Should I be mad?

Question

My husband couldn't handle our almost three year olds tantrum today and ended up lashing out at her. He yelled that she is "horrible" and that he didn't want to see or talk to her for the rest of the day. He also yelled that we (him and I) don't deserve this "Shit".. he's normally the calm one when she has a tantrum but today was the exception. I took her right away into the other room and hugged her till she stopped crying and calmed down and I tried to explain that daddy was just very upset and that he loves her etc.. she seemed fine afterwards and I had to hurry and take her to kindergarten so there was no time for them to reconcile. My husband cried when I got home and said he felt horrible.. I'm not sure whether to be angry at him or feel sorry. Do you think calling her horrible is really bad!? We are trying to do peaceful parenting obviously failing miserably..

Answer

The fact he cried shows it was a one off and maybe the tantrum got the better of him at that moment. Don’t be mad at him he probably already feels shit. We all lose our cool at times even with our kids, it’s only human nature to feel stressed, annoyed etc. your little one being fine also shows she doesn’t think any different of daddy and still loves him. I’m the more calm parent but there have been times where I’ve lost my shit with the kids due to stressful day or them just pushing every boundary. But we all apologise and cuddle after.

Answer

We all have bad days.
Just think it trough. Learn from it. And relax. That doesn't make he or you bad parent.

Answer

Having an outburst isn’t failing miserably. He’s human! Just like a toddler, he has emotions. If he’s usually the calm one, then it sounds like this was an out of the ordinary situation. Give him some grace. We all lose our cool sometimes. It’s a good opportunity for him to apologize to your child, and explain that he understands that sometimes feelings are too big to contain and they just have to come out, but he didn’t mean what he said and he’ll try to do better. It’s just as important for children to learn by example how to make an apology.

Answer

Nobody’s failing! Parenting is f’n hard! And 3 year old are actual demons, I’m convinced. It sounds like he’s mad at himself enough for the both of you. When I lose my shit I sit with my kids when I’m calm again and apologize for how I acted and what I said, and we talk about how sometimes being a kid is hard and sometimes being a parent is hard too and next time things are hard I’ll try to act better.

Answer

Parenting is hard. We all have good days and bad ones. I would ask him to apologise to her. That’s very important. Explain that daddy was angry this morning. It’s okay to be upset and angry sometimes but next time he will do better and use breathing techniques or calming mantras etc. basically use the tools that we try to give children to handle their big feelings.

Answer

You've got some great advice here so I'm just here to say you're doing a better job than you think! Keep it up mom and dad! ❤️

Answer

We all lose our shit sometimes. I swore at my husband during an argument the other day, not even directed at my 3 year old but it scared him and I feel SOOO damn guilty still. I'd let it go, especially since he's clearly remorseful.

Answer

He should apologize to her, and maybe come up with an alternative if she acts up again and he gets frustrated, but no you shouldnt be mad. Sometimes if we are both home, we switch off dealing with the tantrum vs the parent having the power struggle handling it, or we do good cop/bad cop eg "I know hunny, you dont want to put your shoes on like daddy asked, youre right it's a LOT to do, but it is time to go so here you go, here are your shoes"

Answer

First off, you're not failing miserably. The fact that you're questioning whether what you did and what husband did were the right things proves you aren't failing.
Everyone has an off day, and that's OK to have an off day as long as you learn from it amd move forward differently.  The fact that your husband feels horrible for the way he handled the situation means that he's going to learn from it.
Tantrums are THE worst, to us as rational adults they serve no purpose because we can reason out most things. To young children they haven't learnt that ability yet - so a tantrum becomes the default often.  It's important how you handle a tantrum as to how the child will react, learn and alter the behaviour. There is no hard and fast because all children learn and respond differently - so it is a case of finding a method that works for your child.
My son is a little over 2 years old and has just started tantrums. We are also using gentle parenting methods. So when his tantrum hits its a case of a quick assess of why the tantrum has happened and a swift counter - we've found time out works like a charm with him irrespective of whether the tantrum is he hasn't gotten something he wanted or he doesn't want to leave somewhere. We give him a count down and from 1-3 and are very clear that if we get to 3 he goes in time out. If he reaches 3 then we follow through and put him in timeout. (This is usually just a sit down somewhere away from everything so can be used anywhere). We sit quietly for 2 minutes (a minute for each year of life). When the time is up we have a cuddle and we ALWAYS explain why he went into timeout and that his behaviour / actions made us feel sad, or that they were dangerous etc. He picks up, gives us a kiss and back to normal.

Should I be mad?

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