My mother is like you - trust me it’s terrible. You are never wrong, you lash out and can’t deal with criticism. The “why are you standing there...” is classic. I suggest “don’t worry it’s just water- here is a towel let’s wipe it up”

I think all of you focusing on the spilled water are missing the point entirely. OP overreacted in the moment. That was wrong and OP I hope you’ve apologized to your child. I’ve actually done the same exact thing because of a child watching a mess expand instead of fixing it but I know it’s because they are still too young to have that instinct to quickly determine what the mess is, where the paper towels are, gotta act fast cause paper will be ruined by water - I mean, they probably know all this if you asked them but it’s not a quick, instinctive response yet. So OP was wrong. But for a spouse to stop talking over it? That’s a major overreaction too.

OP I think you guys need counseling to focus on the communication. I don’t know if you are normally too harsh or not, but you guys need to be able to discuss these things.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'd be pretty pissed if my DH reacted to spilled water the way you did. You should both take a parenting class.

Really? You think asking a child why they aren’t doing anything to clean up a mess they made us out of line? You and OP’s DH both sound like great parents.

DO here. The question is did the kid freeze because mom always flips out so they were scared? If my kid didn’t do anything after spilling a drink I would have told him what to do and jumped in to help. If this ranks up their as a big deal for you where you think snapping at your kid appropriate then you have some issues that need to be worked on.

OP again. My kid didn’t freeze in terror. He was watching TV and was distracted. I did jump in to clean it up, and he just stood there doing nothing. Again, I agree that I shouldn’t have snapped, but I feel like the context is helpful to explain my reaction.

Move the books, turn off the tv and say, let’s clean this up. If being distracted and making a mess is a problem with food/drink agree with DH on how to handle it for the future and let your child know the rules. Should your child be allowed to watch tv and eat? Is it a rule the table needs to be cleared of books etc if he wants to watch tv and eat dinner? Is it that he loses the privilege if he makes a mess - so he can use a water bottle if he is worried about knocking something over or realizes he has to pause and be quick to cleanup the mess otherwise bye bye tv with food privilege. Always talking to the kids about how can we problem solve.

Oh and kids are zombies wth the tv. I’ve used the FIOS app to turn off the tv if I ask more than once for the tv to go off and they haven’t turned this off. I realized I was getting way more frustrated than them asking for the 3rd time and 4th time.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'd be pretty pissed if my DH reacted to spilled water the way you did. You should both take a parenting class.

Really? You think asking a child why they aren’t doing anything to clean up a mess they made us out of line? You and OP’s DH both sound like great parents.

NP here. It’s not what was said, it was how it was said. Sarcasm and rhetorical questions with a 7 year old not only has a snide tone to it but it typically isn’t effective. It becomes very obvious when they start parroting back the same tone and phrases to you and then say, “that’s what you say to me”. Then you straddle the line between correcting them because they still need to be repectful to an adult and adjusting your behavior because you realize you don’t want them to be in a relationship some day with someone that speaks to them that way. The way we’ve handled this is to say “here are some paper towels, let’s get this cleaned up.” When they were little and they would get upset because we were upset, I would try to calm everyone down by using the saying about not crying over spilt milk, what’s done is done, let’s focus on cleaning this up and what can we do so we don’t spill x next time.

Both OP and DH have to figure out how to communicate better when they don’t agree with each other about parenting. You don’t want your child to see oh going to this parent gets me out of the consequence or me spilling water starts an argument with my parents and no one is speaking to anyone.

Anonymous wrote:If my seven-year old son spilled water all over the kitchen table, and then didn’t make an attempt to grab some paper towels to clean it up I would have been incensed.

A seven-year old is responsible enough to handle little matters like this.
It was wrong of your husband to disagree w/you plus telling you in front of your son.

If you get “incensed” over a kid not moving fast enough after spilling water you have some serious anger issues. I feel bad for your family. I hope, for their sake, you seek help because that must be a miserable way to grow up.

Anonymous wrote:I was married for 20 years and my ex-wife never understood me. Mostly because she was too busy talking for 20 years straight to ever listen.

This is a helpful comment because ...?

If my seven-year old son spilled water all over the kitchen table, and then didn’t make an attempt to grab some paper towels to clean it up I would have been incensed.

A seven-year old is responsible enough to handle little matters like this.
It was wrong of your husband to disagree w/you plus telling you in front of your son.

I was married for 20 years and my ex-wife never understood me. Mostly because she was too busy talking for 20 years straight to ever listen.

Because youre supposed to be a team and scolding your husband in front of your children belittles him. He's not your child

Your DH was belittled as a child by his own mother and every time you discipline your child your DH feels bad for his son. He is reliving his childhood with you as his mother and is not acting like a parent or partner. He's acting like he's the child and he wants to get back at mommy by telling you to leave him alone. He needs to grow up. Just my opinion.

Were you drunk when this happened? My DW always gets more verbally abusive of our children after she’s had a few drinks. I would definitely push back like your DH did and defend the child.

Anonymous wrote:It’s just water and the kid is 7 so, no, I wouldn’t have been upset. Do you normally get upset at something as innocuous as a spilt drink? If so, you may want to get a better understanding why you have a short fuse. Just saying you love your kids isn’t enough.

That said, your DH isn’t handling this well either and the silent treatment is ridiculous for a grown adult to engage in. Sounds like there is poor communication all around.

She didn't get upset at the kid spilling. She got upset at the child sitting there and watching the mess expand rather than acting to do something about it. If it is something she has told the child previously, the reaction is justified. If he's never been told or taught how, then this is a teaching moment but, at 7, I doubt that is the case.

OP, I have said stuff like that. Not our finest moment but not the worst either. Something is missing from your story. Why was the spill between your dh and ds? That struck me as odd. I do recommend marriage counseling. My dh was constantly lecturing me on my parenting style but would get in our children's faces and scream. We both needed to talk to someone and get on the same page. In fact this post is making me want to go back to counseling since we did a lot of good work there and came out stronger.

Also a 7 year old should clean up a spill. It isn't odd. No tv during homework time and maybe having a capped water bottle?

"hey sweetie, there are books on the table, could you please wipe up the water now before they get ruined?"

LOL.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'd be pretty pissed if my DH reacted to spilled water the way you did. You should both take a parenting class.

Really? You think asking a child why they aren’t doing anything to clean up a mess they made us out of line? You and OP’s DH both sound like great parents.

Yea, it's passive-aggressive. I have family who pull this, and it's not that they are legitimately curious why, it's that they feel slighted in some way and lash out. These people always get pissed when you take the question at face value and actually answer it, rather than jumping to attention and doing whatever it is they want.

Better response: "hey sweetie, there are books on the table, could you please wipe up the water now before they get ruined?". If kid doesn't and the books get ruined, kid pays for new books with allowance money. Natural consequences work better than snapping.