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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

What DD did to her older brother

27 replies

Motherinapickle · 28/01/2026 19:46

I like to say my children are both really lovely. Both very funny. We’re your average loving family, lots of affection, praise, fun together, etc.

DD is 14. Very gifted academically and insightful so we have adult-level convos because she’s just very interested in the world around her. Sometimes DD can get moody but she’s a teen so hey ho.

DS is very easy going, just like his dad and cares so much for her sister. He’s her biggest defender and cheerleader, as it should be.

DS has a diagnosis of ASD & dyslexia, ‘high functioning’. His dream is to create games so spends a considerable amount of time creating characters for this game he says he’ll create in future. The pad is very precious to him.

This morning, DS went into the shower first as usual but later than DD assumed he had. I let her know when she asked that he’d been there for 5mins so should be ready to come out in 5. He did. Then after DS was ready, he went beck to do some more drawing and realised that DD had ripped out pages out and torn thrm into pieces. She hid them but I found pieces in her room.

I was quite upset to find that tbh. I had there was a different reason. DD admitted she’d done that but says she doesn’t know why she did it.
Do I need to do some serious intervention here? Or is it not that serious?

To avoid drip feeding, I do sometimes think DS requiring more support when they were younger forced DD to grow up quicker. Girls generally are more mature but she was correcting him socially from quite young and we didn’t tell her to leave it to us, etc. Thankfully he doesn’t need that support much now.

OP posts:
nondrinker1985 · 28/01/2026 23:15

F

Nabannas · 29/01/2026 07:24

Punishment can have a restorative function. If you can, strike a balance between acknowledging that there was a reason (and maybe helping her articulate it) and finding a consequence that atones to some extent.

Be curious, finding out what she was thinking when she did it, what she’s been thinking since. Let her know what you were thinking when you found out, and let him share what he was thinking when he saw those pages.

Get her to work out what needs to happen to make things better? That’s the important consequence.

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