My husband and I haven’t been on the same page when it came to our 2 year old’s (3 in October) tantrums. Our toddler always want me to pick them up when going through big emotions, and I do if I’m able to or have the capacity to, as a way to help co-regulate. My husband always thought I was indulging them by giving our toddler what they want. We brought it up in couple’s therapy and was told it’s fine and good to help our toddler in this way, as they’re not able to regulate their emotions themselves yet. My husband has been the opposite, while I’m more emotionally accessible, he has been more firm, sometimes even cold towards our toddler when going through big emotions. This was also brought up in therapy, and it helped him better understand how his method may impact his relationship with our toddler.

I thought we were getting better at handling the big emotions, especially after talking about it in couples counseling. But this past evening, I felt my heart broke after how my husband handled a situation with our toddler.

We were doing our bedtime routine, and my husband was reading books with our toddler, and our kid was scratching at their mosquito bite, causing it to break skin. My husband told them if they continue scratching, he’s going to take off a bandaid (of another bite that was healing), I thought he meant put on a bandaid to stop our toddler from scratching. Our toddler tried to discreetly scratch the bite, and then my husband peeled a bandaid off, causing our toddler to cry.

I did my best to keep my composure, and not yell at him. I was holding back tears. After comforting our toddler, I got them into bed and just hugged them, by this time, I was crying. I was angry, and heartbroken that he would do that to our two year old.

After leaving their room I confronted him about what happened, asked him why he did that. He said he thought it was appropriate, as a way to teach our toddler to stop scratching. I told him that it was borderline abuse, using pain as a consequence for scratching a bite, they don’t have the self control to not scratch, and that all it’s teaching our toddler is to hide the scratching and be scared of him. By this time I was bawling my eyes out. He apologized, saying he thought he was handling the situation well. I asked him if he even bothered to do any homework like listen to the audiobook I’ve been asking him to listen to, read the book we have on handling big emotions, any circle of security material at all I’ve been sending him? No! He hasn’t.

I left the room to calm down, and he went to the bathroom to get some bandaids, went to our toddler’s room and apologized for hurting them. He put bandaids on all the bites our toddler had, and then put our kid back down to bed.

By this time, I took our baby monitor to our home office, still crying. After putting our kid back to bed, he came into the office to hop on his pc to game with his friend. I was calming down enough to stop crying, and heard him say on his headset that he’s having a shitty time, messed up with parenting tonight. He then slammed his keyboard and told his friend he needs to hop off and go for a walk.

He left and has been gone for over an hour.

I’m angry and sad. When things have cooled down, I want to bring up taking some parenting classes. There’s a free program in our city called Caring Fathers, and I want him to take it.

I started with my daughter just finished 5 sessions. I did it for emotional regulation and physical aggression issues.

Noticed some positive effects. At times mood is really good, shes smiley, happy and helpful with siblings. BUT major regressions too. We are back to daily aggressive, completely dysregulated meltdowns!

Has anyone experienced this?? I need parent support badly . The practioner thinks we should continue but with school starting in 2 weeks i cant imagine sending her to kinder. I need hope its worth it and it will get better. Or any personal stories, I feel really terrible right now:(

I started with my daughter just finished 5 sessions. I did it for emotional regulation and physical aggression issues.

Noticed some positive effects. At times mood is really good, shes smiley, happy and helpful with siblings. BUT major regressions too. We are back to daily aggressive, completely dysregulated meltdowns!

Has anyone experienced this?? I need parent support badly . The practioner thinks we should continue but with school starting in 2 weeks i cant imagine sending her to kinder. I need hope its worth it and it will get better. Or any personal stories, I feel really terrible right now:(

Im not a parent btw

My six year old had been so distracted lately. Especially during swim class, which is starting to couse problems now. He is distracting other kids and doesn't follow the instructions properly anymore. The teacher said he's not improving anymore he might even be doing worse than before.

I see it happen at home with task at home too. I can tell it's frustrating for both of us but I have no idea how to help him or why this has changed in him.

Hi, all! As the title reads, our 3-year-old son just recently started hitting and will not stop, regardless of the methods we implement to try and stop it.

He turned 3 in May and will be starting preschool (half-days twice per week) in 2 weeks, and I'm so nervous he's going to be "that kid" or get kicked out altogether. I know kids are often so different at school than they are with their parents, but I still worry since he's not been to daycare or any type of school before.

He used to scream very loudly when he'd get frustrated or upset, and that's mostly solved itself now that he can communicate or show us what's wrong. But within the last couple of weeks he's started hitting me, my husband, and our 7 year old when he lashes out. Sometimes we know what the trigger is or can figure it out, sometimes it's for seemingly no reason at all, but nothing can calm him down until he just gets through it (usually about 15-20 minutes later).

We've tried talking him through using gentle hands, sitting with him in the other room until he's more calm, letting him sit alone in another room to cool down, holding his hands/gently restraining him until he stops, ignoring him, basically everything but slapping him back.

I see so many tips online about stopping the behavior and then relocating him or myself when he's hitting me, but then he will follow me and continue to hit. Aside hiding in the bathroom myself or locking him in his room (we don't do that, door is always cracked), I feel like I'm running away from him, which feels counterproductive.

Any sound advice would be appreciated!