Seeking opinions on an incident involving another family member disciplining my child

[Anonymous]

I am a very relaxed parent. You have to be with a bunch of boys or you will be yelling all the time.

OP, you were way out of line. You over reacted. You escalated the situation. Your child's behavior was out of control. If that infraction resulted in BIL yelling then I am sure there was a lot of wildness by your kids prior to that point that really tried his patience.

I am guessing if he posted here his side would be very different than what you posted, particularly with regards to her getting off the couch arm. I am sure she did not compliantly step down when asked, and the grabbing for her legs leads me to believe there was likely some defiant response from her coupled with her launching herself or running across his couch on the way down.

My kids would have gotten scolded by me after that exchange and then made to help clean or something similar as an apology for being rude to someone else's house.

[Anonymous]

What's with you taking your child and running out? That would scare my kids more than being disciplined.

[Anonymous]

Ok OP. You are right. Your BIL is a monster. KOKO.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Surprised at some of the responses here. Do your 4 year olds really not climb on the furniture? What sort of robot children are you raising?

OP here. I was just thinking something along those lines based on some of the responses I just read.

And the behaviors of some of the kids at the birthday party that followed a few hours later far surpassed my daughter's offense.

Also, the fact that he screamed (i mean, really screamed, very loud and angrily right at my DH) just really leaves me speechless.

OP, they were preparing for a child's birthday party. Very stressful. Yes, he overreacted, and no, he probably shouldn't have screamed at your DC or your DH. So what? He apologized. Next time you're there for a birthday party, maybe you could try to do more to help out with it.

Why is having a kid's birthday party "very stressful"? Where have we come? What are our priorities?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow talk about a situation blown out of proportion...you should have calmed her down in a less dramatic way. You contributed to the chaos. Your in laws apologized, move on. Life is too short to hold a grudge over your child misbehaving.

OP here. Where do you see me contributing to the drama? She was crying and scrambling away from my BIL who was angrily grabbing at her legs. I picked her up and took her away without a word to anyone. As a PP said, this kind of did feel like an instinctive response--I saw that she was terrified and my BIL was angry with her and my first reaction was to get her out of that room.

My DH did not stoop to my BIL's level as my BIL screamed in his face. Instead, he calmly got up with my other daughter and joined me upstairs where we sat with our two crying daughters and tried to figure out the best route. And, we stayed for the party.

Not that PP, but you clearly contributed to both children being freaked out. You reacted very dramatically, acting like you were escaping from domestic violence, and they picked up on that. Being yelled at is not all that scary (it happens a lot to kids). Seeing your mom scared is terrifying.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't think this is about scrutinizing who said what in what tone or what order. The fundamental thing is that BIL tried to grab a screaming child in an attempt to discipline them/get them off the sofa. That's the issue and nothing else matters.

OP here. I agree with this. This is something I would never dream of doing to someone else's child, especially if both parents were right there. We were both helping the other daughter with something, but if he had said to us (as a PP said) "hey guys, can you get DD off the couch?" or something? We would have done so right away. Actually, if we had noticed that she was on the arm rest, I would have gotten her down myself right away.

OP, if you feel that you do not want your child to be disciplined by an aunt or uncle at their house, then you should have a conversation with them and tell them that. And then you should watch your kids more carefully, and/or not stay with them.

I don't understand why you need to protect your children from their aunts and uncles. They're family.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Surprised at some of the responses here. Do your 4 year olds really not climb on the furniture? What sort of robot children are you raising?

OP here. I was just thinking something along those lines based on some of the responses I just read.

And the behaviors of some of the kids at the birthday party that followed a few hours later far surpassed my daughter's offense.

Also, the fact that he screamed (i mean, really screamed, very loud and angrily right at my DH) just really leaves me speechless.

I guess I don't understand what you want. Your kid did something wrong. Another adult corrected her. It escalated because both sets of adults got emotional. If this was that upsetting, watch your kid more closely.

OP here. You are incorrect about both sets of adults getting emotional. My DH and I did NOT get emotional (at least not outwardly).

Sure you did. You ran out of the room with her. That would scare my kid. Uncle is so bad that mommy had to swoop in and rescue!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Surprised at some of the responses here. Do your 4 year olds really not climb on the furniture? What sort of robot children are you raising?

OP here. I was just thinking something along those lines based on some of the responses I just read.

And the behaviors of some of the kids at the birthday party that followed a few hours later far surpassed my daughter's offense.

Also, the fact that he screamed (i mean, really screamed, very loud and angrily right at my DH) just really leaves me speechless.

I guess I don't understand what you want. Your kid did something wrong. Another adult corrected her. It escalated because both sets of adults got emotional. If this was that upsetting, watch your kid more closely.

OP here. You are incorrect about both sets of adults getting emotional. My DH and I did NOT get emotional (at least not outwardly).

Sure you did. You ran out of the room with her. That would scare my kid. Uncle is so bad that mommy had to swoop in and rescue!

Not OP, but uncle seemed pretty bad to me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, you're going to get a lot of responses on here in support of the BIL because frankly there are a lot of people on here like him. But in my opinion what he did was totally unacceptable. You don't get physical with someone else's kids. If she was on the couch and he didn't like it, and she didn't get down after he told her, he should have said to you or your DH (who were both right there, right??) "get your kid off the couch, i just told her to get down and she didn't listen"

I agree. Fine that he asked her to get down off the armrest. Not fine that after she was sitting on the sofa where she was supposed to, that he was grabbing at her legs. The need for physical correction was over and done once she was off the armrest. The rest is just punitive for no reason. The yelling is over the top.

She wasn't sitting on the sofa, she was at best crawling around on it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Surprised at some of the responses here. Do your 4 year olds really not climb on the furniture? What sort of robot children are you raising?

OP here. I was just thinking something along those lines based on some of the responses I just read.

And the behaviors of some of the kids at the birthday party that followed a few hours later far surpassed my daughter's offense.

Also, the fact that he screamed (i mean, really screamed, very loud and angrily right at my DH) just really leaves me speechless.

I guess I don't understand what you want. Your kid did something wrong. Another adult corrected her. It escalated because both sets of adults got emotional. If this was that upsetting, watch your kid more closely.

OP here. You are incorrect about both sets of adults getting emotional. My DH and I did NOT get emotional (at least not outwardly).

Sure you did. You ran out of the room with her. That would scare my kid. Uncle is so bad that mommy had to swoop in and rescue!

+1

And then started packing, had a family council about whether to stay or to leave.

[Anonymous]

I would love to hear uncle's side of the story.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow talk about a situation blown out of proportion...you should have calmed her down in a less dramatic way. You contributed to the chaos. Your in laws apologized, move on. Life is too short to hold a grudge over your child misbehaving.

OP here. Where do you see me contributing to the drama? She was crying and scrambling away from my BIL who was angrily grabbing at her legs. I picked her up and took her away without a word to anyone. As a PP said, this kind of did feel like an instinctive response--I saw that she was terrified and my BIL was angry with her and my first reaction was to get her out of that room.

My DH did not stoop to my BIL's level as my BIL screamed in his face. Instead, he calmly got up with my other daughter and joined me upstairs where we sat with our two crying daughters and tried to figure out the best route. And, we stayed for the party.

Not that PP, but you clearly contributed to both children being freaked out. You reacted very dramatically, acting like you were escaping from domestic violence, and they picked up on that. Being yelled at is not all that scary (it happens a lot to kids). Seeing your mom scared is terrifying.

OP here. Well, yes, it is true that I was scared, especially after he screamed at DH. I did my best to appear calm and collected in front of the kids, but yes, surely they picked up on me being scared. Well, not sure what I could have done to change that. I was scared. What happened was scary to me.

Also, someone suggested that my kids must have been driving him crazy all weekend and just pushed him until he snapped. This is not the case. We arrived late on Friday night (kids were both asleep and we carried them to their beds) and this happened the following morning. So we're talking less than 3 waking hours with them.

[Anonymous]

OP this thread will go back and forth between those who think that kids who ignore instructions in other peoples' houses should rightly be corrected and those who think that children should be able to do what they like without sanction.

The key thing is not what other people think but what you in your heart of hearts think. It sounds to me like you're trying to make a case against you BIL to justify the fact that you feel aggrieved that something was done about your furniture climber and to explain why you overreacted. Drama already?

The only thing this tells me is that you're not a natural fit with your BIL and it's a mistake to stay with them. So learn that for the future and move on. That should work out best for both of you. He doesn't want/has worries about kids climbing on his things and acting defiantly when corrected and clearly has a form of immediate consequence that you don't approve of and you don't believe that's the right approach with your kid. My view is that people who don't play nicely with each other should keep a polite distance.

Endnote: you really should teach your kids to respect other people's things and other people's rules because life won't be easy for them if their response to not being able to do what they want, where they want and when they want is to cry and have mom go into panic mode and then solicit support on anonymous internet fora.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am a very relaxed parent. You have to be with a bunch of boys or you will be yelling all the time.

OP, you were way out of line. You over reacted. You escalated the situation. Your child's behavior was out of control. If that infraction resulted in BIL yelling then I am sure there was a lot of wildness by your kids prior to that point that really tried his patience.

I am guessing if he posted here his side would be very different than what you posted, particularly with regards to her getting off the couch arm. I am sure she did not compliantly step down when asked, and the grabbing for her legs leads me to believe there was likely some defiant response from her coupled with her launching herself or running across his couch on the way down.

My kids would have gotten scolded by me after that exchange and then made to help clean or something similar as an apology for being rude to someone else's house.

This.

What 4 year old thinks it's ok to stand on the arm of a couch? (Are some of you PP's seriously implying that if I invite children into my home I have to tolerate this? When I'd never tolerate it from my own?)
And if your BIL removed her and she calmly complied, then there would have been no need for him to be grabbing her legs. I'd bet she was being uncooperative.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't think this is about scrutinizing who said what in what tone or what order. The fundamental thing is that BIL tried to grab a screaming child in an attempt to discipline them/get them off the sofa. That's the issue and nothing else matters.

OP here. I agree with this. This is something I would never dream of doing to someone else's child, especially if both parents were right there. We were both helping the other daughter with something, but if he had said to us (as a PP said) "hey guys, can you get DD off the couch?" or something? We would have done so right away. Actually, if we had noticed that she was on the arm rest, I would have gotten her down myself right away.

OP, if you feel that you do not want your child to be disciplined by an aunt or uncle at their house, then you should have a conversation with them and tell them that. And then you should watch your kids more carefully, and/or not stay with them.

I don't understand why you need to protect your children from their aunts and uncles. They're family.

???wtf?