To think I was not wrong in saying I would go to the police

[MsJamieFraser]

Ds is 6 and hes been playing outside recently,with his older brother (cul-de-sac) there has been a few spats recently where 4 12 year old children have been hitting him, and him hitting them, today however he was left with hand prints across his face, and body, he was screaming.

I went to the parents houses and said that although I understand ds is no angel and he can take games too far, and he has at times hurt people, not deliberately I may add, and he himself has been hurt etc... playing rugby tag, etc.. but that I cannot allow 12 year olds to hit ds, leaving marks across his face and body an showed them the photographs that I had taken.

3 parents apologised and I asked them to tell their children to come and tell me, I also apologised for ds's behaviour towards there children.

I went to the 4th parent, who basically just told me that if ds hits his child then my ds is going to get hit back, I told him No he needs to get his child to tell me and I would punish ds, he said tuff and ds will get walloped if he hits his child, I then said well no he wont and if your child assaults my child again, I would have no option but to call the police.

With this he mumbled something and slammed the door.

Im not here to discuss why we have let our child out to play, we all parent differently and I have made the decision now that ds will now not be playing out until he matures, its defo been a lesson learnt.

However WIBU to say I would go to the police if the hitting continued?

I would be very unhappy if a 16 year old hit my 10 year old, so I dont see why it should not be the other way round.

I went to the 4th parent, who basically just told me that if ds hits his child then my ds is going to get hit back, I told him No he needs to get his child to tell me and I would punish ds, he said tuff and ds will get walloped if he hits his child, I then said well no he wont and if your child assaults my child again, I would have no option but to call the police.

And so you think it's okay for your kid to assault his kid with no come back?
Oh and it's 'tough' not 'tuff'

Yabu. 6-yr-olds can hit hard. If you want to police the hitting then you need to be out with them making sure your DS isn't hitting them. You can't ask other children to accept being hurt by your DS.
They're not your babysitters. It's not their job to report back to you on your DS' behaviour. Presumably you have told your DS not to hit so arguably them telling you isn't going to make a blind bit of difference to whether he hurts them or not. Hence why they're dealing with it themselves in the moment.

I went to the 4th parent, who basically just told me that if ds hits his child then my ds is going to get hit back, I told him No he needs to get his child to tell me and I would punish ds, he said tuff and ds will get walloped if he hits his child, I then said well no he wont and if your child assaults my child again, I would have no option but to call the police.

There's a simple answer to this one isn't there? Ensure your child doesn't hit their child and the problem I solved.

While I personally don't agree with hitting back, your attitude - that they must stop their DS hitting your DS but you won't stop yours hitting theirs - stinks.

This is not totally relevant but as a teacher l would be concerned as to how your ds would be with other boys his own age in school if he constantly plays with older boys. He may not be able to distinguish between their strength and the strength of a little guy who is 6 but has never played out and is very sheltered. This could get him into trouble. He is too young for those big lads who are one step off being teenagers.

To anyone thinking it's bad to call the police because they're just kids, I'd like to remind you the age of criminal responsibility in the UK is 10.

*mad (but bad too I guess)

If your son was totally innocent and they were hitting him for no reason. I would agree that the police may need to be involved.

But he isn't and it's a game that got out of hand. Your ds also got out of hand and escalated it.

I am glad to see your son won't be playing out with these kids anymore. He clearly isn't mature enough and they aren't mature enough to not get pissed off when he takes it too far.

Police involvement is ridiculous when it's a game that has gotten out of hand.

It's all very well people saying that their child plays out In a group with older kids no in fact my 7 year old sometimes does but clearly it's not a good idea in this case. The group dynamic isn't working and to be honest I don't see why a group of 12 year olds would want a 6 year old joining them, they play very differently.

Welp, I still think four 12 year olds hitting a six year old is unacceptable, regardless of whether he hits them first. OP has already said she will not be letting him play out again, so no need for slating parenting.

Wouldn't all the YABU posters be mortified if they found out that their child was hitting someone half their age? Of course it's naughty for the 6 year old to be hitting, but 12 years olds doing it is something more serious than 'naughty'. Apparently three out of the four parents OP approached realised that, so that's something.

The age of criminal responsibility might be 10, but does anyone really think the police would get involved in something so minor? At the most they might send a PSCO round to the boy's parents for a friendly word.

And the OP might get a friendly word about her parenting choices.

And the OP might get a friendly word about her parenting choices

This, I think, would be the most useful thing to come out of the situation.

Imo you need to teach your DS not to hit and that will prevent, most of the backlash. Why do the other kids need to come and tell you!

You know that your Ds is hitting the other kids, why do you need another child to come and tell you for you to act.

Take off the rose tinted glasses and deal with it.

By all means once you have exhausted other options then by all means call the police. But you need to teach your ds otherwise it will just get worse with older kids.

I can see why these parents are pissed off. Much as I have sympathy with your son I think that the person ultimately responsible for this is you, so I'm not surprised you got short shrift when you demanded an apology. You're using their children as unpaid childcare without their parents permission, you're aware that it's not working out well as but you're continuing to do it and dumping off your own responsibility on them. I'm not surprised they're refusing to grovel to you because you don't like the results of the of your own poor decisions. Really you've had lots of opportunities to nip this in the bud by stopping him playing out, but you haven't. And you've again dumped your responsibilities on to others by insisting their parents deal with a situation which has arisen because of your own failure to do so.

And now you've suggested to these parents that you are going to dump off your responsibilities to someone else yet again by allowing the same situation to recur again and dumping any results off on the police.

The police really would question why they were being called in when the situation was totally avoidable if you would just take responsibility for your own child not being in unsuitable situations. It's good you've made the decision he won't play out now, but you didn't communicate that to the other parents and I can see exactly why they responded to you angrily.

It's a bit much for you to go out all gun blazing demanding they take responsibility for their kids when you don't seem willing to do the same yourself.

"Today 08:05 RhiWrites

To anyone thinking it's bad to call the police because they're just kids, I'd like to remind you the age of criminal responsibility in the UK is 10."

That's a bit irrelevant though. People of all ages have spats, you don't call the police to sort them out for you every time. Can you imagine how much time the police would spend at secondary schools if they were called everytime someone got pushed around?

YABU

Your child isn't being properly supervised.

A clapping game like that is bound to end badly - can't see what the police could be expected to do about something like that.

Why do you imagine it's ok for your ds to hit the bigger kids (he shouldn't be "hitting" anybody, btw) but it's not ok for them to retaliate because they're so much older?
Does the fact that they are so much older that you expect different rules to apply not tell you that they're not suitable playmates for your son in the first place?
Nip it in the bud now, and teach your child to play properly without attacking other children.
You still haven't said how old your older child is, btw? I'm assuming he is also considerably younger than twelve?

If you involve the police they would probably ring social services about the unsupervised 6 year old roaming the streets.