Mom reacts oddly to son's artwork, dad says, 'that was a bad parenting move.'
When this mom is conflicted about her son and husband, she asks Reddit:
'AITA for what I said to my son after he scribbled on my husband’s home office walls?'
I’ve been painting a mural for my unborn baby’s nursery and my son (3M) has been watching and helping me do it.
He knows it’s a gift for his little brother and he wanted to do the same for his dad so he went into his home office and scribbled all over the walls while my mother-in-law was watching him. When we saw what he had done, our son was really excited but I think my husband was in shock because he was just looking at the scribbles without saying anything.
I told my son good job and that it looked really pretty but he needed to use paper next time instead after he said he made a present for his dad.
My husband never said anything in front of our son but when we were alone, he was upset that I said “good job” to him because he doesn’t think I should be praising him for vandalising his office.
I told him he just wanted to do something nice for him and we could have the office repainted or I could turn it into a mural if he wanted me to but he’s still upset at me for encouraging his behaviour and he keeps locking his office so our son can’t go inside again. AITA?
Let's find out.
wholehyena99 writes:
NTA. Teaching children healthy boundaries is NOT the same as punishing children for trying to do good. You will do way more to harm their confidence and willingness to go out of their way to do nice things if you flip what they think is a nice present into a scolding.
OP handled it beautifully, and legitimately, who has children and actually gets upset at scribbling on walls? It happens. Inevitably. If you have kids, you need to be emotionally prepared for them to break, 'vandalize' and misuse things, and to be gentle with them when it happens.
campidnan writes:
YTA. I’m all for non-authoritative parenting but this is taking it a step too far. Telling him “good job” instead of explaining why it’s wrong right off the bat reinforces the bad behavior. I would also be upset if a kid drew all over my office walls.
realstareyes writes:
YTA. I‘m sorry, but 'good job' implies what he‘s done is right and absolutely won‘t teach your son anything other than further misbehaving. You could’ve explained it to him without enabling it.