My DS is 12
He has a friend, aged 12, who he really likes, who hits him in the face - a lot.
But it is never in anger. Never accompanied by swearing or shouting or arguing. No insults. No accusations. No verbals whatsoever.
DS says they are standing together, maybe chatting, maybe eating their morning snack at break, or sitting at lunch together, there's no problem, no bad atmosphere or anything, and literally, suddenly, the friend's arm suddenly hits out and he hits DS in the face with the back of his hand. He quickly and suddenly raises his arm up and out and wacks the back of his hand in to DS's face. Hard enough to hurt DS every time it happens.
Sometimes the friend apologises straight away afterwards and says "Oops sorry I didn't mean to do that" then carries on as he was beforehand. He doesn't apologise in a mortified way, he apologises in a matter of fact way. Sometimes he doesn't apologise but says nothing and carries on normally as though absolutely nothing has happened.
Mostly, he hits DS, DS gets cross and walks away, and later in the day the friend passes DS in the school corridor and smiles at him, says "Hey dude!!" with a big bright smile and holds his hand out to DS's hand and gives his hand a "Bro" shake (this is DS's vocabulary, not mine!!). This is a few hours after hitting him in the face.
This friend initiates hanging out with DS at school, seeks him out socially outside of school, greets him enthusiastically when he sees him, hugs him, is always putting his arm round DS's shoulders, and displays many actions of being a good friend to DS. DS says he's great company, fun, enjoys hanging out with him, they get on really well.....but he regularly gets hit in the face by him.
DS says he always hits in exactly the same way - it is always 1 arm held out straight without any warning and it suddenly flies upwards or outwards with force and the back of hand hits in to DS's face, hard.
When DS says "WHY DID YOU JUST HIT ME???" because it's always completely out of the blue, the friend doesn't answer, goes quiet, puts his face/head down, and doesn't respond.
DS said that he walked up to him this week, there was something he needed to tell him, and he thought to himself "I'm gonna quickly say what I've got to say and then duck down". He did exactly that. And sure enough, the friend hit out hard with his arm and hand, DS quickly ducked, and missed getting hit, whilst the friend's arm/hand hit the air. DS walked off and there was no retaliation. The friend didn't come chasing after him to hit him or anything like that.
DS said this week "I'm used to being hit by him now, he's always done it, but it didn't used to be very often, but now it's getting much much worse and more frequent since we started secondary school."
They've been friends for 2 years.
DS also reports that when they're in a calm environment together, this friend is happy, fun, relaxed, chilled out and really lovely towards DS, generously shares stuff with him, tells DS he's a really great friend, etc. But DS says if they're in an environment that's over stimulating, like the noisy school canteen or any crowded busy noisy area at school, or outside of school, the friend gets quickly and visibly irritable, snappy, agitated, starts swearing.
This friend has quite bad tics. He suddenly pushes his head down, face down, his neck goes very rigid and his right arm bends across the front of his body and kind of locks, and his expression fixes in to an intense stare. It's hard to describe. DS says when he's doing it you can't communicate with him, he can't answer anyone who is talking to him at the time. DS used to tell me about this happening a lot, and then I saw it a few times for myself. It's definitely an involuntary thing.
Is it possible to hit someone involuntarily??
It's always 1 hard arm action/hit. Always just once. Never twice. It's never a punch, his hand is never in a punch position, his hand is always flat. And he never changes the rest of his body position or movement. He sits still, or stands still, and hits 1 arm out hard and fast, whilst his other arm stays still.
The other day, DS was standing in the school canteen at break eating his toast. The friend came up to him and stood next to him eating his snack. DS said it was noisy, busy, bustling in there like always. Without warning, the friend whacked DS in the face whilst he was eating, it really hurt him and he got angry and raised his voice at friend and said "Why did you just hit me?! You're embarrassing yourself! Everyone's looking at you now! Don't hit me!" DS said lots of kids saw what happened, lots of them were indeed looking at the friend, and an older boy said "Calm down man, what are you doing? Don't hit him (about DS), he's a nice kid." Another older boy said to the friend "Chill out dude! There's no need for that! Relax!". DS said friend went bright red in his face ("scarlet red" according to DS) and went quiet.
I really do not know how to parent this.
Obviously, I don't want anyone hitting my DS. But it never seems to be in an aggressive argumentative way.
DS is feeling really confused and I can see it's now starting to upset him. He keeps bringing it up at home and is really asking me for my advice about how to handle things when the friend hits him, and he is asking me if he should carry on being friends or if he should end the friendship. He's torn because he gets a lot out of the friendship - when he's not being hit!
I need to be really careful about what I model to my DS. It is never ever ok for someone to hit you. But DS values his friendship and they have a lot of really fun happy times together.
I can't discuss with the friend's parents, I don't know them at all.
I think what I'm asking mumsnet is, do I advise DS to stop being friends with this kid because it's never ok to be hit and also its not healthy to have a friend who is completely unpredictable in their behaviour, or is there a condition I've never heard of that causes children to do 1 single involuntary hard hitting out of the arm in to the face of another child who is standing or sitting next to them at the time, that is a condition that I should be sympathetic towards??
Has anyone got any experience of this?
**Just as an extra, DS has literally just a few mins ago told me, just after I've typed all this out, that last week this friend actually attacked him - barging him, hitting him, pushing him, and DS said "his face changed, it went weird " and said the friend was making "growling noises". DS said the friend was repeatedly hitting him with both hands so DS grabbed hold of both his wrists, held his arms down and said "STOP!" The friend carried on making strange noises but didn't fight or push back against DS holding his both his wrists down, DS held his wrists until he saw that the friend started to relax and calm down, then DS let go of him and walked away. The friend didn't do anything further, just stood there silently. DS has only just told me this!! Says it has never happened before.
What is going on?!