To think Dsis is overeacting after SS hit niece?

Your neice sounds awful.

Of course you ss shouldn't have hit her, but rules for life are he is almost adult sized and hitting anyone is wrong, hitting someone smaller than you even more so. He has to learn this really fast before any other issues.

I would try and smooth it over with sister by apologising, checking on neice and assuring her you are addressing step sons behaviour.

Going forward i would not have neice and ss together for his own sake as well as hers. I would try to have a relationship with my sister without the kids (if you want). Maybe once neice able to behave and ss can control himself it can change again in a few years.

You are deluding yourself if you think that they are not terrified of him.

Incredible. She is not equally in the wrong.
So when he hits his partner or child because they "wound him up" i guess you'll defend that too.
This is how men become abusers because theyre told its ok.
Your sister is completely correct.
Go home. I wouldn't want to be round him either.

Problem is this lad is likely to meet other people adults and children who just won’t bloody quit it. He can’t go lumping them all.

Someone one day bigger and stronger will hit him, or he will end up with charges or both.

Yes, I'm awful for calling out clearly woeful parenting.

Being a wind up isn't illegal.

When he ends up in prison he'll learn the hard way.

When you say he “hit” her, can you describe what you mean OP?

Do you mean he shoved her? Slapped her face? Punched her in the arm? What?

You know that it’s not OK that he raised a hand to a 10 yr old. No one is condoning that.

But it’s not unusual for cousins, siblings etc to scrap physically a bit sometimes so being more specific about what he did would make it easier to judge. If he just shoved her shoulder or similar, I’m not too sure I’d be massively upset (given her behaviour) but if he slapped her around the face or punched her, I’d be horrified.

Also worth pointing out that as boys go through puberty, it’s not about their size. DS is still shorter than me and he’s a skinny little thing….but suddenly he’s much stronger than I am. He doesn’t do sport or go to the gym - but he’s 16. Puberty provides boys with much greater strength than girls, even the boys that are small in stature. That’s why your comment about his size has been criticised. He will be hugely more powerful than her and could easily do real harm.

Everyone has their limits and he was clearly being provoked beyond his. Given you know he has anger issues that he’s in treatment for, you needed to step in. Are you suggesting that your niece would have ignored you if you’d stopped her going after him?

I have a similar age gap between my son and my niece (albeit they are younger) and if he hit her it would be him I was furious at. There is no excuse. I think you have your priorities wrong op

Teaching the little madam that it is okay to keep provoking until somebody reacts?

Lots of playing out totally inadequacy to control their emotions on here and blaming someone else for YOUR violence

The name calling of a ten year old says everything about possessive sexist attitudes too. The 15 year old had earlier had to be restrained from an arcade machine...here is your pattern if behaviour...the rest a ridiculous distraction from inaction and poor supervision

What about the baby? If the baby is crying and being annoying, will it justify the 15yo pummelling them?

Point is he needs to tolerate little kids being annoying.

I'm not sure you are up to the task of managing difficult behaviour in kids. Which is okay but you need to get help with it. All the children in the room witnessed his violence. I wonder how they all felt. Were they frightened? And are they now frightened of this older kid?

You need someone to come in and observe the family dynamics and help you as a family to manage this behaviour.

OP I think perhaps knowing the 15yos difficult start has clouded your judgement slightly and you're giving him some free passes. You clearly feel sorry for him but you also need to look at the bigger picture which is you are preparing him for life in the big world. If your colleague is winding you up and you clumped them you'd be arrested.

That was what I was thinking. But ops children are not scared of him and living on egg shells just perfect and will never ever do something even by accident to trigger him.

Like maybe beating him at his favourite game, taking the last ice cream, singing too loud or badly. Maybe accidentally genuinely accidentally spilling or damaging something of his.

Ops so sure of it all.

My children can argue someone’s breathing too close to them so 🤷🏻‍♀️🤣

Why did your sister think it was OK to dump her DD on you, leaving you feeding your baby, five children in a caravan. DH should have been present.

I think you're getting a hard time, OP. You are clearly trying to do the right thing by this traumatised young man who equally clearly is struggling to handle his emotions at the moment. Violence is never the answer, and he does need help to learn to manage his emotions, otherwise he could end up in a lot of trouble. But by the sounds of it, there are good reasons why he's struggling at the moment. Maternal abuse/abandonment causes a lot of damage and if he's been hit himself (I don't know if he has been) then that will have normalised that behaviour to him.

But also, your niece shouldn't have wound him up like that. Of course he shouldn't have hit her, but she doesn't deserve to get off scot-free because she's not an innocent party in this. Her mother needs to have stern words with her about respecting other people's boundaries. If you follow people around, harrassing them, then yes you will also get yourself into trouble.

OP I'd just go home and let this one blow over.

I don't think this is something that will teach this girl a lesson because I think she got exactly what she wanted out of this incident.

We only have OP’s word that the water was an ‘accident’, and you’ll have to forgive me for not seeing her as a reliable narrator.

Maybe this will teach the girl that actions have consequences. This was just a boy that she was tormenting. Another time it might be someone adult, much bigger and stronger. Not only that, she totally disrespected him by pouring water on his drawing. And her mother is a failure as a mother. She needs to teach the girl how to behave.

Yes I absolutely think she should apologise. She behaved appallingly.

Her sister wasn't even there. @PapaSteel was. Instead of oh stop, dont do that, leave him alone @PapaSteel should have intervened before it escalated. Instead she watched it all unfold and did nothing. Now shes trying to blame a 10 year old for running their mouth for a 15 year old hitting them.

You could teach this on DV courses...being "got at" as an excuse for violence

Because of "femininely" (sic) ways 🤦‍♀️