Need help figuring this out

[Lakebreeze]

So if anyone can help me figure this out, I just feel confused. Here is the situation. At dinner tonight my often difficult 4 year old was giving is a hard time ( not uncommon). My husband uBPD was starting to raise his voice with her and I was keeping quiet because he feels it very disrespectful if I get involved. Eventually he looked at me and said " you deal with this, do whatever you want" I clarified " do you want me to handle it? " And proceeded to serve up spaghetti, etc to her liking ( very particular kid, nothing can touch on her plate, etc etc, my husband has no patience for it). He starts saying " haha she has you playing her game, there you go playing right into her game." I said " if you want me to handle this please dont comment on it." His response was to raise his voice and say )I'm parahrasing here) " ___ you, you just told me to shut up, well it's you that should shut up, you never respect me, I will not tolerate being disrespected anymore etc, etc. I got up and started washing dishes and after a few minutes he got up and left the table. Kids sitting and observing this whole thing. Ok... help me figure out where I went wrong here? How can I do better next time? My gut is telling me I should never have responded to his comments.

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[JoeBPD81]

Hi, very tense situation there.

I don't think you did anything wrong. You seem to have different views on educating a child. Who can say which way is wrong? So far there is no foolproof tactic to raise perfect children. You were put in an impossible situation where you had to either invalidate your partner or your daughter. The adult should be the one able to adapt and be the better man, right?, but we have an adult that is emotionally still a child.

So, you have to accept that there will be times when there is no winning.

You can try to put some boundaries to the limit-testing of the 4 year old. Kids today have a way about making themselves king of the house, and they are not kind rulers. And on the other side, be extra validating before reminding your husband that you are taking care of a situation.  But you are only human!

We were 4 siblings, and none of us could have an opinion about food. We had to ate what was served (and in my country it was normal to eat lamb testis and brains, for instance), no one care if we liked it, or if we liked how it was served/cooked. Today that sounds awful, but all of us like all kinds of food today and we love our mother, and know she loves us. All the parents I know today, have a lot of trouble at lunch/dinner time, the kids know it is a time to get a lot of attention, and they don't care if it's negative attention.

There are some documentaries called "human planet" were they show how people around the world struggle to get food in hard conditions. My kids gained some perspective about food seeing how some people don't get to choose, and they are just lucky and happy to get some water or food. But that perspective, don't think it made us parents win the battle, we still struggle.

On the other hand, that can reinforce your Hs behaviour. And he would unconciously know that when he gets angry, he gets his way.

You are in the unfair position of being in the middle, and you ask yourself to make one right out of two wrongs... .No one can. You just can work to be as calm as you can so you react from your wise mind.

Try to not beat yourself up about this, yo do your best, and that's all you can do. Live to fight another day.

[Lakebreeze]

[quote author=JoeBPD81 link=topic=312745.msg12888585#msg12888585 date=15012363

Try to not beat yourself up about this, yo do your best, and that's all you can do. Live to fight another day.


[/quote]
Thanks for the perspective Joe. It helps tremendously. I'm keeping the above quote of yours as my motto for the hard times. You nailed it when you said we have differing parenting approaches.  We have 4 daughters, 5,4,4 and 1 and only the one pushes all the boundaries, becomes completely dysregulated over noodles. We had her evaluated for autism. But in public she can completely turn it off. She is deceptively charming in public. Im afraid it's the tender begginings of BPD. More than a little heart breaking. Thanks again for your reply.

[JoeBPD81]

Wow, you do have your hands full.

I have two boys, she had them when I meet her, so I've been learning to be a father on the spot. They are s10 and s6. And they are both a handful in their own way. In many ways s6 acts more mature than s10, but then,in public, s10 can behave out of shame, and s6 takes the spotlight.

I think people outside the family make him (s10) mindful of how he is seen by other people, the posibility of shame or judgement acts as a filter, some seconds when he can think before acting, and that does wonders. While at home is like a wild animal every impulse has to be acted on inmediatelly.

We just had 10 days without the kids for the 1st time in 10 years for my GF, and she relaxed and she was a new person. One day back, and she is having tachycardia, guilt, sense of being a failure, anger... .Having kids is soo lovely... .

Hang in there!

[surfsupap1]

Wow, I am so sorry. If it helps, I have two teenagers and a GF BPD who has never had kids.

What we have found is that all discipline issues need to be agreed upon in private between the parents so we can both stand together with one voice when stuff happens. Otherwise they undermine your credibility. Also, it's a wonderful message for the kids because they can see us adults working together and the kids can't play one off against the other.

You did nothing wrong, when he is not in a emotional whirlpool and can listen, tell him that this was not acceptable and in the future you would like him to resist the temptation of saying anything in front of the child. You will listen to anything or ideas he has and will take them into consideration, you are doing the best you can and it's not always easy to know how to handle situations with kids in the moment. Best to just pause or even pull the child aside and tell them lovingly how their behavior was un acceptable.  Come to this agreement of a plan of action with your spouse and tell him to back off or support you.

Good luck.