DS injured self and framed another child!

[Aquiet]

My 12 year old DS has just admitted something that’s left me feeling quite unsettled. Last night after wrestling club he had a badly bruised hand and told us that a girl he was practicing with had slammed his hand in a door. There was a lot of upset, anger and fallout as you’d imagine. She was adamant she didn’t do it. The staff have now put the situation under investigation as there is no cctv in the area it happened.

I let him have the day off today because of his injured hand. He has now admitted that none of this was true. He slammed his own hand in the door deliberately and blamed her out of jealousy. They have been put together to practise for a couple of sessions now and she dominates him every time they practise. She was singled out for praise and given star of the week twice in a row. He says he felt embarrassed and humiliated and acted out without thinking it through.

On the one hand I’m relieved that no one else actually hurt him. On the other, I’m really worried about the lying, the deliberate self-injury, and the fact that he was willing to falsely accuse someone else because of jealousy.

He says he’s sorry and seems genuinely remorseful now, but I can’t shake how serious this feels. Is this “normal” poor decision making for a 12yo with big emotions, or something that needs firmer intervention? Obviously I’m going to have to let them know that the poor girl hasn’t done anything but I’m worried they will kick him out of the club.

You need to tell the club ASAP, the poor girl could be being punished by her parents for something she didn’t do and I bet she’s really worried about the whole thing.

You need to tell the people involved, now.
i cannot see a single reason why you would delay, other than to protect your boy
I think is out of “normal” territory, even harming himself is worrying, then to blame another child, to me is something frightening.
He could have given up the club if he didn’t like losing.
Who is pushing him to do this activity? It sounds like you are more worried he will be thrown out than setting the story straight for the innocent girl.

Misogyny doesn’t start with violence against women, it starts with boys getting upset that a girl beats them in sports, demeaning language, and small acts that build to something bigger.

It is absolutely necessary that OP addresses this as an issue that he has with a girl because she is a girl. He’s admitted it was because she is a girl, that is the seed of misogyny.

Wow. There’s no way to sugar-coat this. It is very bad.
He’s not five. That was considered behaviour, with full awareness of the very likely consequences to an innocent party. But now regretted, with the courage to admit the error, which is a credit.
I’m no sportsman, but understand that contact sports like that require the highest standards of sportsmanship and honour between participants. Of course he will be thrown out from the club. In fact if he’s not, it’s not a club worth being a member of so he should leave anyway. And not least because he will have no respect from other participants in the future.
I hope this is not a school club, so the friendship group may be compartmentalised and he can leave this unfortunate incident behind him.
All that said, he is your son, and needs support in his error from his parents. This may teach him to henceforth be a man, to admit the error, apologise to the girl and her parents, then forget it and never do anything like it again.

Edit: I assume that by now you have informed the club. If not, and the accusation was made publicly, you may end up with a very expensive defamation case on your hands. I hope the girls parents aren’t rich, or lawyers.

I agree with this, he is a 12 year old kid who has massively cocked up but being beaten repeatedly by a 10 year old girls would be embarrassing for him, it just would. Why, because naturally as they grow up, men are generally stronger than women. Note - I said stronger, not better.

He needs some guidance but the club should also be rotating them so the same boy isnt getting beaten by the same girl week after week. it will always cause resentment.

its extreme to cause a massive injury to get 'payback' to the girl and I would be concerned about this and the lying.

But some of the extreme views on here are going overboard. He is hitting hormone season too so it needs nipping in the bud that girls cant beat boys, they can and will but I think the context of this happening over a few months and the girls always winning the awards might also have a part to play.

You absolutely need to let the club know immediately

imagine the (initial) relief of the poor girl and her parents.

im sure anger will follow. I’d be doing everything I can to see this from their point of view. You cannot sit in this any longer.

Well I'd rather someone slammed his hand in the door than what actually happened.

I would be SERIOUSLY concerned about his behaviour and I don't think it is remotely within the range of normal - his feelings of not liking being beaten and being beaten by a girl might be normal enough (but he should be taught to deal with them -isn't that half the point of these clubs? To learn to deal with defeat??) but what he did isn't. I've had three children - boys and girls - go through the teen years with all of the angst, misery, feelings of unfairness that includes but framing another kid for a serious assault never occurred to any of mine or any child I've heard of.

OP you need to treat this very seriously indeed. That will obviously include exploring the feelings that made your child do such a thing. You need to tell the club immediately. Your child should aplogise to the girl and to the club. If it were my kid I'd be sending him to therapy after all that and consequences etc.

The number of posters who think a boy doing this is understandable because he is being beaten by a girl is actually frightening.

All you lot clearly have no idea about the world of martial arts.

It is normal to spar with everyone in the club no matter the sex. I have been training since I was a child in various disciplines and there is never a distinction made between boys and girls. You all train with each other which is part of the spirit of the club. I have not done wrestling but I have done jiu jitsu for the past 20 years which involves a lot of grappling, throwing, and wrestling style moves. Everyone trains with everyone else and you are supposed to treat your training partner with respect no matter what their age or sex is.

Isn't it just!

I hope the OP has told the club by now and they’ve been able to get in touch with the girl….

I think this is quite concerning because of the steps required to commit the act. If he had accidentally injured his hand in the door and then spur of the moment decided to frame the girl out of jealousy that would be one thing. But to have purposely devised this plan, then to actually go through with it (because injuring yourself so severely takes a lot of doing, there are many instincts you have to override) says to me there was quite a lot of thought that went into it.

Obviously you need to tell the club so the girl is vindicated, if they kick him out that's a reasonable response to a horrendous show of poor sportsmanship. You need to explore with him what he thought he would achieve through this act. So the girl gets in trouble, then what? How does that stop her being better at wrestling? And why does it matter if she is? You need to nip the misogyny in the bud, after puberty he will be much physically stronger than most girls his age, so what will he do then if a girl pisses him off?

It's biology. Context is everything here, it's not a Maths competition, it's wrestling.

There's nothing concerning, but that's the very reason why we don't do mix boxing matches!

And let's fight VERY strongly to make sure it never happens.

Cannot blame guys to dislike being beaten up by women when they're not allowed to fight them. And I say that as a (very amateur) female boxer!

the reaction would have been a big no regardless of any sex or gender.

But let's not start pretending that male and female are equal in these sports - because the day someone pretends we are equal, WE lose.

Normal men are just as much against the idea as we are, but the day everything is gender-blind, it's men who would come out winning.

Maths or poetry is one thing, but wrestling and any sport in general? no.

I'd be quite concerned, tbh: he's literally making mental notes, counting, how well the girls do compared to the boys. And he's not happy about it.

He's not even appearing to acknowledge the girls have EARNED their wins and award. And was willing to physically harm himself to try to punish a girl for her success.

Would it be less embarrassing if it was another boy? If not why not? Is it because he expects to win by virtue of his sex rather than his skill?

He's gone to quite extraordinary lengths to punish a girl for being better than him. That's misogyny.

Regardless of him saying he doesn't need to see anyone or him saying it was a one off and crying. I hope you will take him anyway. There's a huge difference between him saying "oh that girl hurt me", and actually causing himself harm to make it look like shes done it.

Awful post. This was a martial arts class, not boxing. By the by, you're defending misogyny and abuse as biologically inevitable.

There was no cctv

Or alternatively the OP could not worry about what her little brave soldier is going through because a girl beat him at sport, and step up and do some proper parenting and not be manipulated by tears and guilt.

' Listen and Connect' ....and we wonder why there are so many feral youths about who don't care about the consequences of their actions.

He sounds like a nasty piece of work

What struck me the most from reading this is that he is so ashamed that a girl dominated him. That's a big red flag to me. I would be having a good look at that OP. You need to get on top of that kind of thinking/feeling as you don't want a teenager to be growing in to an adult man that is so jealous and resentful of strong/capable girls/women that he feels the need to blame/punish/attack/lie about them to soothe his own ego and insecurity. Immediately made me think of Adolescence.

He was embarrassed, and made an emotionally-driven decision to make himself look better. Boys that age are hyper-sensitive to what they perceive as their physical weakness; the girls are maturing faster than they are, they want to be big strong teenagers like the ones they look up to, but they are acutely aware that they are not.There's a lot of machismo in this age group to compensate for the lack of ACTUAL sexual prowess, physical strength, disregard for rules/authority.

So no,I don't think it's extreme to have done what he did.

I do, however, think he needs to be kicked out of the club. There have to be consequences for making decisions like this that affect others so adversely, just to save face. Basically, "You've been a dickhead, son. Don't be a dickhead again."

I can sort of see where this negative attitude towards girls comes from.

I’m nearly 60 so I’ve been a woman for a long time, and I’ve grown up in an era when women had their bums pinched, sexist jokes were acceptable etc, and there’s no doubt in my mind that it’s a man’s world….for adults.

But I’ve brought up 2 boys on my own, and I think it’s different for kids. Massive generalisation here, but as a rule primary school is easier for girls. Girls seem to find it easier to sit still, to concentrate, to focus, to quietly pay attention, to follow rules. Certainly at primary school the girls give the teachers less trouble, they’re the sweet ones, they get more stars and praise. Both my boys commented pretty early on that most teachers liked the girls better than the boys. Consequently they were both quite “anti girl” at primary school. They always felt that the teachers sided with girls in any conflict, and arguments were blamed on boys.

By puberty things start to change, and boys and girls are equally difficult at school! But I can sort of understand why a boy would feel peeved that a girl was better than him at something traditionally “boy-ish”. By age 12, a lot of boys are sick of seeing the girls get all the praise. Of course, as adults we know that men have it easier than women, but kids don’t know that yet.

My boys are young adults now, and have healthy attitudes to girls/women. But I had years of them moaning when younger that girls had an easier time.

OP what your son did was very wrong, but it doesn’t mean he’s Andrew Tate. He’s just got a lot of growing up to do. But he needs a lot of talking, reflection, and some consequences.

This is BS. As someone else has pointed out already this is martial arts and not boxing so the context is very different. All the men I train with in my jiu jitsu club are very respectful and give me credit where it is due when I beat them. We are a friendly and respectful club and always support each other.

Sorry your boxing club is full of a bunch of misogynistic arseholes.