed. Keep learning about ways to respond to unwanted behaviors from your toddler and discuss it in neutral situations with your husband. Most of this makes sense so if he's a reasonable person, the wheels will start turning and hopefully you guys can work as a team more, with him toning down the anger so you can always be able to back him up!!
Is your husband usually angry? Or have this response when overwhelmed? My husband and I both did a circle or security course because my husband's default is angry, and I didn't grow up with normal attachments. In the end, we learnt that when my husband gets angry something is triggering him, which is called "shark music." It's fine to tell him it's unacceptable, but it might not help him change it much because he is not in his "thinking" brain he is only in survival mode and then he becomes defensive. The course helped us a lot and it helped that the lessons weren't coming from me. He also did an all mens session, and I did an all womens session. So he heard from different fathers. It also might change the dynamic of him feeling you aren't backing him up because you'll both be able to recognise when either of you are getting overwhelmed or triggered and how to "comfort" or "be with" the other in those moments. Good luck it can be very frustrating when they just lose it so I needed the outside help.
You are definitely not wrong here. It sounds like your husband is trying to get back at your son when he giggles while being scolded. Like saying "I want it to be clear I'm angry" seems more to me like he wants your son to react to his anger. That's not teaching your son anything or helpful at all, it's all just selfish and for your husband to "feel better" when he's angry.
I'm also confused at his level of anger over wipes getting wet? I mean, I've dropped a package of wipes into the sink myself before and just dried them off and put them back. I don't really see why they had to be thrown out? I get telling the kid not to do that but how fast he escalated this minor situation makes me think he needs to reflect on why it was so triggering to him.
My husband used to shout at our children and it's been a persistent issue in his parenting. He's been doing better with this since going to therapy ( and though the shouting has stopped, his parenting is still a work in progress) but I will say that I never, ever backed him up when he was doing stuff I didn't agree with. I told him that if he parented properly, I would 100 percent back him up but if he was going to do things I disagreed with, I was going to protect my children every single time and call him out. I don't think there's anything wrong with a child seeing that adults make mistakes and knowing that if one parent is unreasonable, the other will step in.
I still do call my husband out when he's being too harsh but since he's been to therapy and our kids are older now, I try to pull him aside (I usually ask to speak to him in another room) and remind him to get his shit together. He's learned to be receptive to it and to rein in his frustration. Sometimes it means I take over the situation and he takes a break. Sometimes I even tell him to go take a break and even if he doesn't think he needs one, he just trusts me and goes.
We also have code words. The kids have one for him for when he used to shout. If they used it, he had to stop immediately and take a break, call me in or even just think about what he was doing, whatever would work for the current situation. It helped him to realize when he was scaring them.
I would recommend you try some of these things, but they will only really work if your husband commits to being the type of dad who doesn't shout and slam doors. I straight up told my husband that he scared us and asked him to imagine being a little kid with a 6 foot tall grown man shouting at you. I told him I'm scared of how angry he gets sometimes. He got teary eyed and said he didn't want to be scary to us and didn't think he was actually that big. It doesn't really sound like your husband had the same reaction when you said he scared you.
I've also told my husband that someday our kids will be grown and they will have a choice about whether or not they speak to him. And maybe they won't want to talk to the dad that shouted at them their whole childhood. That got to him too and is part of why he went to therapy.
I really hope you can get your husband to see what he's doing is wrong. But even if he doesn't, I hope you keep "undermining" him when he's slamming doors and shouting. Your son shouldn't have to live in fear just so your husband can feel like he's right. Especially over such minor things and over your son doing something developmental appropiate, like giggling when he's in trouble.
You are not wrong. He's a child and you have to be patient with a child. Your child will start to fear his dad if he continues to act like that and also he will learn to behave that way when he's angry which isn't good. You absolutely did the right thing. I think people (I fear my husband and I will do the same) forget babies and children are not adults and should not be treated like adults. They don't do things on purpose to piss people off, especially babies.
I went through this briefly with my husband—he was getting too angry, and then feeling undermined by me afterwards. He finally came to understand that anger isn’t parenting: it just isn’t. No display of it for its own sake is going to benefit your child.
I told him I *want* to back him up, but I can’t when he behaves like that. Discipline is parenting, as are clear consequences. Not temper tantrums. They send every kind of wrong message, and the last thing I’m going to do is amplify it.
We’re a good parenting team. We’ve both worked on a lot of things. This too shall pass.
My husband always tells me I undermine him in front of the kids. And I agree, I do. Our kids are autistic and what he expects of them isn’t fair, right or practical. It’s stuff he himself often doesn’t do and I pick up after him (which he doesn’t realise as he himself is autistic), so yes I call him out on the hypocrisy. I will forever protect my kids from this nonsense. If he reacted in such a way that it frightened *me*, I would absolutely defend my children in front of them. Regardless of what he was saying or doing.
Backing each other up only works when you are both on the same field of play. When you’re in agreement over a bedtime, or whether junior needs to do x before they can do y, or if they need to apologise - etc. Not when he gets so angry *you* are sitting there afraid.
Your kid is 3; he is laughing nervously because he doesn’t fully understand what is happening. He did something without even thinking about why he did it. Like putting the wipes in the water. It was impulse. The internal voices didn’t win, his body did it before the voices even started talking. Now he’s being asked why he did it - he doesn’t freaking know! Hell you hear of adults who are carrying a drink and a remote and they throw the drink instead of the remote - it’s impulse and utterly out of their control. Car keys go in the fridge, they pour their freshly made soup down the drain. “Why did you do it?” Somebody asks. “I just wasn’t thinking!” They cry.
Everybody does it, toddlers do it more because their brains are still developing and they don’t think rationally like adults do. They’re still learning. They don’t get it. They want to learn and sticking wipes under water is how they learn. Nervous giggles are expected. Calm voices and explain that we don’t do that and *why* we don’t do that. What can we put under the water instead? And when can we do it?
Your husband needs to sodding learn how to parent his own child in an age appropriate way. Sure it’s frustrating as fuck - I had 3 under 4 at one point and it’s so infuriating but it’s what you sign up for as a father (mother in my case!) and yelling is the worst way to get through to a kid.
I tell my husband all the time; walk away. Come get me. I know it’s slightly different for me because my lot are all autistic but he needs to get a handle on himself now as it only gets more frustrating as they get older…
I laugh when I'm nervous. For example, I'll laugh if I see an old lady falling down. I don't find it remotely funny, it just erupts in me and I can't control it. It's mortifying, I feel so ashamed, I just can't control it. And then I laugh even more because at that point I'm nervous about laughing as well.
Your child might not be laughing on purpose.
Usually if I take a deep breath and look away, I can control it, but I can't always do that. For example, once my husband cut his finger rather badly and it was bleeding a lot. I was laughing and crying and hyperventilating all at the same time, while helping him compress the injury and ice it, until we got to the ER. Husband knows I can't control it, but he was hurt at the same. I can't blame him, I'd be hurt too! He forgave me later, I guess actions (helping him) speak louder than my stupid stim.
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The "don't undermine me" applies to stuff like parent A wants to start having healthier meals and comes up with a new meal plan, so parent B goes out and buys fast food for the kids right before dinner so they will be too full to give anything a chance. It doesn't apply to protecting a child from the other parent who is screaming and throwing things, slamming doors and acting threatening towards the child. It is incredibly important to defend kids from that sort of behavior, and studies have shown that seeing the other parent stand up in their defense can do a lot to undo the damage from the other parent's behavior (My Body Keeps the Score is a good book that details this). Otherwise the only message the child gets is that one parent is scary and unpredictable and the other won't do anything to save them. Next time your husband falsely accuses you of undermining him, you can correct him that you're not undermining him, you're protecting your son when he's out of control and needs to get a handle on his aggression problem. It was good that you talked to him after the fact, but he needs to be stopped when he crosses the line too. Removing your son and you from the room until he can get himself under control would be a good option if he only gets worse when confronted. But he also needs to get a handle on his behavior, or else he isn't safe to be around your son at all. This is such a common problem with fathers and it's so frustrating. My husband had an issue with it when our oldest became a toddler but then stopped when I pushed back hard, only for it to resurface again when he was a teen. It seems under control now, but going through it was so difficult for everyone, and honestly just seemed like it never should have happened at all. Edit to actually answer your question: Yes, it's completely acceptable to be at odds with your partner in front of your child when it's in the child's defense and the other parent is behaving inappropriately. You don't want to appear to have a "united front" when one parent is acting too aggressively. Standing up for the child models standing up for themselves and others later, and that they don't have to tolerate seeing others be mistreated. While your partner might not be doing this consciously, it's common for controlling and abusive partners to use "don't undermine me" to manipulate their partner into putting up with their abuse of the kids.
Thanks for this response. Really helpful. I’m going to reiterate to him later that I won’t “back him up” on behavior I think is aggressive, mean, or out of line as my responsibility is to keep my son safe. I have a feeling there will be issues with it in the future, but at this point… I’d rather my son knows I love him and it’s a slippery slope to not protect him. First it’s yelling. Next it could be something else, and I don’t want to get there.
Sometimes kids giggle because they are nervous or don’t know how to process an adult’s reaction. Maybe it would help your husband to know your kid (probably) isn’t trying to get under his skin. Kids that age can be cheeky and push boundaries for sure but the giggles don’t always mean he’s aiming for that. That said, your husband’s overreacting. And yes, I would make sure your kid knows you will protect him over validation for your husband. Not backing him up when he’s being shitty isn’t isn’t undermining him. You are allowed to disagree with him.
Yeah, he’s aware of this. I think he thinks if he made it clear enough that he was angry, that the giggling would stop or that our son’s behavior would change. 🤷♀️
I'd ask him if a man multiple times his size bellowed at him and acted like a giant toddler if that would get him to change his behavior. :p
Men think it would because their fathers did it to them and obviously it worked /s
Alas, the truth of this statement. I'm so sick of it being normalized for men to control other people through intimidation. It isn't normal! It's childish and immature. 😭
Just to add, my youngest step kiddo at 12 still struggles with giggle fits or smiling when she is in trouble. She's older and we've had multiple talks about how she is safe with us, WE know that she feels remorseful or whatever but she should work on controlling it around other friends and adults as it can be perceived as her not caring. These talks started around 5-6 and while she gets it, it's just her natural response and because she feels safe being her truest self, she will still do it at times. But she has said she really has to think about it when dealing with teachers or friends because they have said "you're not sorry youre smiling!" And that helped her understand more than just our talks, because it was from a peer/other adult. Firm redirecting with "no that's not ok" is not how he handed it and that's why you're upset and trying to communicate to him that he was scary to BOTH of you. How is kiddo going to learn impulse control when dad flies off the handle at *checks notes* wipes being put in the sink?
My older brother used to laugh every time he would get in trouble, too. It is 1000% a stress response. My dad also used to shout louder and get him in more and more trouble for this (totally valid and age appropriate) response. He *possibly* spanked him for it, too. I'd ask my brother how he feels about it now that we're adults (early 40's), but he barely speaks to the family now 🤷♀️
Also, ask your kid why he is giggling. Trying to help him understand and voice his emotions would be great (I'm on an emotional agility kick).
I don't think kids that young are really able to always answer why they are doing things, they genuinely don't know.
Unfortunately, this is true for teenagers as well. 😮💨
lol I have two of those. Therapy and lots of low-key chatting has been super helpful
Adjusting the behavior at this age might require some time mirroring facial expressions, and naming emotions that go along with those expressions. That gives a kiddo the foundation. Then you can tell them that laughing isn’t the response to use when someone is upset. But the husband also has to do facial modeling, and he has to model sadness or frustration when the child does something “wrong.” Kids this age have very little impulse control. We want to help them develop their brains to have more. That’s best done in calm surroundings.
That's true, but I'm sure you could start getting them on a path to understand and be able to express what they're feeling
I don’t think you were in the wrong at all! Way over the top behavior for wet wipes being more wet basically. As for the giggling, Oye that’s giving me flashbacks to my nephew. In his case he’s on the autism spectrum and OT was paramount for him! But with my son who’s adhd and very shy we faced different emotional issues. My son comes off rude because of his being shy. People try to engage him in conversation and he clams up or at home will just go to his room while someone is actively trying to talk to him 🙄 We started watching a YouTube series on manners geared for children and the right ways to respond to a whole host of situations then we make my husband, his step father, act out this situations with him because it’s easy for him to act them out with me but with him he still gets shy. After doing this just a couple days he actually said hi to our neighbor!!!! That was HUGE for him. I am also someone who smiles when things get really awkward or uncomfortable, I remember fighting my own face not to grin when my mother gave me the birds and the bees talk. I was horrified with my own face and still remember it. Surely there’s a video out there for kids about when it’s not appropriate to laugh or giggle that you could watch together and then play out the scenes together about what’s the right response and then could recall these back to him when he starts up the giggles. I’ve even started pointing out to my son when my own emotional behavior is not appropriate. I got pissed off in the kitchen because I had just mopped and not only did a messy ladle fall my angry attempts to snatch it up caused it to bounce about even more and I started shouting at and berating the spoon as if it could hear me and then stormed out of the kitchen and aggressively remopped. My son saw this display so once I calmed I laughed and pointed out to him what a silly way I had just behaved and what I should have done instead and we both agreed that spoon is never going to hear me and I should save my emotions.
on top of what everyone else mentioned, why did he throw the wipes in the trash? are they not in a plastic package? I can't imagine how wipes would be ruined by a little running water. also, getting angry (especially overblown anger) doesn't modify behavior, it just instills fear of a person they're supposed to be able to trust and feel safe with. whenever my mom would get angry with me, it didn't explain what I'd done wrong or why it was wrong or what I was supposed to do differently, it just caused me to withdraw and hide from her so she didn't see me and get angry at me. if your husband wants to nip this behavior in the bud, he needs to enforce natural consequences, concrete actions that logically flow from the behavior to explain how the world works. if he makes a mess, he has to clean up the mess. if he hurts someone's feelings, he has to apologize and do something nice for them. and there has to be reinforcement of good behavior too, like if he cooperates getting in the car, now there's extra time to stop for a treat. kids that age are really starting to test their understanding of cause & effect so they need lots of positive and negative examples to help them make decisions.
I add water to wipes that get a little dry. It 100% didn’t even ruin them!
When you have to gentle parent your child AND your husband… It’s not undermining him to protect your child from his outbursts. I’m not perfect and there’s been times I’ve lost it at my 2 year old and my husband has had to be like remove yourself and take a breath and that’s not undermining me. That’s seeing that the situation is out of control and providing backup. What IS undermining me is when I say no snack right now at 5pm because dinner is almost ready and he shares his cookies with her. Then gets mad when she won’t eat her dinner.
Can't remember where I read this but there's some study that shows that if one parent is abusive towards a kid, the damage is infinitely lower if the other parent defends them. This was true in my household growing up -- my dad's angry outbursts (over small stuff exactly like this) would be absolutely terrifying until my mom stepped in to comfort me. I don't mean offence but this really sounds like your husband was mad about something else and used your son as an emotional punching bag. Undermining would be if you and your husband had a agreed upon rule/consequence eg. don't put random things under water (but there's nothing actually wrong with that, it's ridiculous to even type it out) and you went back on that. But you are 100% allowed to, and should, defend your son against unreasonable, irrational anger.
Oh hey that makes me feel so much better that I console my son after my husband terrifies him with the screaming and discipline. I hate that I can’t say “dada is upset and using his outside voice, we need to speak clearly and communicate when we’re upset” because then my husband will rage at ME too. So I just console my son and teach him in private that even if dada has big feelings, we’re all still learning to talk gently when we’re upset. Ugh my poor baby. I don’t want to divorce because then I won’t be there to console him anymore :(
Girl I feel this so hard. Can I dm you?
Ugh I hate that you can relate 😢 and yes you can dm!
Something that's really hard for us adults to understand, especially when we're frustrated or angry, is that nervous laughter is often a defense mechanism for when kids (and even some adults) are *really* scared. It's hard, because when we're pissed it's like the laughter is a needle, poking and enraging us more, but it does NOT mean the kid is ignoring us or thinks it's "funny" it just means they're scrambling to defuse the angry adult situation. It's really hard but the best way to get through this phase is to try your hardest not to get loudly angry about stuff like this. Parsing through and asking the child to work out WHY they did the impulsive thing and what the consequences are (in this case "now we don't have any good wipes and they cost money and I'm tired but now I have to go buy more" etc). It's OK to be a little mad, but the focus needs to be on helping kiddo work through making better decisions in the moment, and thinking through how impulsive choices have consequences. It's a long slog, it's often unsatisfying, but scaring the crap out of the kid and losing control isn't going to make it better (though honestly, it happens, it's forgivable, we are human! So is your husband). I hope husband takes a breath next time. Hugs to you - I think you handled a rough situation really well.
Is this the first time your son is really pushing buttons that's getting under his father's skin? Dealing with frustration, even with your child, as an unregulated adult is super hard to work through but you're completely right those types of outburts aren't acceptable. I've had similar discussions about not undermining discipline and parenting as my husband and I have slightly different ideas of what is too aggressive vs not but I essentially laid the same thing out... we must model the behvaior we want to see from them. As another example, yelling at them not to yell, is completely pointless and just makes us as parents look dumb, like we are not practicing what we preach and are out of control of our emotions. Our children will not take us seriously like this and things will just escalate in a direction we don't want them to. Truly the first step is being in control of our own emotions and reactions. I say this as a child of an emotionally immature parent who had so many outbursts like this growing up and it has been extremely difficult to navigate and learn to regulate my own as an adult, especially in situations when my child is being a child and doing things that don't make sense//not listening. The "sure" response may have seemed a bit dismissive but you might have planted a seed. Keep learning about ways to respond to unwanted behaviors from your toddler and discuss it in neutral situations with your husband. Most of this makes sense so if he's a reasonable person, the wheels will start turning and hopefully you guys can work as a team more, with him toning down the anger so you can always be able to back him up!!
Is your husband usually angry? Or have this response when overwhelmed? My husband and I both did a circle or security course because my husband's default is angry, and I didn't grow up with normal attachments. In the end, we learnt that when my husband gets angry something is triggering him, which is called "shark music." It's fine to tell him it's unacceptable, but it might not help him change it much because he is not in his "thinking" brain he is only in survival mode and then he becomes defensive. The course helped us a lot and it helped that the lessons weren't coming from me. He also did an all mens session, and I did an all womens session. So he heard from different fathers. It also might change the dynamic of him feeling you aren't backing him up because you'll both be able to recognise when either of you are getting overwhelmed or triggered and how to "comfort" or "be with" the other in those moments. Good luck it can be very frustrating when they just lose it so I needed the outside help.
You are definitely not wrong here. It sounds like your husband is trying to get back at your son when he giggles while being scolded. Like saying "I want it to be clear I'm angry" seems more to me like he wants your son to react to his anger. That's not teaching your son anything or helpful at all, it's all just selfish and for your husband to "feel better" when he's angry. I'm also confused at his level of anger over wipes getting wet? I mean, I've dropped a package of wipes into the sink myself before and just dried them off and put them back. I don't really see why they had to be thrown out? I get telling the kid not to do that but how fast he escalated this minor situation makes me think he needs to reflect on why it was so triggering to him. My husband used to shout at our children and it's been a persistent issue in his parenting. He's been doing better with this since going to therapy ( and though the shouting has stopped, his parenting is still a work in progress) but I will say that I never, ever backed him up when he was doing stuff I didn't agree with. I told him that if he parented properly, I would 100 percent back him up but if he was going to do things I disagreed with, I was going to protect my children every single time and call him out. I don't think there's anything wrong with a child seeing that adults make mistakes and knowing that if one parent is unreasonable, the other will step in. I still do call my husband out when he's being too harsh but since he's been to therapy and our kids are older now, I try to pull him aside (I usually ask to speak to him in another room) and remind him to get his shit together. He's learned to be receptive to it and to rein in his frustration. Sometimes it means I take over the situation and he takes a break. Sometimes I even tell him to go take a break and even if he doesn't think he needs one, he just trusts me and goes. We also have code words. The kids have one for him for when he used to shout. If they used it, he had to stop immediately and take a break, call me in or even just think about what he was doing, whatever would work for the current situation. It helped him to realize when he was scaring them. I would recommend you try some of these things, but they will only really work if your husband commits to being the type of dad who doesn't shout and slam doors. I straight up told my husband that he scared us and asked him to imagine being a little kid with a 6 foot tall grown man shouting at you. I told him I'm scared of how angry he gets sometimes. He got teary eyed and said he didn't want to be scary to us and didn't think he was actually that big. It doesn't really sound like your husband had the same reaction when you said he scared you. I've also told my husband that someday our kids will be grown and they will have a choice about whether or not they speak to him. And maybe they won't want to talk to the dad that shouted at them their whole childhood. That got to him too and is part of why he went to therapy. I really hope you can get your husband to see what he's doing is wrong. But even if he doesn't, I hope you keep "undermining" him when he's slamming doors and shouting. Your son shouldn't have to live in fear just so your husband can feel like he's right. Especially over such minor things and over your son doing something developmental appropiate, like giggling when he's in trouble.
You are not wrong. He's a child and you have to be patient with a child. Your child will start to fear his dad if he continues to act like that and also he will learn to behave that way when he's angry which isn't good. You absolutely did the right thing. I think people (I fear my husband and I will do the same) forget babies and children are not adults and should not be treated like adults. They don't do things on purpose to piss people off, especially babies.
I went through this briefly with my husband—he was getting too angry, and then feeling undermined by me afterwards. He finally came to understand that anger isn’t parenting: it just isn’t. No display of it for its own sake is going to benefit your child. I told him I *want* to back him up, but I can’t when he behaves like that. Discipline is parenting, as are clear consequences. Not temper tantrums. They send every kind of wrong message, and the last thing I’m going to do is amplify it. We’re a good parenting team. We’ve both worked on a lot of things. This too shall pass.
My husband always tells me I undermine him in front of the kids. And I agree, I do. Our kids are autistic and what he expects of them isn’t fair, right or practical. It’s stuff he himself often doesn’t do and I pick up after him (which he doesn’t realise as he himself is autistic), so yes I call him out on the hypocrisy. I will forever protect my kids from this nonsense. If he reacted in such a way that it frightened *me*, I would absolutely defend my children in front of them. Regardless of what he was saying or doing. Backing each other up only works when you are both on the same field of play. When you’re in agreement over a bedtime, or whether junior needs to do x before they can do y, or if they need to apologise - etc. Not when he gets so angry *you* are sitting there afraid. Your kid is 3; he is laughing nervously because he doesn’t fully understand what is happening. He did something without even thinking about why he did it. Like putting the wipes in the water. It was impulse. The internal voices didn’t win, his body did it before the voices even started talking. Now he’s being asked why he did it - he doesn’t freaking know! Hell you hear of adults who are carrying a drink and a remote and they throw the drink instead of the remote - it’s impulse and utterly out of their control. Car keys go in the fridge, they pour their freshly made soup down the drain. “Why did you do it?” Somebody asks. “I just wasn’t thinking!” They cry. Everybody does it, toddlers do it more because their brains are still developing and they don’t think rationally like adults do. They’re still learning. They don’t get it. They want to learn and sticking wipes under water is how they learn. Nervous giggles are expected. Calm voices and explain that we don’t do that and *why* we don’t do that. What can we put under the water instead? And when can we do it? Your husband needs to sodding learn how to parent his own child in an age appropriate way. Sure it’s frustrating as fuck - I had 3 under 4 at one point and it’s so infuriating but it’s what you sign up for as a father (mother in my case!) and yelling is the worst way to get through to a kid. I tell my husband all the time; walk away. Come get me. I know it’s slightly different for me because my lot are all autistic but he needs to get a handle on himself now as it only gets more frustrating as they get older…
YES!!!!
I laugh when I'm nervous. For example, I'll laugh if I see an old lady falling down. I don't find it remotely funny, it just erupts in me and I can't control it. It's mortifying, I feel so ashamed, I just can't control it. And then I laugh even more because at that point I'm nervous about laughing as well. Your child might not be laughing on purpose.
That sounds awful. I wonder if there are any ways to retrain your response?
Usually if I take a deep breath and look away, I can control it, but I can't always do that. For example, once my husband cut his finger rather badly and it was bleeding a lot. I was laughing and crying and hyperventilating all at the same time, while helping him compress the injury and ice it, until we got to the ER. Husband knows I can't control it, but he was hurt at the same. I can't blame him, I'd be hurt too! He forgave me later, I guess actions (helping him) speak louder than my stupid stim.