My brother and his wife recently separated and he has moved back in with our parents. They have not yet divorced or sorted out anything financially, so he still gives his wife all his salary. They have 3 small children (age 3 and under) who my brother sees twice per week, once at my parents' house.
He isn't paying my parents any rent as it transpires that him and his wife are in debt, partly because they bought a large house they couldn't afford. He is very disorganised and driving my parents mad as they cook, clean, do his washing and get him up for work as they worry he'll lose his job and the financial situation will be even worse.
When his has his children round he often shouts at them and rants about how they are "winding him up" and doing it on purpose. He does love them and talks about them with great fondness (and to them a lot of the time) but he can't seem to understand that a 3 year old isn't capable of behaving like an adult. He puts the older two in time out repeatedly and they don't even understand why. He shouts at them when they have toilet training accidents. This culminated in him locking them in the bathroom at my parents house for bad behaviour. My parents were appalled and told him to let them out and he shouted and swore at them about how he knew best, they had to learn, my parents had no idea (they have 5 grown-up children and countless grandchildren). Despite this his children do miss him terribly and try to block his way from leaving or hang onto his leg when they are being picked up. The older two have also just started nursery for the first time and are toilet training so it is obviously a stressful time for them (which we have pointed out to db without success).
What can I do to improve this situation?
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Worried about my brother's parenting WWYD?
4 replies
Tolly81 · 09/02/2013 21:02
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