Husband and confrontational discipline

[scampbeast]

Why is it that my husband only seems to be able to use confrontation when my son is being naughty? It never works and all that happens is that DS ends up in an even worse tantrum than he started in. I have tried to explain and show by example how to use tone of voice, distraction and even avoidance when a tantrum starts but husband just starts shouting even when I am in the process of calming DS down. He tells me he has ?Had enough? of the behaviour even when I have only had a couple of minutes to try to get DS to behave. He has watched enough episodes of Supernanny that I feel he should have got the message that shouting and confrontation only make the situation worse.
Since I started work and DH has son to himself more often the tantrums have gotten to the stage of throwing and breaking things. Every time I even come upstairs to my computer DS tries to follow me as he doesn?t want to stay with his dad. Husband tells him off for things as simple as talking to him as DH just wants to watch his TV show and isn?t capable of listening to his son at the same time.
I just left the room and came upstairs, DS had calmed down and stopped crying for 2 minutes, then I heard DH started telling him off again so he is now crying and screaming all over again. How can I get through to my husband that he has to stop taking out his stress at not working out on our son. I understand when he does it to me but DS is too little to understand.
He has now just set DS off for the 3rd time after he has calmed down, I don?t want to undermine him but I feel that I am going to have to go back downstairs to get him to stop.

Sorry to be ranting on but I am just so tired off this happening every day. Last night they returned home early from grannys house as he had a tantrum there because DS didn?t want to sit beside DH. I would have just told DS to go sit somewhere else then but husband told him he would sit where he was told.

[sannaville]

How old is ds to start with? And who is doing the throwing and breaking things Dh or ds? If its ds then I would not tolerate this at all and if its got to this stage then you may need to rethink your behaviour strategies as they may not be working.

Dh is wrong to tell him off just for talking but equally if your child is older (?) Then they shouldn't be tantrumming over something so small or so frequently.

Yes your Dh needs to change but don't think its all DHS doing as your stress could be rubbing off on your ds as well

[sannaville]

Sorry have to agree with your Dh on last part, if ds is told to sit somewhere then he should do (age dependent of course) and shouldn't throw a strip to get his own way.

[Davsmum]

No wonder your son has tantrums if he has a Dad who is shouting at him all the time.
It puzzles me why people think shouting at children is an effective way of dealing with them. Children don't hear what you are saying or take i ton baord if you are yelling,.. and it certainly is not discipline.
Did your husbands parents shout at him when he was a child?
He seems constantly irritated by your son - Did he want children?

God knows why he was insisting your son sat next to him - but if there was a reason then of course your son should do as he was told - but if he ended up having a tantrum its because your husband must have totally handled it wrong.

You need to find out whats behind his attitude so really all you can do is talk to him - but I guess you cannot MAKE him change.

[scampbeast]

DS is 3 1/2 and he is the one throwing things, but only after DH starts shouting at him. Today I managed to get him to sit on the naughty time out step as DH was upstairs on his computer so couldn't get in the way. Last night before I left for night shift it was all shouting and tantrums again, I didn't even say goodbye to him before I left

[BertieBotts]

Sometimes it's good to be firm and stand your ground, but if he's making everything into a confrontation then that isn't helpful. Especially because your DS will find it hard to establish what's a big issue and what's a minor one because his dad overreacts to everything. Taking him home early from something because he threw a tantrum over not getting to sit where he wanted sounds like an overreaction - the key is to not get into a situation where the discipline vs the child's reaction to being disciplined is spiralling and becoming a conflict.

It's quite normal for tantrums to escalate as the child gets to 3 or 4, so it might not be a reaction to your husband's methods of dealing with him, but you sound concerned enough for it to be an issue.

Why is your DH trying to watch his TV show when DS is around? I wouldn't bother with a 3.5 year old unless it was a family film or something, adult's TV programmes are for when young children are in bed, and it's a fact of life that if you're in sole charge of them you can't guarantee that they won't be asking you things and demanding your attention, so by all means do things when they're around, but don't expect them to totally leave you alone to do it. If there's something you need to be uninterrupted for a good length of time for, then you need childcare.

[yawningbear]

Your DH sounds very stressed and your DS sounds very unhappy. Given that his Dad shouts at him on a frequent basis I think it is unsurprising that he wouldn't want to sit next to him. He sounds quite sensible really, with that and following you up the stairs because he doesn't want to staywith his Dad. I agree that it is important to be firm and consistent but it is equally important to play and have fun together. I am far from perfect and when stressed have yelled at the kids but it's infrequent and I know it's wrong and am always looking or other and better ways of dealing with things. Has your DH always been like this?

[thezoobmeister]

It sounds like noone is happy with this arrangement ... how about finding alternative childcare?