A mum has turned to the internet for help after finding out her husband left a bite mark on their son to punish him.
There are always lots of opinions on how parents should discipline their children, not only from other family members, partners and friends but also experts.
However, one mum has been left in a difficult situation after disagreeing with her husband about how to punish their two-year-old.
The woman said her son is a ‘handful’ and ‘wild’ but isn’t ‘malicious’. “He’s a cute and happy child, always smiling but yeah, always getting into stuff and needs constant supervision which drives my husband crazy,” she explained at the beginning of her post.
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“My son had his biting stage which is normal and I had been trying to correct it with redirection but my husband kept insisting we need to bite him back’ so he knows what it feels like.”
She went on to describe an incident which has caused some distress for her. “We would argue about it and I said NO, I absolutely do not want him biting the baby.
“I wasn’t home and my son bit him (he was biting when he wanted attention and I’m sure my husband was playing games on his phone ignoring him, expecting him to entertain himself).
“So my husband went ahead and bit him on the arm.
“He told me about it when I got home and I was furious. He still had teeth indentations on his arm!! They faded shortly after so he said it wasn’t 'that bad'.
“My husband is a really big strong guy and he has NO idea how hard he does things. He tries to tickle me and it’s literally painful, he doesn’t understand how hard he is squeezing.
“So to me it’s even more important that he never, ever lay out any sort of physical punishment- the kid is only two. This is a toddler. He can really hurt him!
“He apologized, kind of, but maintained that we have different views.”
The mum explains that her husband has been insisting on giving her son a ‘whap’ if he does something wrong and the husband’s parents have also encouraged they do the same, however, the mum is against corporal punishment.
“I do NOT want spanking to be used as a punishment. Ever,” she wrote, explaining that ‘it’s weird’ and ‘not productive’ and ‘teaches zero lessons except that you can’t really ever trust your parents because they’re willing to hurt you’.
The Reddit thread has attracted 700 comments, with many Reddit users up in arms about the husband’s behaviour’.
One person commented: "I think people do divorce over physical punishments. Especially when they leave marks. If he did it to you it'd be DV, if he did it outside the house to an adult it’d be assault."
Lots of commenters were calling for the mum to divorce her husband over their different parenting styles, with one writing: “Physically disciplining a child is a deal breaker for me. Although it sounds more like your husband was taking out his anger issues on your baby.
"I’ve cut family members out of my life for putting their hands on my own child. I would 100% say at the very least marriage counseling with very clear messaging that this was his one and only time hitting his kid or else you file for divorce.
“Or just cut to the chase and divorce the guy.”
While another commenter wrote: “Children learn by watching the behaviour we model for them. Hitting a child to teach them not to hit is not only counterproductive but it’s just confusing for them. 'Do as I say and not as I do' makes no sense, just saying. Smacking kids is banned in the country I’m from for this very reason.”
After the mum asked for advice, another said: “Corporal punishment teaches the child nothing other than to fear their parent. You two need to be on the same page on this. I'd absolutely divorce over this and get sole custody. Start documenting. Call CPS if you feel that your son is unsafe with your husband.”
Gregory Robinson