We were at SIL’s Sunday for a just a family get-together. DS (12) and his older cousin (17) are normally very close. They always mess about, playfighting, wrestling etc and i’m forever telling them to pack it in before someone gets hurt.
They were doing their usual roughhousing when DN suddenly screamed. Everyone assumed he’d landed funny or twisted something. He tried to play it down but was pale and holding his side. SIL took him to minor injuries later.
SIL messaged Sunday night saying DN has a shoulder sprain and two cracked ribs. I felt awful, but we all genuinely thought it was just a stupid accident from messing about.
Then DS came to me this afternoon. He confessed that he meant to hurt his cousin. Not to this extent but he admitted he’d been getting wound up because DN had been teasing him earlier about being small/immature. He said when they were wrestling he “used a move to hurt him a bit”. His words. He insisted he didn’t want to cause serious injury but he did act on purpose and intentionally made him suffer.
I honestly didn’t know what to say. On one hand he clearly acted impulsively and now feels dreadful. He’s 12, not a monster. But on the other hand he intentionally hurt someone and the outcome was really serious. SIL and DN think it was just a freak accident.
Do I tell SIL the truth? Do I make DS tell her himself? Or is it kinder to handle it privately since he didn’t understand the potential for real harm and is already feeling guilty?