Me 8 months on, dark and trying to detach.

[hotwheelsaust]

my boys are scared to do things with me as I constantly criticised them for doing it wrong. When? How? Why? I don't know or remember anything that resembled that, but this came from the boys speaking to the friend rather than the wife.

This reminded me of something that happened with my father.
He took me out for one driving lesson when I was 17. After 45 minutes any confidence I had in my driving was pretty much gone.
I said something like I'm nowhere near ready for my test if I'm this bad!
He said I was really good.
I said all I've heard is bad things.

He was only telling me when I didn't something wrong. No praise when I did it right.

After that the driving lesson went really well because he was communicating with me the way I needed him to.

Sometimes it can be what your not saying.

If I never said anything to him and then later my mother asked me how it went I could have easily said he just criticised me.

Obviously this could be nothing like what you are experiencing with your sons but it shows the situation is not always as we see it.

You could look at the same experience many times and not see the problem if your not equipped to see it.
Rather than looking back trying to get blood from a stone just concentrate on future interactions. Look for your criticising or anything that coud be seen as such. Notice it, adjust what isn't working and move forward.

T1000, thank you for joining in with great feedback. I think you hit the nail on the head with your driving example. Firstly I believe the way my sons feel are based on growing up, rather than lately. I feel that some of the things I have learn here and read, have made me see things in a lot different light. Secondly, your example was so great, as I have had to teach both boys to drive. Down here they were required to do 100 hours of learning. I spent a lot of hours therefore taking them around the place. I have never heard anything negative about my teaching them to drive, either from the wife or from the friend. If anything, I feel that how I acted teaching them, is what I should have been doing the rest of my life. When teaching I did focus on their positives a lot. If they made mistakes, it wasn't stated as a negative, but feedback was given to how they could have changed the situation to being better. Really I am quite proud of teaching my boys to drive. Both have their licences, on the first attempt, both have cars and both (touch wood) have never been involved in an accident or been booked.
"You could look at the same experience many times and not see the problem if your not equipped to see it.
Rather than looking back trying to get blood from a stone just concentrate on future interactions. Look for your criticising or anything that could be seen as such. Notice it, adjust what isn't working and move forward."
T1000, I think this is all I can do, what has happened has happened, whether I remember it, whether I can justify what I did or whether it is wrong. I simply need to listen to people, hear what they are saying and try my best to change for the better.