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.

I don’t think I’d class deliberately injuring yourself in order to frame a girl and take her down a peg because she’s doing better at sport than you are - as normal.
It’s deeply disturbing behaviour, actually.

I can't argue with stupid. You've made some ridiculous leaps and assumptions here. This was a misogynistic incident and that's what this thread is about.

You know countering an argument that hasn't been made is called a strawman, don't you?

I wouldn't light a match if I were you.

I think first and foremost is to let this girl and her family know she is off the hook and eat some humble pie, he needs to apologise to her as well. Also make sure the club are aware. This cannot be left hanging over an innocent child I know how worried I would be if I was her parent (apologies if you have already done this)

On a plus side he does seem genuinely remorseful and knows exactly why he did it and seems to grasp the seriousness of making such an accusation. The fact he planned it is concerning but with your support now I am sure you will get through all this perfectly fine.

Could you book a couple of counselling sessions for him? Might help him just to talk his feelings through.

I think the self-injury and the levels of deception that he went to are concerning. That said, many, many tweens/teenagers do really stupid things. It's a positive thing that he's come clean, and how he deals with what happens next is the important thing.

He needs to go to his coach and explain what he did, to apologize sincerely to the girl, and accept the consequences that follow and that she may not accept his apology. She may not want to train with him again; he may be suspended or expelled from the club. You need to support those consequences.

Without wanting to shift the blame off him, I'd also have a chat with the coaches and his teachers about how much general "you got beat by a girl" teasing there is at the gym and at school. And I'd ask your DS more widely about how happy he is, how secure he is in his friendships. As others have said, feeling this strongly about getting beaten by a girl doesn't come from nowhere.

DH does a full contact martial art, and trains in a mixed setting. He's a smaller guy, but the convention in mixed training is that you don't go "hard" on people who are smaller than you - men or women. The most skilled competitor should win. But he says there are still a lot of guys who don't like being beaten by a smaller man or by a woman. It's pretty unattractive behaviour! I'd sit down with your DS and try to think about why he feels so strongly about a) a girl being better than him, and b) a girl being better than him at wrestling. How does it fit with his ideas about men and women? Does he need to change those ideas a bit?

So basically, "If women want equality then why can't men punch them?" 🙄

So basically, "If women want equality then why can't men punch them?" 🙄

followed by if women want equality why can't men pretend they punched them and lie about it.

If the boy did this elaborate harmful lie to get a boy who beat him into troublewhat would people say? Is it only when it is a girl that it is understandable?

@Aquiet is he genuinely remorseful or worried he will be found out because that is key. You say he seems but is he

because injuring yourself to get a girl in trouble isn’t normal level misogyny it is borderline socio/psychopathetic

What have the club said? I hope you have contacted them already. The girls' parents should also be informed and you should request an opportunity for your son to apologise.

It's really not up to your son to decide whether or not he needs to speak to the GP or to see a counsellor or whatever you decide is right. You are his parent and you need to parent him, not give in every time he cries. Where's his dad in all of this? Would it help to get him involved?

I don't think this needs to have been influenced by manosphere type media. The idea that girls are weak and a boy being beaten by a girl is embarrassing and humiliating for the boy is fairly pervasive. We hope that people will see through it, but I think they rarely do when it comes to physical strength (significantly less dominant in non-physical domains, though definitely still there for some people).

It's worrying that he doesn't have the wherewithal to recognise the inherent misogyny and find some other way to deal with the hit to his ego other than turn on the girl. You have to wonder how he might act when he's older and is stronger than virtually every girl he comes into contact with.

OP I think you need to treat him more with compassion than punishment in mind. I'm not suggesting you don't bring in consequences, just that those consequences might be best focused mainly on getting him to a better place.

Obviously you need to tell the club and get him to apologise to the girl. But I wouldn't wait for the club to kick him out. This has shown that that club is not good for him. He isn't up to the pressure it can put on him. Pull him out yourself. Get him doing things he will shine at. Talk to him (and get his DH to talk to him) about puberty and how things change over time between girls and boys. How he will grow bigger and stronger, etc. than most girls just because of his hormones, but equally he will have a weaker immune system, no capacity to grow another human being inside him, etc. Talk about how his feelings of humiliation being beaten by a girl are developed by social expectations and memes but also about how this particular idea that boys being beaten by girls is humiliating is grounded in an idea that girls are not as good as boys, how horrible that is and how much damage it does to boys and girls.

Standing up to social pressure, not letting it push you into being the sort of person you don't want to be, but still interacting with everyone with grace and integrity is a complex and tricky skill that takes years to fully develop. He's fallen at this hurdle. It's important to help him back up and over it, not just berate him for falling.

It’s quite dismissive to brush that behaviour off as a “bad choice”.
It’s a very extreme, peculiar choice that 99.9% of 12 year olds probably wouldn’t have made.
Please don’t make it sound like he ate someone else’s chocolate bar.

Not necessarily the fact he deliberately hurt himself to get someone else in trouble does indicate that it could be sociopathic

it is whether he is genuinely remorseful and confessed because he felt guilty or if he confessed for other reasons

it isn’t a response I would expect many that age to have (and I have a 13 year old) pretend to be injured yes that is normal the fact he went so far as to actually shut his hand in the door is v extreme

Op do you have an EAP with your work maybe? They can be very good with giving level headed advice when it comes to stuff like dealing with DC behaviour.

What do you mean that you're worried he'll be kicked out of the club? Surely ou if respect for the girl and to ensure he understands the seriousness of it, you will stop him going anyway?

The club is likely to be run by volunteer coaches who have day jobs. It's unrealistic to think that she could have got in touch with them with such a sensitive situation, during ng the working day. Even if she had their phone numbers, talking this through with them while they're at their workplace is entirely inappropriate.

I think this does highlight one of the issues with star of the week.

If you have a minority boy/girl then they do tend to get more proportionally of the subjective rewards - because they stand out more and they want to encourage them in case they stop wanting to do it because "it's for boys/girls".

In ballet I noticed the boys got more "star of the week" even though they were outnumbered about 20-2, the boys would get at least one a term, whereas the girls were one a year. And as my ds was one of the boys I can be totally honest and say, no he wasn't outstanding or even one of the better half of the class.

Also my dd is physically disabled, and she would always get more things like that than her sister, even though her sister put more effort in. I also noticed that with prizes if she was with the competition entry (eg fancy dress) then she would almost always get a prize even if it was only a "and I noticed this wonderful entry which so nearly got a prize that I had to just buy a packet of sweets to say well done."

I think you do have to come down hard on this for the sake of the girl who probably has been upset at being accused. She may well leave the activity over it because she will feel under suspicion even after he has confessed.
But the fact he's admitted it should also get a small reprieve. Because otherwise he'd have been better not to admit it really, wouldn't he?

I think though I'd have a chat to him about Star of the week. It's about standing out as the one, not generally doing well. So it's catching the eye of the coach doing something special, or being in the right place, or doing something different to normal. Him not getting it may mean that he is generally good, so each week it doesn't feel he's done enough to get that special award, but he's done well.

He may also be expecting it to be done as primary school awards, turn and turn about, so feeling it isn't fair.
I'd go for the means not a lot level - honestly it doesn't really. Say about them wanting to encourage the girls because typically the girls at that age drop out faster than the boys - I don't think that's unfair for him to know as long as you can trust him not to shout out "you only got that because you're a girl."

It seems to me that there is no way your son and this poor girl can continue going to the same club. So either the innocent girl is made to feel so uncomfortable that she leaves, while your son continues on happily. Or your son leaves. What about the other members of the club, have rumours spread about this allegation? If so I do not know if that poor girl can carry on as a "but I didn't do it" won't cut it. What a disgustingly, awful thing for your son to do and I speak as mother of son's with behavioural and learning difficulties (now adult) who thankfully never blamed anyone else for their behaviour.

I actually find some of the dismissive posts on this thread both worrying and disappointing.

This attitude is one of the reasons red pill content has become so prevalent in modern culture, and precisely why they keep getting away with it.

Dismissing it as something silly that kids do is, quite frankly, insane behaviour. The idea that he was so upset at being beaten by a girl that he sought out somewhere with no CCTV, purposely hurt himself, and then lied through his teeth to people in positions of authority is NOT normal.

For every parent that thinks their precious angel baby couldn't have meant it because it's just hormones, for every person who insists that 'boys will be boys' and scoffs and makes references to sociopathy and Mary Bell (?) I can guarantee there's a right-wing man with a bloody podcast just waiting to prey on their boys.

And yes, it is that serious.

Erm, the OP doesn't say or imply her son did this 'because she is a girl'. He may well have done this regardless of who it was.

Not necessarily.
People are in all sorts of different situations.
In serious situations like this, plenty of volunteers who work with young people are able to take time from their lunch hours, or flexible working time, or they might be retired or unemployed or SAHPs or shift workers.

To my mind, the OP should have let them know as soon as she found out, and then the people who run the group might, or might not have been able to deal with the situation at the time, but at least the OP had done all that she could.

Sorry, just seen the OP update!

MargaretThursday

From the OP's posts:

They have been put together to practise for a couple of sessions now and she dominates him every time they practise.

I’ve just been speaking to him about it to see if any anti feminist content is being mentioned at school, he said no but just admitted he was upset that the girl was better than him, he’s noticed that the girls keep beating boys in general and that the last boy star of the week was in December.

Her son acknowledges the girls are better than the boys. There is a structured scoring system for wrestling, I don't know if that applies here.

If he's already feeling resentful about being beaten by a girl telling him the girls are only getting star awards because they are girls will not help. He will feel like he's being unfairly treated. He needs to accept he's getting fairly beaten and if he doesn't like that he needs to work harder to improve.

Say about them wanting to encourage the girls because typically the girls at that age drop out faster than the boys - I don't think that's unfair for him to know as long as you can trust him not to shout out "you only got that because you're a girl."

Why would it be a problem for him to say that? You believe it to be true, that's your whole post. Telling him girls get preferential treatment will only reinforce his misogyny. It's the kind of messaging delivered by Andrew Tate types.

This. If you brush it under the carpet then you are as bad as him.

This.