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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To be really upset with my brother re: ds?

291 replies

VicWillia · 16/03/2016 18:58

I'm genuinely interested to see if people think I'm right to be angry or if it's my ds who is a little wotsit who needs better discipline.

Ds is 5. He can be pretty cheeky as I guess a lot of 5 yo boys are. He is quite naughty with saying sorry - if he upsets someone it usually takes quite a while on the naughty step before he'll apologize. He's pretty stubborn.

Tonight, we were visiting my dm and my brother was there too. Ds was being cheeky and told my brother he was "fatty". For some reason my brother took massive offence (he isn't fat so he can't have taken it personally) and grabbed ds hands, saying he wouldn't let go until ds said sorry. Ds was trying to squirm away and wouldn't apologize. My brother wouldn't let him go so ds started playfully biting at my brothers fingers to get him to let go (it was definitely playfully, ds is not the sort of child to hurt others) and my brother slapped him across the face.

Ds was obviously very upset and had a red mark on his face. AIBU to be completely livid and feeling like I never want to see my brother again? Or should I have stepped in and made my ds apologize?

OP posts:
Chocolatteaddict1 · 18/03/2016 21:41

I was also a sports coach for children may for ten years and I wasn't bitten or called names either.

But then again children tend not to call their teacher/coach names and teachers/coaches tend not to restrain five years olds to which they could be bitten. Which you should also beware you would probally be picking your p45 up if you did.

Does name calling happen with in families. Yes - because there is a certain amount familiarity. Il

I find it hard to believe you work with children when you don't really have much of a grasp with children's behaviours and attitudes and what can potentially escalate a situation from a relatively small issue to a large incident.

Chocolatteaddict1 · 18/03/2016 21:45

Maybe under Wink

maydancer · 18/03/2016 22:03

you don't really have much of a grasp with children's behaviours and attitudes and what can potentially escalate a situation from a relatively small issue to a large incident.
I'll ignore that obviously inflammatory comment made to me, a person you haven't even met. Of course as a teacher/coach one doesn't physically restrain a child unless it is for safety reasons! I have a zero tolerance for bad behaviour.In most cases the children respect and respond to that.If they can't or won't then we tell the parents to not bring them again.

Chocolatteaddict1 · 18/03/2016 22:13

What do you coach may?

Zero tolerance for a five year old child calling his uncle a fatty?

How would have dealt with it?

Chocolatteaddict1 · 18/03/2016 22:13

You*

Chocolatteaddict1 · 18/03/2016 22:14

As in your class setting?

Ragwort · 18/03/2016 22:18

I agree that there was an incredibly similar thread with a 'cheeky' DS, a 'violent' DB and a DM involved not very long ago ............... the story was almost exactly the same. Hmm.

Chocolatteaddict1 · 18/03/2016 22:19

Ah ok.

flippinada · 18/03/2016 22:25

There was indeed a similar thread recently. It's not that unique a situation though - if only it was.

LagunaBubbles · 18/03/2016 23:39

I've asked a few times if this was the same OP. It's awfully similar to be a co-incidence. Lots of advice on that thread to not see the brother again.

maydancer · 19/03/2016 01:18

Wasn't there a book and a film about someone slapping a kid across the chops

Janecc · 19/03/2016 05:28

We have name calling in my nuclear family. Jovial of course. My DD who is now 7 wouldn't have known not to tease an extended family member at age 5. In fact she did it just before Christmas to my brother and there was ridiculous fall out. My brother has also been violent to me. In adulthood as well as childhood. Sadly this scenario is all too common. We have minimal contact with extended family members and I will no longer tolerate violence. This is a criminal offence.
According to my brother and mother, it's ok for him to threaten, hit or push me over but it's not ok for my DD to call my brother an innocuous name when he calls his son something similar. OP's mother and brother seem to be cut from the same cloth.

SalemSaberhagen · 19/03/2016 13:27

It's called The Slap maydancer

maydancer · 19/03/2016 13:43

We have name calling in my nuclear family. Jovial of course. My DD who is now 7 wouldn't have known not to tease an extended family member at age 5. In fact she did it just before Christmas to my brother and there was ridiculous fall out.

so maybe the jovial name calling is not such a good idea.It confuses children about what is and what isn't acceptable behviour.

SilkandSteel · 19/03/2016 15:51

There was a similar thread a while ago, but my recollection is it was a DD rather than a DS. It was something about the DD not wanting to get in a car and the DB yanking her arm to put her in I think.

LagunaBubbles · 20/03/2016 01:35

That's the one I remember silk and I think it was a DS then to, something about the boy kicking OPs brother rings a bell to. OP has ignored me asking if she is the same OP.

breezydoesit · 20/03/2016 12:54

Your DS and DB both sound like brats.

flippinada · 20/03/2016 14:27

Yes there have been previous threads with a similar scenario. I recall two, as well as this one. Both ended badly and at least one was deleted after accusations of trolling, nasty comments about the child involved.

You see a significant number of posts in the relationship topic from women who are experiencing abuse and you can a similar pattern of behaviour from abusers. They aren't all from the same person and (generally speaking) nobody goes on the thread accusing them of trolling, provoking the abuser and so on. It's revealing to see the difference in how people react here when a child is the victim of an assault.

People might find it comforting to think this is so outlandish someone must be making it up about it but this kind of behaviour is sadly not that unusual. I have a friend with a brother like this - no children involved thankfully (both childfree). I'm sure she's not the only person out there in this situation.

Also look at many of the comments on here inferring the boy is a brat, badly behaved, not disciplined and so on.

contrary13 · 20/03/2016 18:10

When one of my younger cousins was 2 or 3 years old, at a family gathering, he kicked his heavily pregnant mum in the shin. My mother picked my cousin (her nephew) up under her arm and, with me trailing after them, took him to the bathroom where she held him over the toilet and threatened to flush him down it if he ever did anything like that again.

I was maybe 8 at the time. I don't remember if I heard her tell him this or not (she proudly admits it, to this day), but I do remember him screaming in terror as she held him over the toilet. And I remember feeling powerless to stop her/help him... even though I knew it was terribly wrong and wanted to get him away from her.

Even as a child myself, I knew that what my mother - the adult - did was wrong. And am not remotely surprised that no one from that side of the family will have anything to do with her (and, by extension, my siblings and myself). My cousin wasn't a particularly naughty child, either. He was simply a toddler who objected to not being the only child in his immediate family any longer and reacted accordingly as a pre-verbal toddler. I'm just glad that my aunt moved to protect her child, even though no one twigged that she was doing similar to her own children.

The choices which adults make have consequences. Because I do remember what my mother did... she's had limited contact, one-to-one, with her grandchildren. 30-odd years later.

However, if a child isn't taught from a very young age that the choices which they make have consequences... then they grow into adults who think its perfectly acceptable to assault children.

SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius · 20/03/2016 18:26

Vic - I would ask your mum whether she is going to make your brother apologise for slapping your ds - because a grown man should be modelling the correct behaviour, and it would not be right if both parties did not apologise.

I do also think you need to work on teaching your son to apologise (when it is needed). He needs to understand that other people have feelings and that if you hurt them or hurt their feelings, even by accident, that they deserve an apology. 5 years old is old enough to start to understand that other people can feel hurt, and to learn the social norms that oil the wheels of society - things like please, thank you, and apologies when you hurt or upset someone.

However, I think that your brother's actions were not acceptable at all, and a grown man should certainly know that a) he can't hit a child, b) he needs to apologise for doing so and c) he needs to accept he handled the situation badly and needs to commit to doing better in the future.

xenapants · 20/03/2016 18:53

Obviously your brother was way out of order, but frankly your son sounds horrible. Why don't you discipline him better?!

flippinada · 20/03/2016 19:05

He doesn't sound horrible at all. He sounds like a 5 year old who is acting within the realms of normal 5 year old behaviour.

Beefles · 20/03/2016 19:41

I haven't been able to read all the posts but I have read your comment that you db was violent to you growing up and made you fearful of him.
First things first your brother abused your child. Regardless of your child's behaviour he has physically assaulted your son. If you really are frightened of him I would refuse to see him and consider reporting this assault.

Second of all, your child is a bit of a shit. I'm sorry but calls someone fatty can do serious damage to people and if he goes into school doing that he will be a bully.
I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and say you are labelling his biting as playful because you don't want your son to feel bad when he's just been walloped by a fully grown man. But, he should be biting anyone and he shouldn't be calling anyone names.

The child was being a naughty child and that needs addressing but the issue of him being hit round the face hard enough to leave a mark by an adult man is a separate issue to his behaviour and that behaviour by your brother needs addressing too. Sorry if I've cross posted here at all but I don't want to read and run. What you db has done is very serious in my view and I don't think you should have to put up with seeing him at all.

LittleGreyBear · 20/03/2016 19:48

YANBU. No one should ever hit a child. He's only 5!! Not sure what your brother was thinking. Ideally DS should have apologised but you can't force a child to. A chat with DS after the event about being rude & not apologising is the way to go.

xenapants · 20/03/2016 19:49

All right then, let me rephrase. He sounds horribly behaved, and the mother isn't teaching him properly or bothering to discipline him when he's horribly rude to people.

Obviously this is no excuse for the brother slapping him. But the OP asked if her son was a "little wotsit who needed better discipline" and frankly, yes, he is. He called an adult a rude name, refused to apologise, then bit him. Awful behaviour. OP, why did you not discipline him immediately?