To think this is how violent men get their start in life?

[Anycrispsleft]

I wanted to know if you think I'm being U in this scenario, with a boy from my daughters' class. I'll try and tell the whole story from start to finish, but for a bit of background - my 9yo twin (shut up Mumsnet, they really are twins ) are in school with a boy, G, and a girl, M. All 4 of them have known each other since nursery, and at nursery they got on OK as most kids do, but since then G's behaviour has gone downhill a bit and he's hit one of my kids a couple of times and is often in trouble at school. Ms mum has been an unofficial childminder for G most of his life: he lives with his dad, a lone parent until about 18 months ago when he got married, so he and M are often together.

The first stushie was about 6 months ago. M Skyped one of my kids one Sunday afternoon and invited them to go and play in her garden.

1. my kids turned up - G was there as well, being looked after by M's mum/on a playdate
2. M went and played with my kids in preference to G
3. G tried to interrupt their game by taking their stuff
4. The girls retaliated by hiding their stuff from him (and probably laughing at him and stuff, I'm not saying they were particularly kind)
5. He went home in a strop and said the three of them hadn't been nice to him
6. My two came home, also in a strop, said G had been disrupting their game and acting like an idiot - I asked them whether they'd called him any names or hit him or anything - no (and I am inclined to believe them, bc at the very least if one of them had been a fecker they would have come back up the road fighting about who caused the fight)
7. The dad phones me and tells me his boy is upset and I need to talk to my kids and tell them to apologise. I tell him they've already talked to me about it and I don't see any reason for them to apologise any more than he should, that it all sounds like like normal kid falling-out and if the kids don't want to play with each other I'm not going to force them.
8. Unbeknownst to me at the time, he also phones M's mum. M's mum takes her up to his house and makes M apologise.
9. The day after M skypes my daughter to say she's not allowed to play with her any more. I tell M she's always welcome at our house.

M's mother never got in touch with me, so I was left in this weird limbo. I wasn't there, G's dad wasn't there, M's mum never spoke to me about the incident, so nobody was actually accusing my kids of anything to me but they couldn't see their friend any more and they were supposed to apologise for something (but G's dad couldn't exactly say what)? I concluded that they're all fucking mental G's dad is maybe paying M to childmind G, and so she feels obliged to make sure he has a nice time and stays to the end of the playdate, and maybe didn't want my kids there at all, but didn't feel like she could say that? Anyway not my monkeys etc... I told the kids not to go down there, we had M over for a few playdates organised by the kids themselves, and all was reasonably quiet.
Then, a couple of weeks ago, my kids were coming out of afterschool and the boy was still playing in the playground with one of his friends. He was like "na na na, you have to go to extra school" and my older daughter was like "bite me loser, the after school lady gave us sweeties" and she waved the sweeties at him and he and his friend chased her down the road, tried to get the sweets off her, then tried to strangle her, before my other daughter and their wee friend from afterschool pulled him off.
Given my opinion of the dad isn't great I said to them to just tell the school in the first instance. The teacher dealt with it pretty robustly, giving them the two of them pretty thoroughly into trouble and making them write an apology to my daughter. I thought that was an end to it - my daughter wasn't that bothered about it - and then on Thursday night I get 3 missed calls and 2 messages on my phone from the dad wanting to speak to me. I just deleted them, then he ran into my husband and chewed his ear off for about half an hour about how after this recent episode the boy had been complaining that he had to apologise and my daughter's had not had to apologise for that time 6 months ago, and the dad said he felt that it had been playing on the boy's mind, and that maybe it had even been responsible for the worsening of his behaviour over the past 6 months. He left his phone number, and asked us to think about it over the weekend. That my daughter not playing with him 6 months ago was the trigger for the boy's mental unrest, and not say the fact that his father had just got married and his new sister had been born, about a month before? That his hurt feelings somehow justified him trying to strangle my daughter, that excluding someone from your game is the same as strangling them? That boys are entitled to girls' care and attention, and if they don't get it, they're entitled to respond with violence? I mean TBH there's no point me putting this in AIBU because there is no way on this earth I would make my daughter apologise to that wee guy. I'm amazed though. That anybody could think that's a normal way to raise your kids.

we should also teach kids not to be violent even if people are not being inclusive and kind.

Ummmm did I ever say we shouldn't? We are not speaking to the boy's Dad. However the girls' mum seems full of excuses why leaving people out is ok.

So OP's daughters are expected to be nice and inclusive to a boy who's hit them on multiple occasions? Sod that for a game of soldiers.

It's what women are told to do all the time, be kind, include everyone (even those who we're worried might hurt us,) don't worry about your boundaries. Nah.

What's a stushie? Is it the first conflict or he had been hitting them before the stushie? Is it not a bit sad that grown adults are queueing up to write off a 9 yo as a future woman beater? And the comment about strangling someone who strangled their daughter... That means that an adult would strangle a 9 yo? I think it might have been better to make two posts an aibu about not making a girl apologise 6 months later for an unrelated event after the boy strangled her (obvs yanbu). A separate post about childhood issues that puts boys on the path of vawg in adulthood. It feels wrong that you're using a real boy, who is still a child right now, as an example to discuss this issue. I don't think anyone should be deciding if a child will be a violent criminal based on a mumsnet post.

@Gliderx extremely poor taste to involve poor little Arthur in this. The two situations are in no way comparable, don’t use Arthur to score a cheap point.

I see comparisons in the way that child was demonised to some of the comments here. Some of the things which have been said are very inappropriate things to say about a child.

Like hell I’d make my girls play and include some child who’d been violent to them.

The girls didn’t want to play with a boy who had a history of violence and bullying them.

Good for the girls.

The boy is the one with a shit father and emotional problems and is scarily violent. A nine year old trying to strangle a girl should be shocking to everyone.

Not one poster on here should be attempting to demonise the girls here.

The boy was violent.
The boy wouldn’t let the girls play together and disrupted their play date.
The boy started by jeering and making fun of the OP’s DD.

The boy is facing the consequences of his own behaviour here. And he has a shit father.

This is all on the adults in the boys life.

The parents used a lot of the same type of terminology which has been used here - 'dickhead', 'little shit' - in describing the child. And isolation/exclusion was used as a weapon against the child.

@Gliderx

The parents used a lot of the same type of terminology which has been used here - 'dickhead', 'little shit' - in describing the child. And isolation/exclusion was used as a weapon against the child.

I've just noticed that your comment's been deleted so it's inappropriate to continue this discussion given that MNHQ judges it inappropriate.

I'm not sure why the comment was deleted but I think some people on this thread should think about the terminology they think is suitable to discuss a 9yo child.

🙄

@Gliderx

I'm not sure why the comment was deleted but I think some people on this thread should think about the terminology they think is suitable to discuss a 9yo child.

I'm sure MN will be happy to let you know why they deleted it, following reports from posters including me. The fact they deleted it very quickly should maybe indicate how obviously in poor taste it was to others. Best to leave it there and discuss with MN directly I think.

Could your dd be bullying him and this was a straw on the camel’s back type situation? I was horribly bullied at school but the teachers only ever seemed to notice when I lashed out as I was bigger and louder.

@frazzledasarock

Like hell I’d make my girls play and include some child who’d been violent to them.

The girls didn’t want to play with a boy who had a history of violence and bullying them.

Good for the girls.

The boy is the one with a shit father and emotional problems and is scarily violent. A nine year old trying to strangle a girl should be shocking to everyone.

Not one poster on here should be attempting to demonise the girls here.

The boy was violent.
The boy wouldn’t let the girls play together and disrupted their play date.
The boy started by jeering and making fun of the OP’s DD.

The boy is facing the consequences of his own behaviour here. And he has a shit father.

This is all on the adults in the boys life.

Had she been a boy I bet this would have been dismissed as horseplay.

Hate it when multiple kids exclude/ bully a lone child. Unkind. Talk to an adult if needed, don't exclude and laugh.

@Notashandyta

Hate it when multiple kids exclude/ bully a lone child. Unkind. Talk to an adult if needed, don't exclude and laugh.

Don’t you hate it when two boys chase down a girl and attack her, pin her down and strangle her?

At 9 I would expect the girl to be bigger than the boy she’s teasing.

@Notashandyta - it’s not like it was unprovoked. It sounds like there is some sort of ongoing rivalry between the kids - the boy has hit one of the girls before, she didn’t want to play with him at the friend’s house, he took toys away. Later on apparently he was the one to to provoke the girl by teasing her first about staying after school. Best thing is to keep away and learn to play alongside each other in a civil way. I agree OP should encourage her daughter not to be unkind and to avoid answering back (even if he is being horrible). But they boy’s dad excusing it and not clamping down is really at fault.

@Ozanj - kids vary quite a bit in size and strength. Even if he was smaller, his pattern of behaviour is concerning and he’ll need to rein it in. Smaller kids don’t tend to strangle bigger kids, same as adults (don’t tend to attack a bigger person) - would he have done the same to the biggest boy in class?

If my 9 year old said ‘bite me’ to anyone I’d know I was doing a pretty shit job at child rearing myself

The girls could have been kinder to him at the play date. I think they could have apologised.

However those posters saying your daughter baited him with sweets?! I am lost with this. He goaded them first trying to provoke a reaction about having to attend after school club.
Then when he got one, the sweet remark he chased and strangled her.

I don’t see how this remark was baiting, yes in an ideal world she would have ignored him/told a teacher and not said the sweet remark. But they are 9!! And he did start it.

Disgusting behaviour from the boy who sadly sounds very troubled. Dad sounds absolutely hopeless. Poor kid.
All you can do going forward is to teach kids that they may not be friends with someone, but if there is another child in that sort of play date situation, they should include them (provided the other child
Is being pleasant).

And report any further to stances of aggression straight to school it sounds as though they dealt with things well.

@FateHasRedesignedMost

I don’t think that’s how it begins, no.

If G were a girl, being cared for by the childminder, and M and your daughters deliberately left her out of their games and ignored her/told her to go away, would G be justified in feeling upset and angry? It sounds like your daughters and M ganged up on G, no wonder the childminder stopped future playdates. She’s responsible for her mindees’ wellbeing and if she has other kids to play who spitefully leave G out, she could lose business.

The incident with the sweets is unpleasant, but your DD should have ignored the mean comment not taunted G by waving them at him. The strangling should have been dealt with harshly by the school, it sounds like it has been.

Just because G is male doesn’t mean he has no feelings or gets upset at being left out or ostracised. It sounds like he’s going through a hard time with a new step mum and a sibling on the way.

This

He hasn't developed emotional maturity, he appears extra sensitive and had a disproportionate reaction to emotional situations, he is 9.

I know some very nice men who once was a scrappy boy, as DC we all fought on different days, gender didn't come into it as a 9 y.o. it was a rough area
Agree with pp "bite me" is teasing a child who lacks emotional development.
Most 9y.o girls are ahead of the 9y.o boys, he has no DM either for growths and support.

Agree with pp "bite me" is teasing a child who lacks emotional development.
Most 9y.o girls are ahead of the 9y.o boys, he has no DM either for growths and support.

How on earth is a 9yo girl supposed to assess that a child lacks emotional development?

He provoked her, she responded with ‘bite me’. ‘Bite me’ is extremely tame given he’s hit her on a few occasions.

@AntiMaskersAreTwats

If my 9 year old said ‘bite me’ to anyone I’d know I was doing a pretty shit job at child rearing myself

And what, proud of raising a boy who has hit the same girl a number of times and now escalated to strangling her?