IANAP, so take this with a huge grain of salt - I think your husband is stressed and over-reacting. But is it also possible that you’re under-reacting? Is your “almost infinite patience” making you the kind of parent that doesn’t correct your child? One…One and a half…Two…. Two year olds aren’t stupid. She knows many of the rules, and I’m sure she knows “no”. She also is seeing no consequences to her behaviour, so she keeps doing it. And that’s probably also stressing your husband.
As I said, I’m not a parent. Or a spouse. But I’m one of five kids, have ten nieces and nephews and 41 first cousins. I’ve seen a lot of babies.
I am confused: everyone seems to assume that the snapping is an emotional, out of control reaction from him, but I am reading your post that it’s a deliberate, non-emotional choice. He’s using the louder voice to say “this is a big deal”, not because he can’t control himself or is losing it.
To me this makes a huge difference. Kids know the difference between the two: an angry out of control person is terrifying, because you don’t know what they will do next. They don’t know what they will do next. A person who speaks more loudly when they want to emphasize their point–even if it’s a lot more loudly–just isn’t the same thing at all. If he’s getting so, so angry at her and it’s coming out in his voice, that’s totally different than if he’s just using volume as a parenting technique.
I’m kind of in the same boat; however, having come from a family where screaming and yelling was common, I have to admit that I tend to cringe even at a raised voice. Sometimes I don’t have much sense of perspective.
My husband’s family was outright violent. He has always been expected to do great things and, as such, he also has a lot of expectations, especially of our son, and in the past has been fairly easily provoked to raise his voice.
However, he has come to the realization that the screaming doesn’t work. It was a realization he had to come to himself and only after our son lost a lot of trust in him. My husband has done a phenomenal job of rebuilding that trust and changing himself, but it has been very challenging. Is it possible that your husband has unreasonable expectations of your child like mine did? Or maybe simply doesn’t understand your child’s developmental stage?
If so, it might be helpful to have a discussion with your pediatrician and husband about the behavior that seems to bother him the most. I’ve done that a couple of times - we also saw a therapist a few times - and it was helpful, if only because my husband needed someone who wasn’t me to tell him that the way our son was behaving was normal and appropriate and offered some recommendations on how to respond to certain situations.
Since he’s a good father and husband I’m thinking this isn’t something that will escalate to dangerous. And it will sort itself out in three years or so when she’s an adorable five year old
The real issue as I see it is that you two have different ideas about what makes for good parenting in this situation. You’re probably going to disagree many times about parenting techniques over her lifetime, so the challenge is to come up with a way to resolve those differences regardless of the specifics.
Maybe you could approach it that way, using this particular issue as practice for how to handle the issue of disagreements about parenting styles. For example imagine that one of you thought dating at 15 wasn’t a big deal and the other thought it was absolutely not ok until 17, how would you come to an agreement? That situation isn’t really different than this one except that you’ll have more experience by the time you deal with the dating thing. It’s still you thinking one way and him another. Focus on the how instead of the what and you’ll be happier parents in the long run.
Tell him that when she gets to be a teenager, the last thing he wants is for her to become a yelling adversary, which is what he is training her to become by example. All the calm, firm messages he is able to send her now will be paid back in dividends when she hits her emotional hormonal years.
One thing that helped me a lot with childhood battles was to keep telling myself to disengage from the situation in order to maintain a beneficial emotional distance. Like a mantra - “disengage… disengage…” When you can disengage, the situations become sort of laughable instead of aggravating.
I think needscoffee’s book is a good idea. I also think you’ve answered some of your own questions - he’s stressed from work, and the two of you have become Parents of Toddler, instead of husband and wife. I am also not a parent, but my view from the outside is that women are often quite content to be a mom and get most of their emotional needs met from their kids, and don’t realize that they are leaving their husbands out in the cold. Without doing it intentionally, they set up a dynamic where their husband is competing with the kids for his wife’s affection and attention. They probably also feel like big ol’ losers when they think that they’re jealous of their own kids, but that is the dynamic that can happen.
That’s got fuckall to do with being female; thankfully most of the times Dad raised his voice in impatient anger it was at Mom (the woman still doesn’t comprehend that when you’re parking is not the right time to comment on a passerby’s knit sweater), but in any case, he was The Voice of Authority, and having him raise his voice still made us freeze when we were well into double-figure ages. Heck, Middlebro was having fights with him over Bro’s lack of punctuality and he still froze if Dad raised his voice outside of those arguments!
I grew up in an abuse household. I also have two young children, one girl who is just four and my son turned two today.
This is seriously uncool.
There are several problems here. The first is that your husband is not managing his emotions with his children far too frequently. As a product of household where neither parent was able to effectively manage their emotions, that would be a deal breaker for me. It’s far too easy to slip into abuse or emotional neglect. I’d rather be a single parent than have a partner who couldn’t control her/himself. The long-term emotional cost is far too high, even if there is no physical abuse.
Second, it sounds like he doesn’t understand child psychology. Parenting classes should help with that.
Third, the needs better tools in his toolbox than simply yelling loudly enough to make her shake. In a few years, that’s not going to work, and he’ll either have to escalate it or lose control.
Regardless of the causes of his stress, something has to change.
I know I must seem over the top, BUT, I’ve personally lived in a hell called a home, and I don’t wish that on anyone.
It may be that he’s not losing control, but if so, he is completely clueless about child psychology and needs to get new answers fast.
I think this is an important point. To someone with a background like smaje1’s, a person who yells or raises his voice is scary because it means he’s out of control and may get violent; to a person with Mr. smaje1’s background, it doesn’t mean that at all.
I am neither a parent nor a dog owner, but what Mr. smaje1 is doing sounds to me like what some people do to train or reprimand their dog. It wouldn’t cross my mind that someone who snapped “NO!” at their dog when it was getting into the garbage was being abusive.
If it’s making her cry, it’s too far. If I snap “no” at my dogs, they sigh and wander off or sit down and look at me. If I were to snap at our baby like that, she’d almost certainly start to cry. It bothers me that it makes her cry and he still thinks it’s okay. I mean, I get that crying doesn’t make a huge impact if you have a kid that cries a lot, but it still seems like it would bother him a bit.
If it were my husband, I’d probably put his ass in time out for that. Ie. take the baby and leave the room. If he’s getting overwhelmed, it’ll get his head together, and if it’s just a bad habit, he’ll probably make the connection that you find it sufficiently unacceptable to remove yourselves from his presence. This is working under the assumption that he isn’t a jerk who will use it to get you to take the baby all the time. My husband and I put each other in baby time out whenever the other seems to be getting frustrated, and it seems to help.
Is she dropping the peas on the floor accidently, or dumping them on the floor because it’s funny? Because if it’s the second, I completely understand one or two shouted words. Maybe it’s a new thing because he’s just sick of cleaning up peas from the floor, and has decided that the calm, reasoned approach just isn’t working.
I came from a family that yelled a lot, but was loving and entirely free of abuse. There’s nothing even resembling abuse here IMHO. If this is a hill you want to die on, that’s your perogative, but I don’t think this is bad parenting. It may be ineffective parenting, or less-than-ideal parenting. If it really bothers you that much, then maybe address it that way to your husband -that you understand that it may be your issue, and is bothering you a lot. But telling him he MUST be wrong over barking “NO!” to a kid who is purposely dumping her peas on the floor (if that’s what’s happening) probably isn’t going to get you too far.
I don’t know that snapping at the kid is all that horrible, so long as Dad strongly reinforces his love afterward.
I would yell at my young children for doing annoyingly young-children-ish things, sure. BUT, after they’d had a few moments to absorb what had happened, I would invariably crank up the syrup and hug them, tell them I always love them, and I forgive them. This is very important, to me.
As far as corporal punishment, I usually reserved that for obvious displays of lack-of-respect, and limited it to whacks to the butt. It was fairly rare. I am proud to say I pretty much never had to spank my kids (or be sassed, talked-backed to, or otherwise disrespected) after the ages of 5 or 6.
Man, in reading some of these posts, one would start to think this guy is a monster waiting for a moment where he may eat his own child. If you really want to undermine his confidence in being a father, do bring up the prospect of counseling for “his anger problem”, and then tell him “I am right, and you are wrong, so do it my way”. I am sure he will react well to those ideas.
It seems the issue at this point is purely communication between mom and dad. Be consistent when it happens; pull him aside and tell him you think he is over-reacting, and you think it is not helping the situation. Keep doing that, and keep talking about it. Do not just discard his feelings and thoughts on the matter; give him a voice in it as well - there is a reason this is happening and he is getting irritated so quickly (sounds like it could be job-related stress). If you ignore what is going on in his mind and his world you are ignoring him as well. He may be wrong to shout at the baby like that, but find out why this is going on and work with him to address it. It may be his way of setting boundaries and he needs to compromise and adjust. You should be prepared to compromise that you may not be 100% right as well.
I have a rambunctious 22-month-old daughter of my own, and when I read the OP I knew EXACTLY what she was talking about, because I employ it myself. The whole point is to startle the kid into stopping whatever it was that she was doing, and thus one employs it primarily in the circumstance where the kid is about to hurt herself or another living thing.
The last three times I used it she was
in the process of shaking a lamp by the lampshade
about to sit directly on the kitten
about to climb over the armrest of the couch face-first
It goes without saying, in my opinion, that a few minutes after the misbehavior one should reinforce how much they care about the kid with a cuddle or a song or something.
First, let me just say that I feel for you both. Our guy just turned two, and it’s been a huge strain. And the problem is not really his (mis)behavior so much as it is my husband and me trying to figure out how to handle it. So I’m hardly an expert, but here are my thoughts:
He’s right. It doesn’t just seem that way; she really is testing you. But she’s not doing it to make you mad, exactly. She’s just trying to figure out how the world works. Now, you might think, “You’re telling me that this child, who can repeat swear words with startling accuracy after hearing them just once, hasn’t *yet *figured out that throwing food on the floor and jumping on the couch is not okay with us?” But it’s not as simple as “This action = bad, that action = okay.”
For one thing, her world is changing incredibly fast. Every day, she learns new skills and improves old ones by leaps and bounds. There are lots of things she wasn’t allowed, or able, to do before that she is now. She’s also probably allowed to have a say in what she does and doesn’t want to do. And if there’s something she wants to do, and she sees you doing it, like opening the front door or plugging cords into the outlet, she may even have a sense that she’ll be allowed to do this thing eventually. So she tests and tests, to see what her powers are today.
Another thing is that there are a lot of bad behaviors you used to ignore because you knew she couldn’t help it - like throwing food on the floor. But in the transitional period between accidentally and intentionally, she learned that this action was fun, and perhaps it even made you laugh, or made you react in some way that she thought was funny. So even though she gets admonished for it now, she still wants to do the fun thing, or try for that funny reaction.
And there’s also the fact that, like all kids learning about the world, she craves consistency. She needs to know that there are rules, that certain things will always be true, in spite of all the things that are changing around her. So sometimes, she may do something bad just to reassure herself that the limits are still there, that you’ll react in the same way, and the consequences of her actions will be the same.
So yes - she is testing you. But it’s not because she’s evil or malicious, and understanding why she’s doing it can help temper your reactions.
I agree; real yelling should be saved for big things like these, or like the examples Zeriel gave. If her dad truly does yell about every single thing, she might learn to fear him, as you say. But there’s also the possibility that she’ll start to tune it out and just do what she wants anyway. Or it could go the opposite way: if yelling is the immediate response when she does something wrong, and she’s not given an opportunity to think about the consequences and choose other actions, then she might start to become fearful and hesitant not only toward her dad, but toward life in general.
The problem is that, aside from everything else, her brain is not fully formed yet - far from it. At this age, her impulse control is next to nil. So even if she is absolutely certain that the consequences will be negative, she may do something she wants to because she literally cannot stop herself. The desire is just too great for her to overcome. The only thing that will help this is time. But in the meantime, she needs lots and lots practice, so that when her brain is better able to handle self-control, she can make the right choices.
So, what I try to do is stop my guy *before *he’s done something wrong, or just after he’s started, and say something like, “If you bang your fork on the table again, I’ll have to take it away. Forks are only for eating.” Then, if he does it again, I quietly and regretfully deliver the punishment (even as I’m wresting the fork from him as he screams): “Oh, that’s too bad. You were banging your fork, so I’ll have to take it away. Forks aren’t for banging, they’re for eating.” Then finally, I’ll give him another chance: “Okay, it’s been five minutes. Do you want to try again with the fork? Remember, if you bang it, I’ll have to take it, and you can try again tomorrow.” Now, he’s so used to this routine that usually, all I have to do is say (calmly), “Hey, do you need me to take your fork?” And he’ll say, “Nooooo…” And I’ll respond, “Then you need to eat, not bang it,” and we’re good.
All that said, though, I also agree with this:
For a long time, I was trying to be totally calm at all times, unless it was an emergency like running into the street or touching a hot pan. I felt bad admonishing him for something if he wasn’t intentionally trying to be hurtful or bad. What finally cured me of this was when he went through a phase of “playfully” hitting us. My gentle "please do not do that"s only made him laugh and hit harder. I realized that getting angry when hit is a normal human reaction, and the kid needs to learn that. He also needs to learn how to deal with his own anger, so it’s important for me to demonstrate how to get angry without hitting, hurting, or otherwise losing control.
So, just the other day, he was playing with some friends and hit a girl over the head with a toy (not hard, she was mad, but fine). I saw it happen; it was definitely on purpose. I immediately got angry: I yelled his name, picked him up, and said very loudly and sharply, “That is a timeout! We do not hit! Anyone! Ever!” But then, still holding him, I turned to the girl and said, “Honey, I’m so sorry he hit you. Are you okay?” When she said yes, I told her he was going to have a timeout, and then he would come and say he was sorry. During and after the timeout, I reminded him why it was happening (“You hit Annie. We do not hit.”) and I spoke sharply and seriously. Then, I softened my voice and said, “No more hitting. Can I have a hug?” BIG hug. “Do you feel okay now?” He nodded. “Let’s go tell Annie you’re sorry for hitting her, and give her a hug to make her feel better.” Big grin, and that’s exactly what he did. Then I hugged him again and told him I was proud of him for saying sorry. The girl was not terribly receptive to his apology, but that’s her prerogative.
Now, let me tell you; it was not easy to rein in my anger. I was really, really mad, and also mortified - he had done this right in front of the girl’s mom. On the other hand, it was also difficult to punish him. He was screaming and in tears, and the girl had really been provoking him, so I’m sure he felt that he was justified and the timeout was totally unfair. I felt really bad for him, and for me, but I followed through. I don’t always. Occasionally, I get angry or annoyed and reach my breaking point, and yell, “Just! STOP!” But that rarely if ever gets me the reaction I want. He’ll have a tantrum and/or go right back to what he was doing (or some other naughty thing) within two minutes. What does work for us is: a warning, with a choice of actions and consequences, following through on those consequences, and a chance to try again. In cases like the above, where there is no opportunity to give a choice, then the punishment must be immediate, but there is still a verbal explanation of why it is happening, and also what we need to do to fix it (“We made a big mess with the peas, now we need to clean them up,” or “We hit Annie and gave her a boo-boo; now we need to say sorry and make her boo-boo feel better”), to help him make the connection.
TL;DR: At this age, kids primarily need reinforcement that if you do X, the consequences are always Y. Snapping, yelling, and anger are useful and even important in reinforcing that, but if they’re constant, and without explanation, they’re counterproductive at best.
Seriously - I know in all parenting threads people’s reactions are always formed by their own childhood issues, but this one is kind of alarming in the extremes I’m seeing.
While I appreciate hearing everyone’s points of view, it’s true that people’s
responses here are definitely colored by their own experiences.
Mr. smaje is not abusive, and is not in danger of becoming abusive. The man wouldn’t hurt a kitten. But I want him to understand that I do not like the way he raises his voice to the baby in order to get her immediate attention. It surprises her in a negative way and is not teaching her the right way to solve problems.
I spent a lot of time last night observing Mr. smaje with the baby. She tried to use her hair brush to brush the dirt in a house plant, and Mr. smaje spoke firmly to her (not shouting, just firmly). I used this as an opportunity to speak with him about phsyically removing her from the situation, or going to her directly and moving her hand away from the plant. I think he thinks that shouting to her across the room will surprise her into stopping her behavior – instead, I’ve observed that it surprises her, but she doesn’t necessarily stop.
We also spoke about work stress, and I insisted that he take some more spare time to himself (going to the movies, the book store, the library, a drive). We have always tried to balance the home/parenting responsibilities, but since he is so stressed at work, I’d be happy to take on extra responsibilities so he can get his life in better order.
I’ll keep on top of him about the shouting (as I said above, he doesn’t do it often, but I’ve seen it happening more and more and just want to put a stop to it). I’ll also bring him along to baby smaje’s next doctor’s appointment to speak together with her pediatrician about the best ways to handle discipline. And I think we can both read some parenting books together, because I know I am not 100% correct in the way I do things with her. I’m completely willing to compromise with him, but as I said before, I just won’t tolerate unneccessary shouting.
Ah, this sounds like he thinks Baby Smaje understands more than she does. I know it’s been a big problem with Middlebro and his wife; even with their eldest about to turn 7, they don’t have a very good understanding of what does a kid understand and not, or about the difference between being able to 1) realize that whatever the grownups are saying has to be interesting or that it’s exciting, 2) being able to parrot it, and 3) actually comprehending its meaning. The baby doesn’t understand speeches (yet), specially from the other end of the room.
I have a 19 month old who manages to get into everything. Sometimes, the only way to stop him from doing something is to raise my voice. It’s usually just “DASHLING, NO!” in a loud enough tone to get his attention.
I am not going to sit there speaking in a gentle voice while my son continues spilling drinks or scratching DVDs or whatever the hell he’s doing.
Note that the “calm voice, elevated voice, raised voice” method does work with our 4 year old so I tend to use that.
