|
Skutch, I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to give you both barrels full of honestly.
You were abusive. Were you physically abusive? No. Were you verbally abusive? Oh, hell yeah. Your daughter pitched a temper tantrum in the middle of a store, and you seem to have handled that pretty well. Maybe you caved by leaving the store, but that's more of a relationship thing between the two of you than anything else and isn't all that important.
The fact that you got in the car, drove a few miles and then exploded is what I'm talking about, though. That's verbal abuse. You admitted that you scared BOTH kids. That, in my opinion, is where everything went wrong for you.
Now if this is an isolated incident, that's one thing. However, I get the feeling that it wasn't. I'd be happy to be proven wrong, but it seems to me that there's a concern that you're a powder keg waiting to explode. If you're not, then you need to convince everyone that you're not. If you are, then you probably need to accept the fact that you need help. You may even want to consider getting help even if you don't think you have a problem so that you can be seen as recognizing the issue and being proactive. If you can get an expert to say that you don't have anger issues, it makes your case that much stronger.
A good attorney would tell you pretty much the same. Go find one.
__________________
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - B. Franklin
"There ought to be limits to freedom." - George W. Bush
"We have met the enemy and he is us." - Pogo
|