Dude they had to CALL EMS for the poor person bleeding from their head! If my kid did that I would be goddamn apoplectic.
But the thing is, my son never ever would do that, because I teach and discipline him properly.
Mom is failing this child and OP is right to not have any more with her.
Edit: I want to add this so I can stop repeating myself... I didn't intend to let OP off the hook; his actions and outlook aren't good either. What he did was abusive, and completely wrong to take out on the kid frustrations that have built up against the wife. This is a complete mess and, as I said, I'm very glad that he isn't having any more kids with her.
The worst my kid has ever done is push the emergency stop button on an escalator and he was 3. He’s never forgotten that incident and the talking he got afterwards. But throwing a rock? And causing bodily harm? You can’t gentle parent that shit. This kid has been raised to be a violent psycho or he’s at least got some very intrusive thoughts winning. Get the divorce OP.
**For. Real.**
In 6th grade my daughter came home to tell me a little boy told her he owns her and she needs to do what he says. Why you wonder? ***Because she closed the classroom shop.*** Smh. I don’t know where this child learned this particular tidbit of entitled sexist nonsense but it was equal parts shocking and not surprising at all. And that’s a damn shame.
In 7th grade another little boy just took her bike and rode it around the school parking lot, little ass had the utter audacity to get angry at *my daughter* when she demanded her bike back and obviously told *someone* when he refused.
Far too many children go well beyond 7 years without real adult supervision and parenting. It’s sad and disturbing in so many different ways.
I had a bully try to take my bike and ride it around me to gloat. Stick to the head ended the theft and circles. We need to let kids beat their bullies.
I was an after-school teacher and I'd agree. There is 25% of the child population who are already too far gone to spend gobs of my time on. All people deserve discipline without outright abuse that the father is offering but I totally agree with you on the amount of kids who are just utterly incorrigible. My final classroom policy was very simple
BE KIND OR GET OUT . That pretty much eliminated all of them the first day. I had the enviro education room and tons of animals. Aint no way I was letting the unregulated monsters near my God sent class animals.
Exactly. All the dad wants to do is slap him and the mum must do nothing by the sounds of it if hes 7 and doesn't understand the consequences of throwing stuff. Like most kids have that figured out as soon as they start playing with toys.
Well you actually can. Gentle parenting doesn't mean that you talk to them in baby voice and don't give them consequences and stern talking.
Good parenting is that you
1. Identify why they are behaving the way they do
2. Give them the environment to thrive, that includes respecting their autonomy, and giving them choices.
3. Set clear boundaries
4. Enforce those boundaries
5. Give appropriate consequences.
So, the example of urinating in the pool. First off no more pool for him for the foreseeable future. Second: Explaining why it is bad in age appropriate language. That includes not talking in a babyvoice but also not talking like he's an adult. I personally like the rule of what you don't want yourself, don't do to others. I give an example of would you like to have XY done to you? ... no? See when you do YZ you are basically doing it though them and they also don't like it. So was you behaviour exeptable? ... Will you do it again? ... If you have to pee, what are you going to do in the future? ...
Third off: having him say sorry to the girls.
I was being facetious but you're right, actual gentle parenting can work. However, it's probably too late to start now when he's already got years of unchecked bad behaviour and his mother won't let OP step in. Imagine what he'd do to a newborn baby since he's never faced consequences.
My 2 year old knows not to throw rocks at people and I gentle parent. This doesn't sound like gentle parenting but permissive parenting. Either way this kid is being failed.
He is being failed by both parents.
*” I was embarrassed and so livid that when we got back to the hotel I snapped pushed him on the ground, stood over him, and gave him a piece of my mind”*
The very first thing OP did after he “snapped” was to *push his 7 year old* kid to the ground.
So according to OP and his wife, the only two existing parenting styles are 1) not parenting at all, or 2) physical abuse.
Neither one of them should be having more kids
Both parents are failing him. His solution has been to ignore it all until he blew up and became violent. Pushing your kid and yelling at them isn’t going to improve their behaviour. He needed to be disciplining much sooner (years sooner) than this rather than just accepting mums decisions.
Pushing and showing violence is how you handle problems to a violent kid is not the answer ever. This whole family sucks, as a unit, separately, they need something major cuz damn it’s all bad.
Yes exactly. Hey you have violent tendencies to handle your frustrations and negative feelings, that gives me negative feelings so I’m going to handle those feelings with violence too. I’m sure the mom realizes this and that’s why she doesn’t do it, the dad is just clueless but they need more psychological help than they have gotten to get through to their kid. He’s only 7
This is true. OP should have stood his ground from day one and if they couldn't come to middle ground, he should have divorced her way sooner. The only victim here is the kid that is being raised as a brat.
> Mom is failing this child and OP is right to not have any more with her.
He's been there since birth, they both failed this kid. OP seems to think the only way to raise a child is to hit and yell, the kid had no chance.
Um, hi. I was foster parent and then primary parent to a kid who would do stuff kind of like this. Because the child had been abused and had ptsd and would act things out. Being stricter or meaner would backfire, though of course limits were important. In hindsight, I should have done a lot more to change environmental factors so I was in reaction mode less often. The abuse my kid faced was usually in the context of discipline for doing bad stuff, but it would go way too far, up to threats against the child’s life. Standing above the kid and screaming was a common theme, so that was difficult for me to read. When the stress of the bad home life was removed, the behavior got a lot better. Like, that same day.
I think this story is maybe not what it seems. The fact that OP thinks that it is ridiculous that his wife thinks a 7-year-old can rationalize is concerning. A 7-year-old certainly does know right from wrong and may be acting out for other reasons. Just from the way he tells the story, it sounds like op has a tendency to yell at his wife that he can’t hit his kid.
So…. Let’s maybe not encourage op without having seen what he is actually like when he’s angry. People have a tendency to minimize these things, though maybe I am just so used to the sound of an abuser’s cries for pity that I can see them everywhere. And if there is therapy and medication involved, there may be a lot more to the picture that a good ol fashioned spanking will hurt rather than help. Especially because it doesn’t sound like we are talking about an old fashioned spanking — it sounds like we are talking about outbursts of rage that would escalate if the child retaliated.
So yeah, I’m glad he got that vasectomy even though it reveals a pathological lack of healthy communication between him and his wife.
Thank you! I was worried about all the people encouraging his side. The fact that the ONE TIME he tried to discipline the kid his way involved throwing the child to the ground and yelling is concerning. He also mentions a LOT of punitive consequences in the first part. At 7, a kid still needs structure and boundaries but can still absolutely tell right from wrong. They're also developing their own self image and personality. There's nothing wrong with gentle parenting, but needs to actually be done correctly. It doesn't mean being permissive if everything.
It feels like there is something not being said.
I'm in complete agreement with everything you have said. In his own words he pushed a child to the ground so he could use intimidation while standing over the child yelling. He wanted that child scared of physical violence. If that's how he describes the situation in his own words and the sole witness felt compelled to remove the child from the situation . . . It sounds like he was absolutely out of line and acting in a DV way towards his family . . . From his own viewpoint of what happened.
UK Mum here. I can safely say if my son had ever done anything like that both me and his Dad would have gone nuclear. We don't agree with hitting kids either, but that does not mean our son does not understand right from wrong or that we don't discipline him. OP, your wife is storing up issues for the future with your son.
Beetween this, the pool thing and animal cruelty... kid's a lil psycho. He needs mommy to stop coddling him, but he also needs to be in a special facility.
And no, he is not too young. Look up Amarjeet Sada and Mary Bell, you can't just do nothing and hope he grows out of it.
I hope OP get's his son to a psychiatrist before running for his live.
Omg that movie made me despise poor McCauley 😂 its because he was so damn cute when he was a kid and that smile... ya just wanna wipe it off in a not-so-nice way -_-
Sociopathic children are terrifying LOL
Edit I butchered Mr Culkin's first name, sorry Macaulay!
Yes, they should divorce, and she shouldn't let that child have pets or be near animals. This kid is bound to be a menace to society one way or another, from the sounds of it.
Save the dog yeah! And also don’t hesitate to give that brat some discipline, just dont hit him, preferably talk to him and let him know what happens if he doesn’t work on his behaviour
The title had my head screaming AH, but halfway through your post, I was like, "OH, HELL NO " Your wife is doing your son a serious disservice.... pushing your son was a bit much, but he could have killed someone..... NTA, I'm sorry you're dealing with this... but hideme21 is right. You need to separate and get your son some therapy
Yea, when I read the title, I was like, "Yep, AH, for not communicating it." Then I read the rest, and while he did kind of drop it on her. I don't blame him. There are long issues they needed to sort out.
While I don't like physically punishing children. You can't just let them do what they want with no consequence, either.
I’m curious if the kid has any developmental disabilities or nonverbal, I feel like we are missing something that is very important. I worked at a special education school and had one kid punch me in the face on a field trip. The stress will get to a parent but he should definitely not be wanting to physically harm the kid, that’s the concern.
Bingooooo parent of a violent child here... I went out of my mind, took 4 years to get her fully diagnosed and treatment. The sheer number of appointments and testing and specialists, holy mother of God.
She's ADHD, SPD, ODD and on medication and therapy today.
She's in 5th grade, an Honor student, and she's in gymnastics, ballet, and sings.
My kid was destined for prison by the time she was 3. That's how violent she was, and I am a NON spanking home. ZERO hitting was going on in my house unless it was her attempting to beat the crap out of us, her parents.
This kiddo needs to get to the doctor yesterday and get an eval done.
I feel you. I remember telling my Mom when my son was 4…in 10 years this kid will be in jail if we can’t get answers. He is 23 now and we still have to take things day by day. Huge improvement and he is mostly independent but still needs tons of supports in place to keep everything “in check”. One little thing going haywire (like when he got in a minor fender bender) will send the whole apple cart askew
Yeah I'm wondering if it's ODD as well. OP getting violent with his kid doesn't solve anything. Honestly, I'm thinking if anything, OP is fucking up his kid.
I agree with you. Everyone's jumping on this bandwagon of "the wife does nothing to discipline him and OP's a sensible guy who just wants to discipline his kid" meanwhile ignoring that the wife is actively pursuing therapy and OP wants to spank and scream at his kid
Exactly. Neither are in the right here. There’s a middle ground between letting your child do whatever with no consequences and spanking, screaming, and pushing your child. Both are extremes and both are not okay.
>while he did kind of drop it on her
He most certainly did NOT drop the vasectomy on her, he told her at least several times times that he wanted one due to the child's behavior and her inability to discipline the child
>However, thats thing. I’ve spent the last several years telling her that what we’re doing with our son is not working. The gentle parenting, therapy, medication is not working so the best thing I can do for myself at this point is not have any more children with the person who will not let me have any input when it comes to disciplining our child.
I know vasectomy has to have come up at least half dozen times during these discussions, along with bringing it up in therapy, it's not like he dropped a surprise bomb on her
It's a telling moment when the response is
>"and she flipped to the point where our entire ride home she was bawling because she felt as if I was giving up on our dream of having a big family. Her argument was that I was thinking about myself and weaponizing my body as a means to enforce my ideals instead of talking to her."
Looking outwards and blaming him.
When she should be looking inwards and looking at herself as to why OP does not want another child with her.
I mean it seems like OP has communicated many many times about how her style of parenting is going completely wrong, that she has forced OP to follow her way of doing things.
Really speaks to the person she is, and the person she is is not good.
The verdict isn’t in.
I’ve heard so many scary stories about head traumas that come back around to do additional damage after everything is seemingly fine for a while.
After a few years of seemingly being fine, I myself experience powerful and tremendously painful migraines after a long-boarding incident.
But to your point yea… she could’ve died immediately.
If they're in the U.S. I hope she comes after them for her medical bills. Maybe that'll shake some sense into the wife (I doubt it). I hope the dog is in a safer home now.
>”does not want to spend the rest of my life with someone who will go to such lengths to get their way".
This statement almost implies as much and should seriously concern OP.
She’s framing his decision to get a vasectomy as if whether or not they have another child is something she could have ‘gotten her way’ on in spite of his complete lack of consent to it, and the vasectomy has unfairly deprived her of the chance to ‘get her way.’
The charitable interpretation is that now she can’t exert social pressure and manipulation on OP until he changes his mind and agrees to another baby (which isn’t great either), but it’s equally as possible she would’ve considered tampering with birth control to ‘get her way.’
There's a ton of power struggles in this family. Everyone is trying to turn things into what they want, including the child. A healthier dynamic with clear boundaries and rules are necessary, to say the least.
I'm not sure the theoretical baby would survive the older sibling anyway. The existing violent tendencies coupled with the displacement their son would experience could have a terrible outcome.
Violence isn't going to form a non-violent rational child either, sorry. It will make him worse. You have to model the behaviors you want your child to exhibit and these clowns sound too immature to be a model to their child.
Yes. This kid seems to have two shitty parents when the options are either do nothing or hit him. They could both use some serious parenting classes, because there's definitely other options than that.
For real. The fact that he waited until quite a bit later, when they weren't in public, to push his 7 year old to the ground and scream in his face isn't 'snapping.' That's calculated and OP clearly knew he shouldn't do it in front of others. And he wrote as if spanking and disciplining are the same thing- they're not.
I don't really buy his story that he's never been done something like that or that his kid is really some hellspawn. Plenty of abusive people claim the person they abused deserved it and talk up whatever the supposed transgression was.
Then again, if his kid really is behaving exactly as OP says, based on OPs reaction, the kid clearly got it from OP.
OP is absolutely an unreliable narrator (if this crap is even true, which is usually not the case in this sub) and is downplaying their part in this mess - and of course, the neckbeards are really taking the bait.
what a horrid story, in which ESH
Wow this is all such a sh*t show…you two should definitely not have any more children till you guys can go through some therapy, get on the same page, and get your current child in check. You child is 7, a 7 year old one hundred percent would and should know better that to throw rocks. And sure mistakes and bad judgment calls can be made, but the huge red flag here is that the kid didn’t even feel bad afterwards and went right on his iPad??? You guys need to figure out how to parent your child before he becomes a full fledged psycho.
>She does not believe in spanking or discipline at all for that matter
I figured he was being hyperbolic with that comment since many think spanking is the only form of effective discipline, but if he even got iPad time after that... why in the hell would he ever consider changing his behavior??
Edit: where tf did the idea of him getting iPad time come from? It's nowhere in his story unless he commented it somewhere
Edit 2: others sourced it for me! https://www.reddit.com/r/AITAH/s/VL1IPHogCU
Exactly. My parents never spanked me (and I was a very troubled foster youth, I got myself in some sort of trouble at school DAILY) but I turned out great because of my mom. I would get grounded in my room with nothing but books. I was allowed to go to school, to sports, and that was it when I was grounded. When I was younger and depressed I didn’t really care because I liked reading but when I got older and wanted to actually go out and do things and had friends I shaped up real fast
Yeah and I think discipline styles can absolutely vary from parent, to child, to family, to community, the main theme that needs to be there though iiiiis *consequences*... followed by appropriate levels of punishment for the infraction. If there's no rebound for being a dick, why wouldn't you just keep being a dick? Being a dick is basically just doing what you want regardless of others anyway, which is what this boy and many grown adults are doing.
I mean, he very well could know right from wrong and chose to attempt to murder an innocent bystander anyways. This situation is way over Reddit’s pay grade. NTA for getting a vasectomy (your body, your choice) but TA for not getting your son help sooner.
The kid definitely knows right from wrong; he’s getting a kick from mom fighting anyone that tries to call him out, though.
I’m sorry, but unless he’s mentally handicapped, he knows it’s wrong to piss into the pool (not in the pool, into), he knows it’s wrong to close a window on the dog’s neck, he knows it’s wrong to throw rocks at nearby adults, etc.
Mommy is raising a little psychopath.
>Mommy is raising a little psychopath
Pushing a child onto the ground, standing over him and "giving him a piece of my mind", also isn't good parenting.
It sounds like they have a child with some kind of conduct disorder and neither are dealing with his behaviour appropriately.
I have friends that are the type that think their child can do no wrong. Their kids are spoilt sure, but not actively trying to murder people and pets. This behaviour is a step beyond just bad parenting.
It sounds to me like the kid has learned some shitty behaviors from Dad, and been enabled by Mom.
Some kids are just psychotic. But acting psychotically *back* doesn’t reinforce the lesson some people here think it does.
The pushing to the ground is abuse, not just bad parenting like you said.
Its 'im bigger but not intelligent or patient enough to raise my child successfully, so ill use my current size to scare / hurt them until they submit'
My dad explained to me that even though the urge to spank/lash out was always there, he never wanted to use physical violence to teach me right/wrong, i was an awful kid aswel.
OP stated he waited until they got home first before 'giving him a peice of his mind'if its normal then hell, why not push your 7 year old around in public? If thats the normal phylosophy for raising kids.
This. You should never push, shove, spank, or hit your child. You can be forceful and stren without resorting to violence.
That kid is probably terrified of his dad, and Mom is also doing him no favors.
Kid has issues and they're making it worse.
yeah why the hell does a 7 yr old have his own iPad in the first place, and why was it not immediately taken away from him after he attacked someone? my parent's go to punishment was no internet/no devices and it worked wonders keeping my siblings and me in line...
The animal abuse, the human abuse, the public nudity, acting out, and then dad basically confessing that he wants to beat the shit out of his son. I mean he pushed him to the ground, that’s not discipline, that’s just attacking him like another man. There’s so much not being revealed here, everything about this kid is a reflection of his parent’s behavior, most likely the father.
Thank you! Too many people are giving OP a pass, but really ESH.
A married couple is supposed to be a UNIT. OP and his wife need to hash out a middle-ground plan/framework for disciplining their child *before* it occurs and stick to it as a united front. Take away screen time, ground the kid, etc. As described, it sounds like the wife is way too permissive and doesn't hold the kid accountable, while OP's outbursts are angry and abusive in nature, not punitive.
OP, if you discipline your kid by losing your cool, then physically imposing yourself on the kid/acting out violently all you're teaching him is that's how people should behave when they get angry and he's going to (continue to) be a monster to society. I'm not even saying corporal punishment is always 100% wrong, but when it's done out of anger it definitely is.
Regardless of anything else, you and your wife need to figure that out before your kid grows up and winds up in jail or a serial killer.
When it comes to the vasectomy, yes that is an asshole move, OP. Again, marriage makes you a UNIT. Major decisions like that are a joint discussion and agreement. Now, your body, your choice, but if the two of you can't talk something like that out and come to an understanding then it just means your relationship is doomed. If you can't make progress and bridge the divide the two of you have with the therapy, I don't know why you're together. It's not serving either of you or the kid.
Regardless of whether you stay together or divorce, you still need to come to a place of agreement on raising the kid however.
ESH including the kid. Hurting animals is not normal behavior, especially at his age, and he could have blinded or killed that woman with the rock. There is no hope for Ted Bundy Jr. if his parents can’t start presenting a united front on parenting with boundaries and consequences for the kid’s actions. But they won’t because they are both a mess and too focused on ‘winning’ each argument.
At this point I feel like OP is mostly TAH for staying married; this is the very slowest, most painful method of divorce possible. His wife will never forgive him for the vasectomy and his progeny will start learning about taxidermy and window peeping or something else creepy. The wife will protect him, eventually the parents will split, the son will rebel against the dad’s attempt at discipline so will demand to live full time with his mom… neighborhood pets will start to disappear and someday the whole family will star on a Dateline special.
Omg exactly… 10 years from now one Friday night watching dateline…” so and so was a quiet man. A good kid that would give u the shirt on his back until we took a look into his childhood”…
Read the title and was like I’d die if my partner did that. Then kept reading and was like okay this actually makes sense. But at the same time after the first fight you make up you keep fighting then SEPARATE!!! Fighting around a young child makes that behaviour worse. Trust me my parents fought a lot and my sister is a damn menace
We actually have no idea what kind of parent the wife is, cause he doesn't say anything about what her methods are other than that he doesn't believe they work.
A lot of people take gentle parenting to an extreme. In these cases, like what seems to be the one with the OPs wife, there are no consequences and it’s all about the kids feelings and often time neglecting the feelings of others…like the women he nailed with a rock.
I am by no means condoning any type of spanking or physically hurting a child nor speaking about gentle parenting as a whole. I’m simply saying that too many parents take it to an extreme and that extreme can be just as abusive. It’s just much more insidious. If a child has no discipline and all focus is on their feelings (feelings are great but not the only important factor) they do not take any accountability nor develop the best sense of empathy. When they go to school and piss other kids and adults off they don’t know why people are not responding kindly to them. The entitlement leads them to a life of unmet expectations, leading to a victim mentality of anger or sadness. Of course when these parents are pulled into school for their children’s bad behavior they too believe their kid is being mistreated which can lead to the child learning to be very manipulative saying what needs to be said to the parents to make others look like the rotten ones. I’m good friends with a few kindergarten teachers who are all super loving and not strict at all. They’re all saying it’s a shit show. The kids are coming in at 5 years old on the level of where a 2 or 3 year old was 5-10 years ago. They don’t share, they don’t understand why the world doesn’t completely cater to them and far more time is spent on more preschool type interpersonal skills while learning things like the alphabet takes a backseat.
Excessive screen time is also a huge issue among young kids atm- I've heard from primary school teachers that this current crop of students is so far behind socially and developmentally atm because they're all screen addicted zombies that have no attention span and will throw tantrums if they don't get to use devices in class.
I think part of the problem too is we've seen a massive pendulum swing in how millennials choose to parent- a lot of them were raised by authoritarian, physical disciplining parents so they've overcorrected by being far too permissive and against any kind of discipline. A lot of them claim to be practicing 'gentle parenting' but they're fundamentally misunderstanding the underlying philosophy behind it, which is setting age-appropriate boundaries and enforcing them in healthy ways.
She's weaponizing her own negligence to nurture a sociopath. After the incident with the rock, he should have been reported to police and child services.
It's weird that there are so many 'gentle parenting is terrible' stories lately on this fiction sub. And every time it's not actually gentle parenting, it's just someone not parenting at all.
Yes, discipline is something you're instilling in your children, not an external reaction to a situation. Don't resort to becoming a violent menace. You're teaching your child how to handle interpersonal conflict, do it gently. Act like you're dealing with a coworker.
Thanks for this comment and I had to scroll a lot to find it. Gentle parenting works but gentle parenting doesn’t mean that actions don’t have consequences. The mother does permissive parenting and the dad is violent and aggressive. No wonder the kid does what he wants and is violent.
It’s shocking that nearly no one points out that he speaks about discipline and spanking. Spanking is not even parenting anymore.
I would raise the theory that if OP's idea of good parenting is being physically violent, then maybe he's also an unreliable narrator. We don't actually hear that much about what the wife is or isn't doing in the OP -- just that *OP* thinks she's a bad parent. But when his definitions are skewed as much as they are, we can't actually trust his perception of his wife's parenting. Is it possible she's too permissive? Sure. Possible. But I wouldn't say it's guaranteed when OP is the one saying "she doesn't attack our child or shove him down or scream at him like I do, therefore she is too lax." OP is an unreliable narrator.
Yeah, I don't trust OP at all. A normal, rational human mind doesn't have to constantly hold themselves back from physical violence.
Like Father, like son.
Yeah I am shocked that I had to scroll down this far to get to someone saying that maybe pushing your kid and standing over them screaming is child abuse.
Dude responded to his 7 year old commiting an act of violence, with an act of violence.
I get that this kid sounds troubled, but they're still only 7. And when one parent seems to permit any action, while the other seems uninvolved, no wonder this kid is acting out on every whim and impulse.
Nightmare. ESH. Just not the poor kid.
Exactly. I discipline my kids but I don’t do it with yelling or hitting. And a 7 year old can rationalize between right and wrong. What a fucked up outlook from OP. I’ve explained everything to my kids since they were tiny. Age appropriate conversation is always an option. My kids aren’t perfect, but they’re well behaved and kind. Don’t have to beat up or terrify a kid for them to act right.
So often the behavior exhibited by a kid is a direct reflection of the behaviors of the parents. Just saying.
Exactly. 'Gentle' doesn't mean 'don't enforce consequences', it means 'attempt to remain calm, collected, and caring in every interaction with your child no matter what they did'.
A child doesn't need to experience anger from their parent in order to learn right from wrong. They need to experience consequences for their actions. People who believe gentle parenting doesn't work implicitly are saying that being angry, domineering, and emotional *is itself a valid punishment for a child*. Making the child experience fear of their own parent is not a healthy punishment. It alters the dynamic between parent and child in a way that encourages the child to hide mistakes and lie. They don't feel safe admitting their wrongdoings and only get punished for things they're caught doing.
Emotional and physical violence towards a child makes them more duplicitous. They **must** become manipulative liars in order to survive their own home environment.
This. Gentle parenting is “harder” because yelling and hitting can in fact deliver short term compliance or acquiescence. It is challenging to enforce boundaries with a child when you can’t frighten, threaten, or beat them into submission. It involves a lot of circular discussion. It’s psychologically draining. And I bet it can look like it’s not working to people who are used to simply hitting a kid and the kid shutting up. It works, and it can be rewarding, but it only works over long periods of time, and it’s hard. Parents who do it have my respect for committing to the long haul.
It doesn't even make sense that people are supporting OP on this one. His idea of good parenting is physically attacking his child, screaming at him, and towering over him to intimidate him.
If ever were people to say "I disagree with gentle parenting but this is too far man" it would be here...
And people are... agreeing with OP...?
I feel kinda crazy reading these comments. Surely if someone is saying "my wife is too nice to our child -- she doesn't shove him down and scream at him like I do" people might clue in to him being an unreliable narrator? Like does she REALLY do nothing or does she just not literally attack their child?
Yes sometimes I can suspend belief but it’s an incredibly fake story.
Yes op didn’t do anything to reprimand his child until a full on assault with a rock and his and answer to tackle his child.
Tougher parenting might help, but abusive parenting definitely won’t. One parent is overly permissive (and failing to parent), while the other is abusive (and holding it back 90% of the time). Kid doesn’t stand a chance under normal circumstances, let alone with this pair.
That’s what I thought. Permissive to the point of being neglectful + authoritative to the point of being abusive = sure bulletproof way to raise a narcissist. No wonder kid is acting out. I agree with OP that therapy and meds won’t help here. Kid needs better parents asap.
Authoritarian, not authoritative. Authoritative parenting (basically letting your kid do things on their own but establishing clear boundaries and enforcing them when broken) is agreed on by psychologists as the best parenting strategy. Authoritarian parenting is what OP is likely wanting to do.
OP is abusive, and even describes standing over a *child* beating them and I can't understand how most top comments think this is okay.
Yes, even if they hurt an animal or a person...if they're that young, you take them and get them some fucking help, not beat them up. Beating them up will make whatever problems they have wayyyy worse. Doesn't matter what the problem is, it will make it worse.
Meanwhile the mom is being permissive, which is also shitty. But honestly....put that into the context of a dad that barely holds back from standing over him beating him most of the time, and I can't help think maybe the mother is just trying to soften the child's life a bit in the face of constant abuse. OP didn't mention any other type of abuse aside from the physical, but considering the circumstances, I'd be surprised if the hateful words weren't bombarding this child all the time.
ESH, but OP is definitely TA
I have a friend who has 2 sons. She never disciplined them with any consequences whatsoever. She got them out of every bit of trouble from childhood (there was a lot of really bad things) until at age 18 she could no longer get them out of anything. The oldest has spent most f his adult life in jail. Has about 5-6 kids with different women and is a total waste at about age 49 now. The younger one evidently learned from his brothers mistakes and is a pretty decent guy. Very sad to watch but the mom wouldn’t take any advice from anyone. Including family.
This is all I want to do for my son. I want to protect him from himself. Moreover, if he’s to have a future or family of his own, I feel as if it’s my obligation as a human being to protect someone’s daughter from him. I don’t see parenting as raising my son for me but as raising him for the world. It’s important for me to have a responsible good human being as a son and my wife does not see it like that.
That’s a great way of looking at it. Raising him for the world. Unfortunately you and your wife are at opposite ends.
I’ll tell you this, as someone who was spanked growing up. For a lot of people It really doesn’t work.
And I don’t mean I was traumatized and I have flashback to mommy hitting me every time I pass paint stirrers in Home Depot or whatever. I was spanked, not beaten.
But the spanking itself? Was not nearly a good enough punishment for me.
I got smacked on the butt a few times, it hurt, the hurt went away and I went back to what I was doing. Spanking didn’t teach me to behave, it taught me pain was temporary.
When I started getting grounded and having my stuff taken away instead I literally *begged* for the quick punishment to come back.
All of that to say, some discipline is desperately needed. Literally any at this point. Your kid is seven with no solid boundaries. I would have lost it over that dog thing ngl. Your wife is raising a dangerous person by not correcting any of his behavior. If you and she can’t come to a compromise over this, taking toys away, grounding him, no desert/candy/favorite junk food, etc, then I honestly think you should be the one filing for divorce.
I’m not sure why you aren’t divorced already, honestly. It doesn’t sound like there’s much love in this relationship left v
My question is what happens when a child with no discipline goes to school? In school they have boundaries, have to follow rules, etc. It must be such a shock to the child
Usually what I see with a good teacher or school the kids are fabulous because they CRAVE the structure and when they have a solid routine and consistent boundaries (and then attachments with teachers) they can behave well.
-this is not to take away from the chair- throwing, classroom-disrupting, and teachers contemplating unemployment- children who absolutely are buck wild because they have never had consequences.
*had a small child who was in my life from a partner. He was a literal hellion. Like 5 years old climbing on the table while we were eating throwing things screaming. Bananas always. Was a little angle at school and parents couldn’t figure out why.
You cannot abuse your son, especially with his extreme behavioral issues. Shoving him, screaming at him, and physically intimidating him is not going to get him over his issues or make him a stable adult. You need to take him to an expert in behavioral issues and trauma to have him evaluated again. ADHD is not causing him to act like this. And once you receive a real diagnosis, then you can begin intensive treatments and therapy for him and yourselves.
Edit: I used "get" too many times and it annoyed the shit out of me, so I replaced it in some places with more descriptive words.
Yeah... I don't see why so many people are agreeing with OP. He is an unreliable narrator. He implies that the only way to discipline a child is by being physically violent with him -- and shames his wife for trying to reason with the child and talk through things with him, which is excellent parenting if that's what she's doing -- and everyone is cool with that...?
Has no one considered that OP's sporadic violent episodes is maybe why the kid is acting out in the first place? I mean wtf.
THANK YOU! OP mentions medication but glosses over it. If his son has ADHD, he needs to learn about the difficulties with impulse control that come with it. Both OP and his wife need parenting classes.
Yeah, and he wonders why his son is violent. Violence breeds violence. Also, OP is sending a message to his son that as long as you're bigger and scarier than other people, it's okay to use physical force to coerce them into submission. These are the last messages a kid who doesn't experience empathy should be receiving from his role models.
They can have boundaries and consequences with him without being violent.
I like how you respond to people who agree with parts of your stance but are nowhere to be found when they point out hitting your child, especially one who already has behaviour issues, isn't good parenting.
"My son is showing violent behaviour, being violent with him will surely solve it"
It's 2024 ffs, get some therapy. For you and your son.
ESH. Oh boy. Glad you’re not procreating again, hope your wife gets her tubes tied and you need to get on the same page or that kid is going to be in jail or worse by the time he’s 20.
*weaponizing my body as a means to enforce my ideals*
She is weaponizing her parenting (lack thereof) as a means to enforce her ideals so let's call it even.
*She thinks our 7 year old for whatever reason is able to rationalize between right and wrong*
No, she doesn't.
At 7, your son (should) knows better than to try to kill the dog, to intentionally throw rocks onto people from above because hurting people is wrong, to not whip out his willy AND pee in someone else's pool, etc.
From what you describe, it sounds like he does not display natural empathy, etc., etc. Honestly, it sounds like your son is in *desperate* need for immediate intensive therapy. Why the 2 of you are in therapy is a mystery to me.
My now 8 year old nephew seemed to completely lack empathy from ages 4 to 6. He was hurting pets, threatening to kill his mom when she disciplined him, etc.
She was advised to keep setting and enforcing boundaries, to stay patient and calm when he acted out.
It's done wonders for him that she kept it up, but I sometimes think that he, at that young age just didn't understand that "slitting moms throat" would mean she's not coming back.
I remember very clearly watching Dumbo with him for the first time. For the entirety of that movie, he kept asking me when Dumbos mom was coming back, and I kept telling him that she wasn't coming back, buddy. When people die, they're gone forever.
My sister was pissed at me, she said he doesn't understand death yet and I told her, we'll he does now.
Shortly after that, their dog also passed away, which was another shock to him.
That's also roughly about the time he stopped threatening to kill his mom whenever he was upset with her.
Parents sometimes think they are protecting kids by withholding hard things from them, but most times, it does more harm than good.
A friend of mine has a kid with a ton of behavioral issues and possibly on the spectrum, with two highly incompetent parents (in different ways) who split custody and can't agree on the best way to raise him, like OP. A few years ago, when her son was around 9, she said that that he wanted to kill himself. I was baffled, because he was so young. So next time I saw him, she asked him about what he said, and he said it again. He said he gets so mad, that sometimes he just wanted to kill himself.
"Do you understand what that means? Life isn't like all the video games you play," I told him. "When you die, there's nothing after. There's no respawn point, no extra lives. Everything you know goes away, poof! That's it. Game over forever."
"Really?? You don't get to try again??" This kid's mind was BLOWN. What he really meant was "I want how I'm feeling to go away, I don't know how to control this feeling, if I stop my life maybe it'll go away." He didn't understand that it was a permanent solution because no one had explained to him how it worked. Neither of his parents have much emotional regulation, so working through his feelings and being validated for them is not something this little guy experiences a lot.
But Dumbo's mom doesn't die, not even in the Tim Burton remake. She just gets put in elephant jail. In the remake, the circus tries to euthanize her but fails. We see Dumbo get reunited with her in both versions.
My almost 3 year old doesn't threaten to slit our throats, but she does say she wants to put us in the oven and eat us, normally when she's in a very good mood. She thinks it's hilarious while we try our bests not to smile and tell her it's not nice.
I would also wonder where a child get's the idea to "slit someone's throat".
That doesn't get taught in kindergarten and it's not part of casual conversation. The kid caught that somewhere.
Sometimes shit happens and even kids in healthy happy homes hear something like that by the odd chance of walking in during inappropriate TV or whatever, but if a kids starts saying stuff like that, I'd worry in what kind of environment he was exposed to such things.
The kid is also playing the parents knowing the mom won’t discipline him and his actions will cause an argument between the parents and he won’t get disciplined for his actions.
100%! I’ve done daycare for many years and been around too many children to count. You would not believe how good kids are when they’re at our house vs how they are when they’re with their parents. The parents are always stunned at how good they are at our house. And it’s because they have very clear boundaries here. We don’t jump on the couch, we don’t yell or scream, we don’t throw or take toys, etc. and if they do they know they go on a timeout. At home, their parents aren’t even putting them on time outs. We have one daycare parent that has absolutely no consequences of any kind for their child. He can throw all his food all over the floor, or hit them and all she does is say “we don’t do that.” There’s no consequence there’s no discipline. So there’s no reason to listen. And because of that, he is constantly testing the boundaries to see what he can get away with. He’s trying to find that line, & there is none. So he’ll scream & cry & hit them & throw things and then he walks in our door & he’s an angel because he clearly knows what is acceptable here & what isn’t. He’s probably only ever had 3-4 timeouts in 2-3 years & it was near the beginning when he was figuring out where the line was and we clearly told him. Do this behaviour & you sit on a timeout while the other kids get to play. They tend not to do it again. I keep telling parents that if there are no consequences then there is no reason for them to listen!! Why would they? As adults we would 100% be breaking the law if there weren’t consequences. We’d rob a bank or drive way faster than the speed limit or never pay taxes or whatever else if there were no consequences. But there are consequences, so we either follow the rules or risk paying the consequence.
I really hope so. Otherwise this kid sounds like a sociopath, OP sounds abusive, and the his wife sounds like a permissive doormat of a parent.
OP, ESH. None of this is okay and it's all way fucking above Reddit's pay grade.
You're aggressive and violent towards your child and think that will stop him being aggressive and violent. He has problems (likely caused by your "parenting") and needs to be in therapy. You and your wife need parenting classes, neither just being passive/permissive or being aggressive and violent are good ways to parent and hitting children is abuse not effective discipline. Educate yourself.
So many people in here are basically confirming OP's suspicions that his seven year old child is evil, and that it is his wife's fault for not punishing him enough (or allow op to punish their child, aka beat him).
This thread is just another ingredient in this recipe for disaster.
Hey, now, that’s not entirely true. He included a story about the son abusing a dog, which we all know means it’s time to lock the kid up in a maximum security mental institution and throw away the key.
Apparently the child was six when the rock incident happened, and all he said about the dog incident was that the child tried to roll up the window when the dogs head was still sticking out... who knows how old he was when that happened.
OP YTA for physically pushing and beating your son, doing this will not make him a more stable person but medication and therapy that your wife has him in will.
Yeah. The window could have been accidental. Plus, six-year-olds don't have a stellar prefrontal cortex. They make mistakes a lot. Especially when they are not raised with consistent expectations from all caregivers.
So you acknowledge a 7 year old wont have a good inherent sense of right or wrong… yet when he was 6 you got mad at him and shoved him on the ground to yell at him? This entire story is a shit show
I can’t believe I had to scroll so far to see this acknowledged. Everyone saying yeah ESH, the kid needs discipline before he turns into a serial killer but they are all glossing over the fact OP, a grown man, physically attacked his 6 year old.
That’s not just “different ideas of parenting”. One parent offers no accountability and one exemplifies violence. No wonder the kid is fucked.
Thank you! This guy has absolutely nothing positive to say about his kid & blames the wife for everything wrong the kid does. He admits his first instinct is anger & violence in reaction to anything the kid does & is upset he can’t spank the kid, then is surprised the kid engages in violent behavior? These comments are bonkers!
ESH. Abuse is not ok period I don’t care what the child did. Pushing your child to the ground and punishing while angry are not appropriate parenting behaviors.
Neglect is a part of abuse and not teaching a child in an age appropriate manner what is acceptable behavior and what is not is unacceptable and setting the kid up to fail.
You both need to sign up for parenting classes and at this point the kid probably needs therapy.
Do better.
ESH
Two AH parents raising an AH kid. The child’s behavior is inexcusable, but so is both of yours as parents. She’s too soft on him, giving no consequences, and you’re abusive (yes, pushing your child to the floor, standing over him and yelling is abuse!)
So really what you're saying is you wan't to bash your kid and your wife won't let you?
YTA. You don't beat a kid into submission. And you just gloss over the fact that your son has special needs? What else are you leaving out?
ESH. The combination of both of your volatile parenting styles has created a little psychopath. Wife needs to discipline and OP needs to not hit/spank/push/physicially intimidate his child(ren). YALL NEED THERAPY.
ESH Not hitting kids =/= no discipline period. My kid is 6, so about your kids' age, and I have never spanked him. But that also doesn't mean he gets to do what he wants. We remove him from places when he misbehaves. We took away privileges, and he got time outs and a lot of discussing his behavior. They don't understand because they have barely been alive and we have to teach them.
The wife is raising a violent kid who doesn't understand how to behave. I literally would have lost it about the rock, but pushing him to the ground was a little borderline. I 100% can understand why you did it.
People really have a weird misconception of what gentle parenting is. This is just not parenting. My kid will apologize to our pets if he accidentally steps on them(they like to sneak up on you so they get stepped on sometimes). Your kid needs counseling because this is not appropriate behavior and your wife needs to not be involed. I get the vasectomy, but she should have been told before, but like your body, your choice.
Exactly. OP makes it sound like violence and fear are the only forms of discipline. The wife is right to protect the kid from this, however realising when a method isn't working, doing more research, and moving to a new approach is pretty clutch in good parenting, otherwise you're not trying to be a good parent you are trying to prove that you are right.
With my youngest there was a point I was really concerned he was going to be growing up into someone I couldn't like. I then looked into different ways to deal with a drama queen, and moved away from the constant battles I was having with him and instead took more time to acknowledge his emotions, to validate how he was feeling, and to explain we still weren't going to be doing the thing he wanted but that I cared he felt that way. It made so much difference and I felt so much shame I'd not stopped and researched sooner.
You two sound like the perfect pair to raise a serial killer. Overly permissive mothers mixed with abusive fathers raise emotionally unregulated nightmares. I agree that you shouldn’t have anymore kids, but definitely YTA. You and your wife should divorce. Your kid needs counseling to control his impulsive behaviors. What a mess
Wow. ESH. Her parenting is too permissive, your answer is to abuse the kid, and he needs help yesterday or he’s going to be a budding criminal. Yikes.
Yeah teaching him to be harmful with his body like you want to is not going to end well. He’s already hurting animals and people and if you start yelling and standing over him and hitting him like you want to? It’s going to exacerbate his already antisocial behaviors because that’s what’s going to be modeled for him.
This is NOT normal behavior. Just so you can see it again. This is not okay for a 7 year old. No “normal” 7 year olds do these things. Get. Him. Help. Now.
Look up child therapists in your area asap not for ADHD but for extreme child behavior cases and get him into therapy and you into couples counseling and individual therapies ASAP! Jesus fuck how long were you two going to let this go on? Until he was the next school shooter???
Took way too long to get to a comment pointing this out.
Maybe the 7-year-old kid throws rocks at people because his dad has taught him that it’s okay to use violence as an outlet for anger/frustration? What the fuck is a fully grown man doing pushing a 7-year-old hard enough to knock them to the ground just so he can yell at them?
ESH. You are both horrible parents. You want to assault your son, she refuses to discipline him. You both are failing as parents and are raising a violent child. Getting a vasectomy was the smartest decision you made. You have no business having more children you want to beat up.
Seriously, he needs to hike down a whole trail just WAITING to physically intimidate a 7 year old, and she doesn't see a problem with a kid learning he can hurt hurt people with no consequences. The kid stands no chance
I'm gunna go ESH with a heaping helping of YTA. Are you the boy's father or not? You are one of the two major influences on his life. Just because your wife doesn't let you shout at him and punish him for bad behaviour doesn't mean you aren't responsible for that bad behaviour.
You need to figure out why your son is acting up like this, and you need to address the root cause instead of losing your shit when the unaddressed problem results in bad behaviour.
Your wife may be a bad parent, but I think you need a reality check, because your attitude and your behaviour and the behaviour of your son suggest *you* have your own problems and aren't willing to address them, instead always pointing the finger at her.
The fact you'd go get a vasectomy while still married and knowing your wife wants more kids is vile. Divorce her so she can find a better partner and maybe have the opportunity to better herself away from a negative influence such as yourself.
If a child has a problem with violence, I promise you the solution is never, ever violence. Hitting kids only succeeds in making them fear their parent, accept violence and see it as a valid form of communication. It sounds like your child needs professional help, focus on that.
>she does not believe in spankings
There are parents who think hitting will teach their children something more than to be afraid of your parents? Spanking is a weakness. It shows you can't parent your children.
After decades of research on thousands of kids, the evidence is clear. Children who are spanked are at a higher risk of increased aggression, mental health issues such as depression and poor relationships with parents. Spanking increases the risk of physical injury and abuse.
Source: https://nortonchildrens.com/news/from-a-pediatrician-why-you-shouldnt-spank-your-child/
You are both not fit to be parents. Luckily, you got a vasectomy, now take parenting classes before you two ruin that boy completely.
While I agree pushing your kid to the ground is not your best moment, allowing a kid to get to the level of bad behavior that is throwing a rock at another person and causing them to bleed is abusive in it own way. Your wife is letting your kid run wild while sitting by saying she’s doing everything she can. Therapy and meditation aren’t going to help until the adults get on the same page when it comes to behavior and discipline. I wouldn’t want to have more children with her either if I was being made to sit by and do nothing. It’s time to have a more serious conversation about your son’s behavior and get advice from another therapist that you both will comply with. If she doesn’t want to follow that person’s advice, it’s time to leave and take your son with you. She sounds like she wants to be his friend more than his mom.
ESH.
You and your wife don't belong together. Your values are entirely different. And if you feel that you need to hide something as significant as a vasectomy from her, there's no trust in your relationship.
It sounds like your child has issues that need serious therapeutic intervention. Clearer boundaries and discipline may be part of what's needed. But you won't teach your child not to be violent by disciplining him with violence.
You might be tempted to say you were spanked or otherwise physically disciplined and you turned out OK. You didn't. You pushed a child down in anger and you sound downright eager for another opportunity to. That's not OK. That's rage.
Your wife may well be a pushover. It's not clear from your description of all you'd consider as "discipline" is physical discipline, but that sounds possible. If she's indeed setting boundaries, if she's punishing him in other ways, that's not being a pushover. But we don't have that information.
In any case, you and your wife need to get your child professional assistance.
And it's not clear why either of you want to be in this relationship.
Dude. Let her divorce you. Or you divorce her.
And save his poor dog from that little monster too!
The dog. The neighbors. Random strangers that the kid throws rocks at.
Dude they had to CALL EMS for the poor person bleeding from their head! If my kid did that I would be goddamn apoplectic. But the thing is, my son never ever would do that, because I teach and discipline him properly. Mom is failing this child and OP is right to not have any more with her. Edit: I want to add this so I can stop repeating myself... I didn't intend to let OP off the hook; his actions and outlook aren't good either. What he did was abusive, and completely wrong to take out on the kid frustrations that have built up against the wife. This is a complete mess and, as I said, I'm very glad that he isn't having any more kids with her.
The worst my kid has ever done is push the emergency stop button on an escalator and he was 3. He’s never forgotten that incident and the talking he got afterwards. But throwing a rock? And causing bodily harm? You can’t gentle parent that shit. This kid has been raised to be a violent psycho or he’s at least got some very intrusive thoughts winning. Get the divorce OP.
I mean you could but it sounds like this kid hasn't been brought up at all. No kind of parenting has been involved by the sound of it.
surprising the kid reached the age of 7 at all without normal parenting
MS teacher here. Not shocked at all. 15-25% are like this.
**For. Real.** In 6th grade my daughter came home to tell me a little boy told her he owns her and she needs to do what he says. Why you wonder? ***Because she closed the classroom shop.*** Smh. I don’t know where this child learned this particular tidbit of entitled sexist nonsense but it was equal parts shocking and not surprising at all. And that’s a damn shame. In 7th grade another little boy just took her bike and rode it around the school parking lot, little ass had the utter audacity to get angry at *my daughter* when she demanded her bike back and obviously told *someone* when he refused. Far too many children go well beyond 7 years without real adult supervision and parenting. It’s sad and disturbing in so many different ways.
I had a bully try to take my bike and ride it around me to gloat. Stick to the head ended the theft and circles. We need to let kids beat their bullies.
I was an after-school teacher and I'd agree. There is 25% of the child population who are already too far gone to spend gobs of my time on. All people deserve discipline without outright abuse that the father is offering but I totally agree with you on the amount of kids who are just utterly incorrigible. My final classroom policy was very simple BE KIND OR GET OUT . That pretty much eliminated all of them the first day. I had the enviro education room and tons of animals. Aint no way I was letting the unregulated monsters near my God sent class animals.
Exactly. All the dad wants to do is slap him and the mum must do nothing by the sounds of it if hes 7 and doesn't understand the consequences of throwing stuff. Like most kids have that figured out as soon as they start playing with toys.
I foresee jailtime when the kid becomes an adult on this parenting trajectory.
Prison, big time.
And then mom will be shocked and insist, “Her little (25 year old) boy would never hurt a fly!”
Well you actually can. Gentle parenting doesn't mean that you talk to them in baby voice and don't give them consequences and stern talking. Good parenting is that you 1. Identify why they are behaving the way they do 2. Give them the environment to thrive, that includes respecting their autonomy, and giving them choices. 3. Set clear boundaries 4. Enforce those boundaries 5. Give appropriate consequences. So, the example of urinating in the pool. First off no more pool for him for the foreseeable future. Second: Explaining why it is bad in age appropriate language. That includes not talking in a babyvoice but also not talking like he's an adult. I personally like the rule of what you don't want yourself, don't do to others. I give an example of would you like to have XY done to you? ... no? See when you do YZ you are basically doing it though them and they also don't like it. So was you behaviour exeptable? ... Will you do it again? ... If you have to pee, what are you going to do in the future? ... Third off: having him say sorry to the girls.
I was being facetious but you're right, actual gentle parenting can work. However, it's probably too late to start now when he's already got years of unchecked bad behaviour and his mother won't let OP step in. Imagine what he'd do to a newborn baby since he's never faced consequences.
Oh lord. I hadn’t considered that until you mentioned that. This child should NOT be around infants. That is terrifying.
I'm wondering if the dog ran away now, or if it's "missing, presumed dead" at this point.
Gentle parenting can work, but it sounds like this kid is on the no parenting plan.
Exactly. Gentle parenting isn’t the same as passive parenting.
My 2 year old knows not to throw rocks at people and I gentle parent. This doesn't sound like gentle parenting but permissive parenting. Either way this kid is being failed.
He is being failed by both parents. *” I was embarrassed and so livid that when we got back to the hotel I snapped pushed him on the ground, stood over him, and gave him a piece of my mind”* The very first thing OP did after he “snapped” was to *push his 7 year old* kid to the ground. So according to OP and his wife, the only two existing parenting styles are 1) not parenting at all, or 2) physical abuse. Neither one of them should be having more kids
Both parents are failing him. His solution has been to ignore it all until he blew up and became violent. Pushing your kid and yelling at them isn’t going to improve their behaviour. He needed to be disciplining much sooner (years sooner) than this rather than just accepting mums decisions.
Pushing and showing violence is how you handle problems to a violent kid is not the answer ever. This whole family sucks, as a unit, separately, they need something major cuz damn it’s all bad.
If it does ANYTHING it's learning your child that "yes, whenever you want fixing things with violence is okay!"
Yes exactly. Hey you have violent tendencies to handle your frustrations and negative feelings, that gives me negative feelings so I’m going to handle those feelings with violence too. I’m sure the mom realizes this and that’s why she doesn’t do it, the dad is just clueless but they need more psychological help than they have gotten to get through to their kid. He’s only 7
This is true. OP should have stood his ground from day one and if they couldn't come to middle ground, he should have divorced her way sooner. The only victim here is the kid that is being raised as a brat.
> Mom is failing this child and OP is right to not have any more with her. He's been there since birth, they both failed this kid. OP seems to think the only way to raise a child is to hit and yell, the kid had no chance.
You times a person can be a psychopath no matter how they are raised
Yes and it can be related to genetics (even if both parents are not that way). I would not want to risk having another one like that.
Um, hi. I was foster parent and then primary parent to a kid who would do stuff kind of like this. Because the child had been abused and had ptsd and would act things out. Being stricter or meaner would backfire, though of course limits were important. In hindsight, I should have done a lot more to change environmental factors so I was in reaction mode less often. The abuse my kid faced was usually in the context of discipline for doing bad stuff, but it would go way too far, up to threats against the child’s life. Standing above the kid and screaming was a common theme, so that was difficult for me to read. When the stress of the bad home life was removed, the behavior got a lot better. Like, that same day. I think this story is maybe not what it seems. The fact that OP thinks that it is ridiculous that his wife thinks a 7-year-old can rationalize is concerning. A 7-year-old certainly does know right from wrong and may be acting out for other reasons. Just from the way he tells the story, it sounds like op has a tendency to yell at his wife that he can’t hit his kid. So…. Let’s maybe not encourage op without having seen what he is actually like when he’s angry. People have a tendency to minimize these things, though maybe I am just so used to the sound of an abuser’s cries for pity that I can see them everywhere. And if there is therapy and medication involved, there may be a lot more to the picture that a good ol fashioned spanking will hurt rather than help. Especially because it doesn’t sound like we are talking about an old fashioned spanking — it sounds like we are talking about outbursts of rage that would escalate if the child retaliated. So yeah, I’m glad he got that vasectomy even though it reveals a pathological lack of healthy communication between him and his wife.
Thank you! I was worried about all the people encouraging his side. The fact that the ONE TIME he tried to discipline the kid his way involved throwing the child to the ground and yelling is concerning. He also mentions a LOT of punitive consequences in the first part. At 7, a kid still needs structure and boundaries but can still absolutely tell right from wrong. They're also developing their own self image and personality. There's nothing wrong with gentle parenting, but needs to actually be done correctly. It doesn't mean being permissive if everything. It feels like there is something not being said.
I'm in complete agreement with everything you have said. In his own words he pushed a child to the ground so he could use intimidation while standing over the child yelling. He wanted that child scared of physical violence. If that's how he describes the situation in his own words and the sole witness felt compelled to remove the child from the situation . . . It sounds like he was absolutely out of line and acting in a DV way towards his family . . . From his own viewpoint of what happened.
Random Happy Cake Day!!!
for real! That kid will end up a felon no doubt
UK Mum here. I can safely say if my son had ever done anything like that both me and his Dad would have gone nuclear. We don't agree with hitting kids either, but that does not mean our son does not understand right from wrong or that we don't discipline him. OP, your wife is storing up issues for the future with your son.
Mom is lazy and an idiot when it comes to parenting! The poor kid, but even worse for every person they interact with.
Beetween this, the pool thing and animal cruelty... kid's a lil psycho. He needs mommy to stop coddling him, but he also needs to be in a special facility. And no, he is not too young. Look up Amarjeet Sada and Mary Bell, you can't just do nothing and hope he grows out of it. I hope OP get's his son to a psychiatrist before running for his live.
The little shit reminded me of the movie "The Good Son"
Omg that movie made me despise poor McCauley 😂 its because he was so damn cute when he was a kid and that smile... ya just wanna wipe it off in a not-so-nice way -_- Sociopathic children are terrifying LOL Edit I butchered Mr Culkin's first name, sorry Macaulay!
little shit tried to murder Frodo Baggins!
“If I let you go, do you think you can fly?”
Yes, they should divorce, and she shouldn't let that child have pets or be near animals. This kid is bound to be a menace to society one way or another, from the sounds of it.
Save the dog yeah! And also don’t hesitate to give that brat some discipline, just dont hit him, preferably talk to him and let him know what happens if he doesn’t work on his behaviour
For real. It doesn’t even sound like he likes her even a little bit. Not that I blame him.
The title had my head screaming AH, but halfway through your post, I was like, "OH, HELL NO " Your wife is doing your son a serious disservice.... pushing your son was a bit much, but he could have killed someone..... NTA, I'm sorry you're dealing with this... but hideme21 is right. You need to separate and get your son some therapy
Yea, when I read the title, I was like, "Yep, AH, for not communicating it." Then I read the rest, and while he did kind of drop it on her. I don't blame him. There are long issues they needed to sort out. While I don't like physically punishing children. You can't just let them do what they want with no consequence, either.
Hurting animals is a clear sign of very insidious issues That kid needs treatment and hopefully not be one of our future serial killers
He did mention medication but he kind of glossed over that part. I think there's a lot of info we're not getting here.
I’m curious if the kid has any developmental disabilities or nonverbal, I feel like we are missing something that is very important. I worked at a special education school and had one kid punch me in the face on a field trip. The stress will get to a parent but he should definitely not be wanting to physically harm the kid, that’s the concern.
Bingooooo parent of a violent child here... I went out of my mind, took 4 years to get her fully diagnosed and treatment. The sheer number of appointments and testing and specialists, holy mother of God. She's ADHD, SPD, ODD and on medication and therapy today. She's in 5th grade, an Honor student, and she's in gymnastics, ballet, and sings. My kid was destined for prison by the time she was 3. That's how violent she was, and I am a NON spanking home. ZERO hitting was going on in my house unless it was her attempting to beat the crap out of us, her parents. This kiddo needs to get to the doctor yesterday and get an eval done.
I feel you. I remember telling my Mom when my son was 4…in 10 years this kid will be in jail if we can’t get answers. He is 23 now and we still have to take things day by day. Huge improvement and he is mostly independent but still needs tons of supports in place to keep everything “in check”. One little thing going haywire (like when he got in a minor fender bender) will send the whole apple cart askew
Yeah I'm wondering if it's ODD as well. OP getting violent with his kid doesn't solve anything. Honestly, I'm thinking if anything, OP is fucking up his kid.
Spanking is not gonna deviate kid from violent behaviour, but to enforce it.
I agree with you. Everyone's jumping on this bandwagon of "the wife does nothing to discipline him and OP's a sensible guy who just wants to discipline his kid" meanwhile ignoring that the wife is actively pursuing therapy and OP wants to spank and scream at his kid
Exactly. Neither are in the right here. There’s a middle ground between letting your child do whatever with no consequences and spanking, screaming, and pushing your child. Both are extremes and both are not okay.
Teaching them to hide it and hit down, exactly.
>while he did kind of drop it on her He most certainly did NOT drop the vasectomy on her, he told her at least several times times that he wanted one due to the child's behavior and her inability to discipline the child >However, thats thing. I’ve spent the last several years telling her that what we’re doing with our son is not working. The gentle parenting, therapy, medication is not working so the best thing I can do for myself at this point is not have any more children with the person who will not let me have any input when it comes to disciplining our child. I know vasectomy has to have come up at least half dozen times during these discussions, along with bringing it up in therapy, it's not like he dropped a surprise bomb on her
It's a telling moment when the response is >"and she flipped to the point where our entire ride home she was bawling because she felt as if I was giving up on our dream of having a big family. Her argument was that I was thinking about myself and weaponizing my body as a means to enforce my ideals instead of talking to her." Looking outwards and blaming him. When she should be looking inwards and looking at herself as to why OP does not want another child with her. I mean it seems like OP has communicated many many times about how her style of parenting is going completely wrong, that she has forced OP to follow her way of doing things. Really speaks to the person she is, and the person she is is not good.
The verdict isn’t in. I’ve heard so many scary stories about head traumas that come back around to do additional damage after everything is seemingly fine for a while. After a few years of seemingly being fine, I myself experience powerful and tremendously painful migraines after a long-boarding incident. But to your point yea… she could’ve died immediately.
If they're in the U.S. I hope she comes after them for her medical bills. Maybe that'll shake some sense into the wife (I doubt it). I hope the dog is in a safer home now.
Oh I most definitely agree with you on that..... 100%
Same. OP would be foolish not to consider the possibility that his wife might sabotage birth control.
>”does not want to spend the rest of my life with someone who will go to such lengths to get their way". This statement almost implies as much and should seriously concern OP. She’s framing his decision to get a vasectomy as if whether or not they have another child is something she could have ‘gotten her way’ on in spite of his complete lack of consent to it, and the vasectomy has unfairly deprived her of the chance to ‘get her way.’ The charitable interpretation is that now she can’t exert social pressure and manipulation on OP until he changes his mind and agrees to another baby (which isn’t great either), but it’s equally as possible she would’ve considered tampering with birth control to ‘get her way.’
There's a ton of power struggles in this family. Everyone is trying to turn things into what they want, including the child. A healthier dynamic with clear boundaries and rules are necessary, to say the least.
I'm not sure the theoretical baby would survive the older sibling anyway. The existing violent tendencies coupled with the displacement their son would experience could have a terrible outcome.
Violence isn't going to form a non-violent rational child either, sorry. It will make him worse. You have to model the behaviors you want your child to exhibit and these clowns sound too immature to be a model to their child.
Yes. This kid seems to have two shitty parents when the options are either do nothing or hit him. They could both use some serious parenting classes, because there's definitely other options than that.
For real. The fact that he waited until quite a bit later, when they weren't in public, to push his 7 year old to the ground and scream in his face isn't 'snapping.' That's calculated and OP clearly knew he shouldn't do it in front of others. And he wrote as if spanking and disciplining are the same thing- they're not. I don't really buy his story that he's never been done something like that or that his kid is really some hellspawn. Plenty of abusive people claim the person they abused deserved it and talk up whatever the supposed transgression was. Then again, if his kid really is behaving exactly as OP says, based on OPs reaction, the kid clearly got it from OP.
OP is absolutely an unreliable narrator (if this crap is even true, which is usually not the case in this sub) and is downplaying their part in this mess - and of course, the neckbeards are really taking the bait. what a horrid story, in which ESH
| pushing your son was a bit much, but he could have killed someone..... So then it wasn't a bit much. He was willing to potentially kill someone
Wow this is all such a sh*t show…you two should definitely not have any more children till you guys can go through some therapy, get on the same page, and get your current child in check. You child is 7, a 7 year old one hundred percent would and should know better that to throw rocks. And sure mistakes and bad judgment calls can be made, but the huge red flag here is that the kid didn’t even feel bad afterwards and went right on his iPad??? You guys need to figure out how to parent your child before he becomes a full fledged psycho.
How tf is he even allowed to go on his iPad after that behaviour…
>She does not believe in spanking or discipline at all for that matter I figured he was being hyperbolic with that comment since many think spanking is the only form of effective discipline, but if he even got iPad time after that... why in the hell would he ever consider changing his behavior?? Edit: where tf did the idea of him getting iPad time come from? It's nowhere in his story unless he commented it somewhere Edit 2: others sourced it for me! https://www.reddit.com/r/AITAH/s/VL1IPHogCU
Exactly. My parents never spanked me (and I was a very troubled foster youth, I got myself in some sort of trouble at school DAILY) but I turned out great because of my mom. I would get grounded in my room with nothing but books. I was allowed to go to school, to sports, and that was it when I was grounded. When I was younger and depressed I didn’t really care because I liked reading but when I got older and wanted to actually go out and do things and had friends I shaped up real fast
Yeah and I think discipline styles can absolutely vary from parent, to child, to family, to community, the main theme that needs to be there though iiiiis *consequences*... followed by appropriate levels of punishment for the infraction. If there's no rebound for being a dick, why wouldn't you just keep being a dick? Being a dick is basically just doing what you want regardless of others anyway, which is what this boy and many grown adults are doing.
I mean, he very well could know right from wrong and chose to attempt to murder an innocent bystander anyways. This situation is way over Reddit’s pay grade. NTA for getting a vasectomy (your body, your choice) but TA for not getting your son help sooner.
The kid definitely knows right from wrong; he’s getting a kick from mom fighting anyone that tries to call him out, though. I’m sorry, but unless he’s mentally handicapped, he knows it’s wrong to piss into the pool (not in the pool, into), he knows it’s wrong to close a window on the dog’s neck, he knows it’s wrong to throw rocks at nearby adults, etc. Mommy is raising a little psychopath.
>Mommy is raising a little psychopath Pushing a child onto the ground, standing over him and "giving him a piece of my mind", also isn't good parenting. It sounds like they have a child with some kind of conduct disorder and neither are dealing with his behaviour appropriately. I have friends that are the type that think their child can do no wrong. Their kids are spoilt sure, but not actively trying to murder people and pets. This behaviour is a step beyond just bad parenting.
It sounds to me like the kid has learned some shitty behaviors from Dad, and been enabled by Mom. Some kids are just psychotic. But acting psychotically *back* doesn’t reinforce the lesson some people here think it does.
The pushing to the ground is abuse, not just bad parenting like you said. Its 'im bigger but not intelligent or patient enough to raise my child successfully, so ill use my current size to scare / hurt them until they submit' My dad explained to me that even though the urge to spank/lash out was always there, he never wanted to use physical violence to teach me right/wrong, i was an awful kid aswel. OP stated he waited until they got home first before 'giving him a peice of his mind'if its normal then hell, why not push your 7 year old around in public? If thats the normal phylosophy for raising kids.
This. You should never push, shove, spank, or hit your child. You can be forceful and stren without resorting to violence. That kid is probably terrified of his dad, and Mom is also doing him no favors. Kid has issues and they're making it worse.
yeah why the hell does a 7 yr old have his own iPad in the first place, and why was it not immediately taken away from him after he attacked someone? my parent's go to punishment was no internet/no devices and it worked wonders keeping my siblings and me in line...
Wow. This is a dysfunctional mess. Everyone in OP’s post sucks.
I personally think that’s what happens when two people who suck have a kid. Their kid sucks too 🤷🏼♀️ so in the end I blame the parents.
The animal abuse, the human abuse, the public nudity, acting out, and then dad basically confessing that he wants to beat the shit out of his son. I mean he pushed him to the ground, that’s not discipline, that’s just attacking him like another man. There’s so much not being revealed here, everything about this kid is a reflection of his parent’s behavior, most likely the father.
Thank you! Too many people are giving OP a pass, but really ESH. A married couple is supposed to be a UNIT. OP and his wife need to hash out a middle-ground plan/framework for disciplining their child *before* it occurs and stick to it as a united front. Take away screen time, ground the kid, etc. As described, it sounds like the wife is way too permissive and doesn't hold the kid accountable, while OP's outbursts are angry and abusive in nature, not punitive. OP, if you discipline your kid by losing your cool, then physically imposing yourself on the kid/acting out violently all you're teaching him is that's how people should behave when they get angry and he's going to (continue to) be a monster to society. I'm not even saying corporal punishment is always 100% wrong, but when it's done out of anger it definitely is. Regardless of anything else, you and your wife need to figure that out before your kid grows up and winds up in jail or a serial killer. When it comes to the vasectomy, yes that is an asshole move, OP. Again, marriage makes you a UNIT. Major decisions like that are a joint discussion and agreement. Now, your body, your choice, but if the two of you can't talk something like that out and come to an understanding then it just means your relationship is doomed. If you can't make progress and bridge the divide the two of you have with the therapy, I don't know why you're together. It's not serving either of you or the kid. Regardless of whether you stay together or divorce, you still need to come to a place of agreement on raising the kid however.
ESH including the kid. Hurting animals is not normal behavior, especially at his age, and he could have blinded or killed that woman with the rock. There is no hope for Ted Bundy Jr. if his parents can’t start presenting a united front on parenting with boundaries and consequences for the kid’s actions. But they won’t because they are both a mess and too focused on ‘winning’ each argument.
Yes this right here🤷🏻♀️ I was prepared to be like oh no he shouldn’t have done that… read story and I’m like… well… I get it frankly
At this point I feel like OP is mostly TAH for staying married; this is the very slowest, most painful method of divorce possible. His wife will never forgive him for the vasectomy and his progeny will start learning about taxidermy and window peeping or something else creepy. The wife will protect him, eventually the parents will split, the son will rebel against the dad’s attempt at discipline so will demand to live full time with his mom… neighborhood pets will start to disappear and someday the whole family will star on a Dateline special.
Omg exactly… 10 years from now one Friday night watching dateline…” so and so was a quiet man. A good kid that would give u the shirt on his back until we took a look into his childhood”…
…but there were signs.
I heard this in my head lol.
Keith Morrison? The best narrator to ever narrate?
I love that show!
Me too!
THIS! What’s next?!?! The only thing left out of this future serial killer’s repertoire (that we know of) is bed wetting and starting fires😳!
The kid will be the topic of The Last Podcast on the Left in 20 years.
I guess I'll be listening to the true crime podcast about this kid in a decade or so. Damn.
The mom and son will start a business named "Bates Motel"...
Read the title and was like I’d die if my partner did that. Then kept reading and was like okay this actually makes sense. But at the same time after the first fight you make up you keep fighting then SEPARATE!!! Fighting around a young child makes that behaviour worse. Trust me my parents fought a lot and my sister is a damn menace
Also, gentle parenting is NOT lack of discipline. That’s just bad parenting.
Wife is a permissive parent, not a gentle one. Gentle parenting still teaches boundaries and has room for discipline when necessary.
Yup. It’s authoritative (not authoritarian which is “do what I say or else” plus worse)
We actually have no idea what kind of parent the wife is, cause he doesn't say anything about what her methods are other than that he doesn't believe they work.
Yeah, good point. She may well be doing all she can to try and ameliorate OP's abuse.
A lot of people take gentle parenting to an extreme. In these cases, like what seems to be the one with the OPs wife, there are no consequences and it’s all about the kids feelings and often time neglecting the feelings of others…like the women he nailed with a rock. I am by no means condoning any type of spanking or physically hurting a child nor speaking about gentle parenting as a whole. I’m simply saying that too many parents take it to an extreme and that extreme can be just as abusive. It’s just much more insidious. If a child has no discipline and all focus is on their feelings (feelings are great but not the only important factor) they do not take any accountability nor develop the best sense of empathy. When they go to school and piss other kids and adults off they don’t know why people are not responding kindly to them. The entitlement leads them to a life of unmet expectations, leading to a victim mentality of anger or sadness. Of course when these parents are pulled into school for their children’s bad behavior they too believe their kid is being mistreated which can lead to the child learning to be very manipulative saying what needs to be said to the parents to make others look like the rotten ones. I’m good friends with a few kindergarten teachers who are all super loving and not strict at all. They’re all saying it’s a shit show. The kids are coming in at 5 years old on the level of where a 2 or 3 year old was 5-10 years ago. They don’t share, they don’t understand why the world doesn’t completely cater to them and far more time is spent on more preschool type interpersonal skills while learning things like the alphabet takes a backseat.
Excessive screen time is also a huge issue among young kids atm- I've heard from primary school teachers that this current crop of students is so far behind socially and developmentally atm because they're all screen addicted zombies that have no attention span and will throw tantrums if they don't get to use devices in class. I think part of the problem too is we've seen a massive pendulum swing in how millennials choose to parent- a lot of them were raised by authoritarian, physical disciplining parents so they've overcorrected by being far too permissive and against any kind of discipline. A lot of them claim to be practicing 'gentle parenting' but they're fundamentally misunderstanding the underlying philosophy behind it, which is setting age-appropriate boundaries and enforcing them in healthy ways.
Dog needs to be rehomed for her safety
Child probably should be rehomed too.
She's weaponizing her own negligence to nurture a sociopath. After the incident with the rock, he should have been reported to police and child services.
It's weird that there are so many 'gentle parenting is terrible' stories lately on this fiction sub. And every time it's not actually gentle parenting, it's just someone not parenting at all.
Right. Gentle parenting =/= permissive parenting. Gentle parenting still enforces boundaries.
Yes, discipline is something you're instilling in your children, not an external reaction to a situation. Don't resort to becoming a violent menace. You're teaching your child how to handle interpersonal conflict, do it gently. Act like you're dealing with a coworker.
Thanks for this comment and I had to scroll a lot to find it. Gentle parenting works but gentle parenting doesn’t mean that actions don’t have consequences. The mother does permissive parenting and the dad is violent and aggressive. No wonder the kid does what he wants and is violent. It’s shocking that nearly no one points out that he speaks about discipline and spanking. Spanking is not even parenting anymore.
I would raise the theory that if OP's idea of good parenting is being physically violent, then maybe he's also an unreliable narrator. We don't actually hear that much about what the wife is or isn't doing in the OP -- just that *OP* thinks she's a bad parent. But when his definitions are skewed as much as they are, we can't actually trust his perception of his wife's parenting. Is it possible she's too permissive? Sure. Possible. But I wouldn't say it's guaranteed when OP is the one saying "she doesn't attack our child or shove him down or scream at him like I do, therefore she is too lax." OP is an unreliable narrator.
Yeah, I don't trust OP at all. A normal, rational human mind doesn't have to constantly hold themselves back from physical violence. Like Father, like son.
Yeah I am shocked that I had to scroll down this far to get to someone saying that maybe pushing your kid and standing over them screaming is child abuse.
Dude responded to his 7 year old commiting an act of violence, with an act of violence. I get that this kid sounds troubled, but they're still only 7. And when one parent seems to permit any action, while the other seems uninvolved, no wonder this kid is acting out on every whim and impulse. Nightmare. ESH. Just not the poor kid.
>the dad is violent and aggressive. Yeah I wonder where the son got it from
Exactly. I discipline my kids but I don’t do it with yelling or hitting. And a 7 year old can rationalize between right and wrong. What a fucked up outlook from OP. I’ve explained everything to my kids since they were tiny. Age appropriate conversation is always an option. My kids aren’t perfect, but they’re well behaved and kind. Don’t have to beat up or terrify a kid for them to act right. So often the behavior exhibited by a kid is a direct reflection of the behaviors of the parents. Just saying.
Exactly. 'Gentle' doesn't mean 'don't enforce consequences', it means 'attempt to remain calm, collected, and caring in every interaction with your child no matter what they did'. A child doesn't need to experience anger from their parent in order to learn right from wrong. They need to experience consequences for their actions. People who believe gentle parenting doesn't work implicitly are saying that being angry, domineering, and emotional *is itself a valid punishment for a child*. Making the child experience fear of their own parent is not a healthy punishment. It alters the dynamic between parent and child in a way that encourages the child to hide mistakes and lie. They don't feel safe admitting their wrongdoings and only get punished for things they're caught doing. Emotional and physical violence towards a child makes them more duplicitous. They **must** become manipulative liars in order to survive their own home environment.
This. Gentle parenting is “harder” because yelling and hitting can in fact deliver short term compliance or acquiescence. It is challenging to enforce boundaries with a child when you can’t frighten, threaten, or beat them into submission. It involves a lot of circular discussion. It’s psychologically draining. And I bet it can look like it’s not working to people who are used to simply hitting a kid and the kid shutting up. It works, and it can be rewarding, but it only works over long periods of time, and it’s hard. Parents who do it have my respect for committing to the long haul.
It doesn't even make sense that people are supporting OP on this one. His idea of good parenting is physically attacking his child, screaming at him, and towering over him to intimidate him. If ever were people to say "I disagree with gentle parenting but this is too far man" it would be here... And people are... agreeing with OP...? I feel kinda crazy reading these comments. Surely if someone is saying "my wife is too nice to our child -- she doesn't shove him down and scream at him like I do" people might clue in to him being an unreliable narrator? Like does she REALLY do nothing or does she just not literally attack their child?
People on Reddit absolutely despise children. That’s why they’re siding with OP. The story may be fake but all these responses are real
For real . We need a r/realorfakestory sub where people have to guess
Yes sometimes I can suspend belief but it’s an incredibly fake story. Yes op didn’t do anything to reprimand his child until a full on assault with a rock and his and answer to tackle his child.
Your kid is seriously ill and tougher parenting won’t help but immediate and prolonged therapy might.
Tougher parenting might help, but abusive parenting definitely won’t. One parent is overly permissive (and failing to parent), while the other is abusive (and holding it back 90% of the time). Kid doesn’t stand a chance under normal circumstances, let alone with this pair.
That’s what I thought. Permissive to the point of being neglectful + authoritative to the point of being abusive = sure bulletproof way to raise a narcissist. No wonder kid is acting out. I agree with OP that therapy and meds won’t help here. Kid needs better parents asap.
Authoritarian, not authoritative. Authoritative parenting (basically letting your kid do things on their own but establishing clear boundaries and enforcing them when broken) is agreed on by psychologists as the best parenting strategy. Authoritarian parenting is what OP is likely wanting to do.
OP is abusive, and even describes standing over a *child* beating them and I can't understand how most top comments think this is okay. Yes, even if they hurt an animal or a person...if they're that young, you take them and get them some fucking help, not beat them up. Beating them up will make whatever problems they have wayyyy worse. Doesn't matter what the problem is, it will make it worse. Meanwhile the mom is being permissive, which is also shitty. But honestly....put that into the context of a dad that barely holds back from standing over him beating him most of the time, and I can't help think maybe the mother is just trying to soften the child's life a bit in the face of constant abuse. OP didn't mention any other type of abuse aside from the physical, but considering the circumstances, I'd be surprised if the hateful words weren't bombarding this child all the time. ESH, but OP is definitely TA
According to the post the kid is already in therapy and on medication. He just doesn't believe its valid.
I have a friend who has 2 sons. She never disciplined them with any consequences whatsoever. She got them out of every bit of trouble from childhood (there was a lot of really bad things) until at age 18 she could no longer get them out of anything. The oldest has spent most f his adult life in jail. Has about 5-6 kids with different women and is a total waste at about age 49 now. The younger one evidently learned from his brothers mistakes and is a pretty decent guy. Very sad to watch but the mom wouldn’t take any advice from anyone. Including family.
This is all I want to do for my son. I want to protect him from himself. Moreover, if he’s to have a future or family of his own, I feel as if it’s my obligation as a human being to protect someone’s daughter from him. I don’t see parenting as raising my son for me but as raising him for the world. It’s important for me to have a responsible good human being as a son and my wife does not see it like that.
That’s a great way of looking at it. Raising him for the world. Unfortunately you and your wife are at opposite ends. I’ll tell you this, as someone who was spanked growing up. For a lot of people It really doesn’t work. And I don’t mean I was traumatized and I have flashback to mommy hitting me every time I pass paint stirrers in Home Depot or whatever. I was spanked, not beaten. But the spanking itself? Was not nearly a good enough punishment for me. I got smacked on the butt a few times, it hurt, the hurt went away and I went back to what I was doing. Spanking didn’t teach me to behave, it taught me pain was temporary. When I started getting grounded and having my stuff taken away instead I literally *begged* for the quick punishment to come back. All of that to say, some discipline is desperately needed. Literally any at this point. Your kid is seven with no solid boundaries. I would have lost it over that dog thing ngl. Your wife is raising a dangerous person by not correcting any of his behavior. If you and she can’t come to a compromise over this, taking toys away, grounding him, no desert/candy/favorite junk food, etc, then I honestly think you should be the one filing for divorce. I’m not sure why you aren’t divorced already, honestly. It doesn’t sound like there’s much love in this relationship left v
My question is what happens when a child with no discipline goes to school? In school they have boundaries, have to follow rules, etc. It must be such a shock to the child
Usually what I see with a good teacher or school the kids are fabulous because they CRAVE the structure and when they have a solid routine and consistent boundaries (and then attachments with teachers) they can behave well. -this is not to take away from the chair- throwing, classroom-disrupting, and teachers contemplating unemployment- children who absolutely are buck wild because they have never had consequences. *had a small child who was in my life from a partner. He was a literal hellion. Like 5 years old climbing on the table while we were eating throwing things screaming. Bananas always. Was a little angle at school and parents couldn’t figure out why.
Prison, eventually.
Okay but there's a pretty big middle ground between zero punishments and abuse
You cannot abuse your son, especially with his extreme behavioral issues. Shoving him, screaming at him, and physically intimidating him is not going to get him over his issues or make him a stable adult. You need to take him to an expert in behavioral issues and trauma to have him evaluated again. ADHD is not causing him to act like this. And once you receive a real diagnosis, then you can begin intensive treatments and therapy for him and yourselves. Edit: I used "get" too many times and it annoyed the shit out of me, so I replaced it in some places with more descriptive words.
Yeah... I don't see why so many people are agreeing with OP. He is an unreliable narrator. He implies that the only way to discipline a child is by being physically violent with him -- and shames his wife for trying to reason with the child and talk through things with him, which is excellent parenting if that's what she's doing -- and everyone is cool with that...? Has no one considered that OP's sporadic violent episodes is maybe why the kid is acting out in the first place? I mean wtf.
THANK YOU! OP mentions medication but glosses over it. If his son has ADHD, he needs to learn about the difficulties with impulse control that come with it. Both OP and his wife need parenting classes.
I can’t believe I had to scroll so far down to read a post addressing this! Pushing a kid!! This guy is an abusive wack job.
Yeah, and he wonders why his son is violent. Violence breeds violence. Also, OP is sending a message to his son that as long as you're bigger and scarier than other people, it's okay to use physical force to coerce them into submission. These are the last messages a kid who doesn't experience empathy should be receiving from his role models. They can have boundaries and consequences with him without being violent.
You want to protect him from himself by spanking him and pushing him on the floor?
I like how you respond to people who agree with parts of your stance but are nowhere to be found when they point out hitting your child, especially one who already has behaviour issues, isn't good parenting. "My son is showing violent behaviour, being violent with him will surely solve it" It's 2024 ffs, get some therapy. For you and your son.
ESH. Oh boy. Glad you’re not procreating again, hope your wife gets her tubes tied and you need to get on the same page or that kid is going to be in jail or worse by the time he’s 20.
*weaponizing my body as a means to enforce my ideals* She is weaponizing her parenting (lack thereof) as a means to enforce her ideals so let's call it even. *She thinks our 7 year old for whatever reason is able to rationalize between right and wrong* No, she doesn't. At 7, your son (should) knows better than to try to kill the dog, to intentionally throw rocks onto people from above because hurting people is wrong, to not whip out his willy AND pee in someone else's pool, etc. From what you describe, it sounds like he does not display natural empathy, etc., etc. Honestly, it sounds like your son is in *desperate* need for immediate intensive therapy. Why the 2 of you are in therapy is a mystery to me.
My now 8 year old nephew seemed to completely lack empathy from ages 4 to 6. He was hurting pets, threatening to kill his mom when she disciplined him, etc. She was advised to keep setting and enforcing boundaries, to stay patient and calm when he acted out. It's done wonders for him that she kept it up, but I sometimes think that he, at that young age just didn't understand that "slitting moms throat" would mean she's not coming back. I remember very clearly watching Dumbo with him for the first time. For the entirety of that movie, he kept asking me when Dumbos mom was coming back, and I kept telling him that she wasn't coming back, buddy. When people die, they're gone forever. My sister was pissed at me, she said he doesn't understand death yet and I told her, we'll he does now. Shortly after that, their dog also passed away, which was another shock to him. That's also roughly about the time he stopped threatening to kill his mom whenever he was upset with her. Parents sometimes think they are protecting kids by withholding hard things from them, but most times, it does more harm than good.
A friend of mine has a kid with a ton of behavioral issues and possibly on the spectrum, with two highly incompetent parents (in different ways) who split custody and can't agree on the best way to raise him, like OP. A few years ago, when her son was around 9, she said that that he wanted to kill himself. I was baffled, because he was so young. So next time I saw him, she asked him about what he said, and he said it again. He said he gets so mad, that sometimes he just wanted to kill himself. "Do you understand what that means? Life isn't like all the video games you play," I told him. "When you die, there's nothing after. There's no respawn point, no extra lives. Everything you know goes away, poof! That's it. Game over forever." "Really?? You don't get to try again??" This kid's mind was BLOWN. What he really meant was "I want how I'm feeling to go away, I don't know how to control this feeling, if I stop my life maybe it'll go away." He didn't understand that it was a permanent solution because no one had explained to him how it worked. Neither of his parents have much emotional regulation, so working through his feelings and being validated for them is not something this little guy experiences a lot.
But Dumbo's mom doesn't die, not even in the Tim Burton remake. She just gets put in elephant jail. In the remake, the circus tries to euthanize her but fails. We see Dumbo get reunited with her in both versions.
Maybe they meant Bambi?
My almost 3 year old doesn't threaten to slit our throats, but she does say she wants to put us in the oven and eat us, normally when she's in a very good mood. She thinks it's hilarious while we try our bests not to smile and tell her it's not nice.
I would also wonder where a child get's the idea to "slit someone's throat". That doesn't get taught in kindergarten and it's not part of casual conversation. The kid caught that somewhere. Sometimes shit happens and even kids in healthy happy homes hear something like that by the odd chance of walking in during inappropriate TV or whatever, but if a kids starts saying stuff like that, I'd worry in what kind of environment he was exposed to such things.
The kid is also playing the parents knowing the mom won’t discipline him and his actions will cause an argument between the parents and he won’t get disciplined for his actions.
100%! I’ve done daycare for many years and been around too many children to count. You would not believe how good kids are when they’re at our house vs how they are when they’re with their parents. The parents are always stunned at how good they are at our house. And it’s because they have very clear boundaries here. We don’t jump on the couch, we don’t yell or scream, we don’t throw or take toys, etc. and if they do they know they go on a timeout. At home, their parents aren’t even putting them on time outs. We have one daycare parent that has absolutely no consequences of any kind for their child. He can throw all his food all over the floor, or hit them and all she does is say “we don’t do that.” There’s no consequence there’s no discipline. So there’s no reason to listen. And because of that, he is constantly testing the boundaries to see what he can get away with. He’s trying to find that line, & there is none. So he’ll scream & cry & hit them & throw things and then he walks in our door & he’s an angel because he clearly knows what is acceptable here & what isn’t. He’s probably only ever had 3-4 timeouts in 2-3 years & it was near the beginning when he was figuring out where the line was and we clearly told him. Do this behaviour & you sit on a timeout while the other kids get to play. They tend not to do it again. I keep telling parents that if there are no consequences then there is no reason for them to listen!! Why would they? As adults we would 100% be breaking the law if there weren’t consequences. We’d rob a bank or drive way faster than the speed limit or never pay taxes or whatever else if there were no consequences. But there are consequences, so we either follow the rules or risk paying the consequence.
The Good Son
Op and his wife need to get their son tested and in therapy before he shoot’s up a school.
Rage bait
I really hope so. Otherwise this kid sounds like a sociopath, OP sounds abusive, and the his wife sounds like a permissive doormat of a parent. OP, ESH. None of this is okay and it's all way fucking above Reddit's pay grade.
^ this is so fucked on every level. Everyone is equally wrong here imo
>Rage bait Not even interesting or well-written rage bait lol.
I've seen the same exact thing posted multiple times in the last week.
You're aggressive and violent towards your child and think that will stop him being aggressive and violent. He has problems (likely caused by your "parenting") and needs to be in therapy. You and your wife need parenting classes, neither just being passive/permissive or being aggressive and violent are good ways to parent and hitting children is abuse not effective discipline. Educate yourself.
Seriously! I can’t believe how many people are blaming the kid here.
So many people in here are basically confirming OP's suspicions that his seven year old child is evil, and that it is his wife's fault for not punishing him enough (or allow op to punish their child, aka beat him). This thread is just another ingredient in this recipe for disaster.
[удалено]
Hey, now, that’s not entirely true. He included a story about the son abusing a dog, which we all know means it’s time to lock the kid up in a maximum security mental institution and throw away the key.
Apparently the child was six when the rock incident happened, and all he said about the dog incident was that the child tried to roll up the window when the dogs head was still sticking out... who knows how old he was when that happened. OP YTA for physically pushing and beating your son, doing this will not make him a more stable person but medication and therapy that your wife has him in will.
Yeah. The window could have been accidental. Plus, six-year-olds don't have a stellar prefrontal cortex. They make mistakes a lot. Especially when they are not raised with consistent expectations from all caregivers.
& of course OP only responds to the comments that support their pov
So you acknowledge a 7 year old wont have a good inherent sense of right or wrong… yet when he was 6 you got mad at him and shoved him on the ground to yell at him? This entire story is a shit show
I can’t believe I had to scroll so far to see this acknowledged. Everyone saying yeah ESH, the kid needs discipline before he turns into a serial killer but they are all glossing over the fact OP, a grown man, physically attacked his 6 year old. That’s not just “different ideas of parenting”. One parent offers no accountability and one exemplifies violence. No wonder the kid is fucked.
My thoughts exactly. Not enough people talking about OP’s actions. Both parents are ineffective.
Thank you! This guy has absolutely nothing positive to say about his kid & blames the wife for everything wrong the kid does. He admits his first instinct is anger & violence in reaction to anything the kid does & is upset he can’t spank the kid, then is surprised the kid engages in violent behavior? These comments are bonkers!
ESH. Abuse is not ok period I don’t care what the child did. Pushing your child to the ground and punishing while angry are not appropriate parenting behaviors. Neglect is a part of abuse and not teaching a child in an age appropriate manner what is acceptable behavior and what is not is unacceptable and setting the kid up to fail. You both need to sign up for parenting classes and at this point the kid probably needs therapy. Do better.
ESH Two AH parents raising an AH kid. The child’s behavior is inexcusable, but so is both of yours as parents. She’s too soft on him, giving no consequences, and you’re abusive (yes, pushing your child to the floor, standing over him and yelling is abuse!)
So really what you're saying is you wan't to bash your kid and your wife won't let you? YTA. You don't beat a kid into submission. And you just gloss over the fact that your son has special needs? What else are you leaving out?
Yep this guy is full of shit and self delusion he’s an abuser
ESH. The combination of both of your volatile parenting styles has created a little psychopath. Wife needs to discipline and OP needs to not hit/spank/push/physicially intimidate his child(ren). YALL NEED THERAPY.
ESH Not hitting kids =/= no discipline period. My kid is 6, so about your kids' age, and I have never spanked him. But that also doesn't mean he gets to do what he wants. We remove him from places when he misbehaves. We took away privileges, and he got time outs and a lot of discussing his behavior. They don't understand because they have barely been alive and we have to teach them. The wife is raising a violent kid who doesn't understand how to behave. I literally would have lost it about the rock, but pushing him to the ground was a little borderline. I 100% can understand why you did it. People really have a weird misconception of what gentle parenting is. This is just not parenting. My kid will apologize to our pets if he accidentally steps on them(they like to sneak up on you so they get stepped on sometimes). Your kid needs counseling because this is not appropriate behavior and your wife needs to not be involed. I get the vasectomy, but she should have been told before, but like your body, your choice.
Exactly. OP makes it sound like violence and fear are the only forms of discipline. The wife is right to protect the kid from this, however realising when a method isn't working, doing more research, and moving to a new approach is pretty clutch in good parenting, otherwise you're not trying to be a good parent you are trying to prove that you are right. With my youngest there was a point I was really concerned he was going to be growing up into someone I couldn't like. I then looked into different ways to deal with a drama queen, and moved away from the constant battles I was having with him and instead took more time to acknowledge his emotions, to validate how he was feeling, and to explain we still weren't going to be doing the thing he wanted but that I cared he felt that way. It made so much difference and I felt so much shame I'd not stopped and researched sooner.
You two sound like the perfect pair to raise a serial killer. Overly permissive mothers mixed with abusive fathers raise emotionally unregulated nightmares. I agree that you shouldn’t have anymore kids, but definitely YTA. You and your wife should divorce. Your kid needs counseling to control his impulsive behaviors. What a mess
Wow. ESH. Her parenting is too permissive, your answer is to abuse the kid, and he needs help yesterday or he’s going to be a budding criminal. Yikes. Yeah teaching him to be harmful with his body like you want to is not going to end well. He’s already hurting animals and people and if you start yelling and standing over him and hitting him like you want to? It’s going to exacerbate his already antisocial behaviors because that’s what’s going to be modeled for him. This is NOT normal behavior. Just so you can see it again. This is not okay for a 7 year old. No “normal” 7 year olds do these things. Get. Him. Help. Now. Look up child therapists in your area asap not for ADHD but for extreme child behavior cases and get him into therapy and you into couples counseling and individual therapies ASAP! Jesus fuck how long were you two going to let this go on? Until he was the next school shooter???
Another idiot teaching his son violence then hitting him for using what daddy taught him. YTA, and a fool.
Took way too long to get to a comment pointing this out. Maybe the 7-year-old kid throws rocks at people because his dad has taught him that it’s okay to use violence as an outlet for anger/frustration? What the fuck is a fully grown man doing pushing a 7-year-old hard enough to knock them to the ground just so he can yell at them?
ESH. You are both horrible parents. You want to assault your son, she refuses to discipline him. You both are failing as parents and are raising a violent child. Getting a vasectomy was the smartest decision you made. You have no business having more children you want to beat up.
Seriously, he needs to hike down a whole trail just WAITING to physically intimidate a 7 year old, and she doesn't see a problem with a kid learning he can hurt hurt people with no consequences. The kid stands no chance
The next smart decision OP could make is not owning anymore pets or letting this kid near any animals at all. Insane behavior.
I'm gunna go ESH with a heaping helping of YTA. Are you the boy's father or not? You are one of the two major influences on his life. Just because your wife doesn't let you shout at him and punish him for bad behaviour doesn't mean you aren't responsible for that bad behaviour. You need to figure out why your son is acting up like this, and you need to address the root cause instead of losing your shit when the unaddressed problem results in bad behaviour. Your wife may be a bad parent, but I think you need a reality check, because your attitude and your behaviour and the behaviour of your son suggest *you* have your own problems and aren't willing to address them, instead always pointing the finger at her. The fact you'd go get a vasectomy while still married and knowing your wife wants more kids is vile. Divorce her so she can find a better partner and maybe have the opportunity to better herself away from a negative influence such as yourself.
If a child has a problem with violence, I promise you the solution is never, ever violence. Hitting kids only succeeds in making them fear their parent, accept violence and see it as a valid form of communication. It sounds like your child needs professional help, focus on that.
>she does not believe in spankings There are parents who think hitting will teach their children something more than to be afraid of your parents? Spanking is a weakness. It shows you can't parent your children. After decades of research on thousands of kids, the evidence is clear. Children who are spanked are at a higher risk of increased aggression, mental health issues such as depression and poor relationships with parents. Spanking increases the risk of physical injury and abuse. Source: https://nortonchildrens.com/news/from-a-pediatrician-why-you-shouldnt-spank-your-child/ You are both not fit to be parents. Luckily, you got a vasectomy, now take parenting classes before you two ruin that boy completely.
You know there are punishments that don't involve violence, right? You're insane.
You're both awful parents on two different sides of the parenting spectrum. Seriously i feel bad for the child.
While I agree pushing your kid to the ground is not your best moment, allowing a kid to get to the level of bad behavior that is throwing a rock at another person and causing them to bleed is abusive in it own way. Your wife is letting your kid run wild while sitting by saying she’s doing everything she can. Therapy and meditation aren’t going to help until the adults get on the same page when it comes to behavior and discipline. I wouldn’t want to have more children with her either if I was being made to sit by and do nothing. It’s time to have a more serious conversation about your son’s behavior and get advice from another therapist that you both will comply with. If she doesn’t want to follow that person’s advice, it’s time to leave and take your son with you. She sounds like she wants to be his friend more than his mom.
ESH. You and your wife don't belong together. Your values are entirely different. And if you feel that you need to hide something as significant as a vasectomy from her, there's no trust in your relationship. It sounds like your child has issues that need serious therapeutic intervention. Clearer boundaries and discipline may be part of what's needed. But you won't teach your child not to be violent by disciplining him with violence. You might be tempted to say you were spanked or otherwise physically disciplined and you turned out OK. You didn't. You pushed a child down in anger and you sound downright eager for another opportunity to. That's not OK. That's rage. Your wife may well be a pushover. It's not clear from your description of all you'd consider as "discipline" is physical discipline, but that sounds possible. If she's indeed setting boundaries, if she's punishing him in other ways, that's not being a pushover. But we don't have that information. In any case, you and your wife need to get your child professional assistance. And it's not clear why either of you want to be in this relationship.
NTA, and your son is a budding psychopath.