Conflicted after DS hit DD and she fought back and beat him up?

[ForAmpleRobin]

Bit of sibling drama today and I’m not sure if I’m handling it right.

My DD is 9 and my DS is 11. Lately there’s been a bit of tension because she’s actually stronger and faster than him at a lot of things like running and general physical things. DD and my niece have started doing cross country and the girls have been practicing whilst we’ve been out on family walks as well as racing each other. DS is quite competitive and I think it bothers him more than he lets on that DD and his cousin are faster and stronger than him.

They were messing around earlier in the garden doing races and silly “strength competitions” like who can get who on the ground first and DS got increasingly annoyed when DD and DN kept winning. It escalated into him hitting his sister and trying to subdue her but she fought back.
She ended up properly beating him up. DN quickly came and told me about it and then I had to carry him inside and DH took DN home. He is covered in cuts and his bruises are starting to show up.

Obviously I’ve told them that hitting isn’t acceptable, but if I’m being completely honest I also felt proud that she’s confident and doesn’t back down. At the same time I know DS is feeling humiliated by being beaten up by his younger sister and that DN will spread it to the rest of the family. However this would help him learn his lesson!

AIBU for feeling conflicted about this? How would you handle it with both of them? I feel like I don’t know what the best punishment would be? I was thinking of grounding them both for fighting but then DD was in self defence so is it unfair and shall I just ground DS?

I don’t think she should be punished for defending herself. Your son was the instigator and just because he came off worse doesn’t change that fact.

Of course you are conflicted as they are both your children. But put it in an outside perspective. An older boy at school hit your daughter who she in turn beat up. Would you punish her for that??

I wouldn't be cancelling the cinema or his birthday.

I would be sitting them both down, individually, and talking about how this is a violence free house.
DH could sit down with DS and discuss feelings. How DS feels and how he feels like reacting and what is acceptable and what is not. He needs to be offered ideas of what to do when feeling jealous. His Dad could suggest he tries to swap his feelings to ones of pride in how strong and fast his sister is getting (remembering that he is male so will end up very strong).
Intervention and discussion often for a while to help DS identify his feelings and how he should react.
DH accompanying DS to an anger management course could be useful.

Your DD I would still admonish for beating a person up. Ask her to brain storm other ways she could have reacted, once she had fought of her aggressor.

Have both use their muscles to spring clean their bedrooms and help their Dad clean the outside windows before they are allowed to attend the birthday experience.

It is never disproportionate for a girl.or woman to teach a person who will one day be stronger and bigger than her, or who is now stronger and bigger than her, to treat her with the respect he owes her.

It is never OK to teach a girl that the feelz of a male must be put ahead of any desire she may have to win a race or to demonstrate superiority in any other field.

I hope the brother learned a much needed lesson - I do t know how a boy gets to the age of 11 still thinking he will get away with swinging first, or that it is OK to vent uncomfortable feelings through violence.

The really troubling bit about the incident is that this boy felt jealous to the point of rage. Somewhere deep inside he must have felt that hitting his younger sister would result in taking her down a peg.

Having been on the receiving end of that sort of treatment from my exH, and stemming from jealousy too, I find it extraordinary that women here can't join the dots, understand that male entitlement and refusal to deal maturely with emotional discomfort are horribly dangerous character traits that start young and continue because they are never challenged - and are trying to portray the sister's response as a negative.

I would enroll your son in a sport like bjj or judo so he can learn to control aggression

As others have said it wont be long until your son is bigger than she is - this could escalate if you cant get a handle on it now. You need to come down on them both like a ton of bricks. Explain to her the concept of 'one punch' - there is an episode of 24 hours in police custody which is on this concept if she is old enough. Self defence has a limit.

But OP says she is bigger and stronger than the person she beat up - her brother. If she had similarly badly beaten up another, smaller, nine year old girl who provoked her, should OP be proud of that? People keep talking about self-defence, but legally self-defence needs to be reasonable and proportionate. The DD went way too far. Both children need punishing and OP also needs to work on the family dynamics (violence is accepted and a 9 year old has a phone?!).

It's not a zoo. Zero tolerance for physical violence.
Point out to him that he started it and the retaliator always has the moral upper hand but tell her she over reacted and needs to rein in her temper.

Sounds like neither of them can control their emotional response. For your daughter to have beaten your son up to the point he cannot walk though…I would be worried about any child exhibiting that level of violence.

I read this last night but didn’t post, then I’ve come across it again this morning. I can only say like others, if it was the other way around, your daughter hit your son and then your son beat your daughter up, causing bruises, would you still be happy?

Her and her cousin kept pushing the boy. He hit his sister once. Sister beat her skinnier brother so badly that he couldn’t walk. I previously said they need to be punished equally, but now I think the daughter should be punished more harshly. She is a bully.

Nasty little shit is well old enough to know that boys don't hit girls.

You are as immature as your kids. When a child is already feeling jealous about their sibling’s strength, you are supporting harmless playfighting. You are proud of your dd able to self defend, even when she went too far.
Your son who is 3 years older is physically weaker than sister and you think it’s okay for them to compete with sister and cousin.

What are his interests? If he is interested in running and martial art, then how could his strength be developed.

Both kids are in wrong but based on your posts here, I am assuming they don’t have good guidance. Your focus is on punishment when there are deeper issues here. One kid feeling inadequate compared to sibling. If it’s not addressed, and on top you punish by cancelling his birthday, he can be very resentful of you.

Obviously, it depends on what exactly happened, but the daughter sounds psychotic to me.

He was so badly hurt he couldn’t walk and was covered in cuts and bruises? What exactly did she do and how long was she beating him for? That’s not normal behaviour in a 9 year old, not even close. Normally childhood fights stop once one party is hurt and stops fighting.

He shouldn’t have attacked her but it sounds like he got frustrated and doing something small and physical is normal sibling behaviour (it’s not right, but it is normal).

I am amazed how many people are applauding her beating him up. When she pulverises a school mate, she won’t be congratulated.

Christ.

My big concern here is your son’s behaviour. He has some serious issues if he is lashing out because someone beat him at a game. You need to get him some therapy or anger management. Very very concerning.

Is it possible your DD reacted the way she did because your failure to deal with this properly in any way so far?

And no 9 year old needs a phone.

And yes check what DS is looking at on his phone. And restrict phone time anyway.

Cancelling his birthday won’t do anything. He needs ongoing help.

Bollocks. They were playing a game and he got physical out of anger because he lost. He is the one with the big anger management problem.

The girls taunted him about him being weaker and pushed him and then he hit out. I’d probably do the same if someone did that to me. The sister attacked her brother in a horrific way. This was not self defence. The sister needs to see someone for anger therapy and her bullying behaviour and the brother needs to see someone about this low confidence. Or OP needs to have these conversations.

A sibling hitting another sibling generally isn't abuse though, it's a very different scenario, one which many will have experienced at one point or another and there's no real harm done.

One started it, one took it far. Not sure I could be proud of one child beating the other up so much they couldn't walk! She is physically stronger, it was very wrong regardless of sex. A bit of scrapping is standard sibling behaviour unfortunately, one beating the other black and blue is not.

Two onto one isn’t fair. The two girls were humiliating the boy.

Sorry where did you read that she was pushing him in the op?

OP said they were having a strength competition and DS got annoyed that DD kept winning.

This is a case of DS lashing out because his male ego was hurt. This needs sorting out and is serious.

DD still needs to defend herself but also needs to understand what this means and she is able to run away when able to do so.

A likely issue here is the Op just hasn’t been dealing with this properly for a long time and this is how it has escalated.

Will you ever feel proud of him if she hits him and 'he properly beats her up'. It's really not a good thing either way.

I wouldn’t feel proud of either of them. Of course your DD was acting in self defence but she didn’t have to go all out and beat the shit out of him… I wouldn’t go as far as cancelling his birthday trip but I think you need to sit them both down and explain the premise of assault and that it doesn’t become acceptable just because it’s your sibling.

Ok we get it that you hate boys. The girls were bullying the boy and pushed him to the ground. He hit her which is wrong but the girl’s violence is disgusting. Reverse the sexes. Is your opinion the same?

Thats too harsh and doesn’t deal with the issue. Yes he needs punishing but more than that, he needs some serious talking to about how he needs to express his feelings appropriately. And why he is so competitive. He sounds already ad though he expects always to win just because he’s a boy. He’s a bad loser.

He’s a potential sexist abuser. Find ways to stop it now.

’a sexist abuser’ that is ridiculous absolutely reverse misogynistic thinking.