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?

Oh shush. She has every right to win whatever games she can.

She can't beat this shit out of her brother.

Id be having a word with DS about expressing frustration and its not OK to start fights. His job is to protect his sister not hurt her.

Id be having a word with DD about proportionate response, cutting and bruising him is an assault. Theres a difference between defending yourself and attacking someone. Standing up to her brother doesnt mean hurting him.

You will find yourself in trouble if you let DD get away with this because DS started it. If DD started it or starts the next one and DS left her cut and bruised woild you be proud of him for defending himself? Or is it because shes the girl youre "proud"?

Violence is never cool. Id ground them both and be clear why.

I scream for help whist doing what I can to fight him off, I do what I can to keep myself safe, which includes reporting him to the police. In other words, I look for an authority figure to deal with him. As a child, this means removing yourself from the situation and talking to a parent about what is going on. She was not attacked in the woods with nobody nearby to help her. She had many different options available to her but chose to “beat him up”. If you believe she should be using her brother, who is still a child himself, to practice her self defence techniques, that’s messed up.

They both should get punished, your DS is wrong for hitting his sister because he can’t stand the fact she is faster and stronger than him. For one she is his sister and two that’s not the way to handle something you don’t like and your DD should get punished because she didn’t just use self defence she beat him up to the point he has cuts, bruises and needed to be carried inside. She also went too far. Hopefully your DS learnt a lesson after his beating

So your daughter is stronger but your proud she bit him up? So when he is 16 and stronger than her, she hits him and he beats her up, will you be proud of him.

You sound sexist and this is affecting how you are raising your kids.

He started it. She ended it. I clearly said that if I was OP I’d talk to my daughter about proportionality.

If not wanting women or girls to accept violence makes me a ‘feminazi’ then I’ll happily wear that badge. Have you got your ‘the misogyny is coming from the home team’ hat on?

@ForAmpleRobin definitely agree with this, there is a big difference between an 11 year old and a 15 year old in terms of strength and size.

When you say he hit her and she fought back, how did he hit her? He pulled her back and then did what, hit her once, hit her hard, hit her face, punched her stomach - there is a big difference between all of these.

First step go and see your son, make sure he is ok, no concussion, ask if his head was kicked or hurt, find out exactly what happened, make sure no bones broken, and ask him to explain exactly what happened from his perspective. Then go and see your daughter and find out what happened from her perspective. Find out about both their feelings both about this and anything else about each other and whether it is okay to hit people. Before you make any decisions about anything.

Having to carry an 11 year old inside after a sibling fight sounds serious and unusual.

Huge consequences for both kids. He shouldn’t have hit her, but she overreacted back. In my house it would be no screens for a week I would leave his birthday celebration alone though

And just thinking back, i wouldnt be able now and couldnt have done aged 9 'beaten someone up'.

How come she has done this?

But she wasn’t ’practising’. It was in motion. How can you say how she felt?

I'm shocked at the level of violence and your reaction to it.

I have 2. They are competitive and hate loosing to each other.

The have occasionally bicker and hit each other and but never hard Enough to leave a mark...they both seem to know that would be a line to cross without us even saying it to them

Your daughter beat you son to the point of being covered in cuts and bruises and he needed carrying inside?!

To me, that isn't normal sibling level of violence. Her reaction was way overboard.

I'd get it if she had hit him back but she didn't...she full on attacked him from your description of injury

Of course it would be an issue. In fact if they can't speak to your daughter to confirm who caused the injuries then they may doubt that she was even involved.

I have 2 kids with the same age gap.

We simply never let them physically fight. Any sign and it was shut down immediately. At 11 and 9, your kids are far too old for this and need to learn that lashing out physically is just not on. It’s not healthy and it’s poor parenting if you think it’s part of life.

I’d be proud if they learned to walk away, not fight back.

Aren’t there much better ways for an eleven year old boy to learn this, than being thrown to the wolves and his sister being praised for badly hurting himself?

You haven't responded. Does your daughter have any marks on her?

I wouldn't cancel the cinema. Kids fight, I did with my brothers, it's a part of childhood/having a brother IMO. I would have a chat with both of them and secretly think good for her. Hopefully he learnt something. Sounds like he needs to learn to be a better sportsman.

What is "Play Fighting" ? Is that like "Play Aggravated Burglary" or "Play Drug Dealing" ?
The issue here is that you are encouraging a pastime which fosters the exercise of the brutal rather than of the creative/ imaginative/ productive/ curious/ kind/ generous sides of your children's natures. You really should not be surprised if they then act in ways which are unkind, ungenerous and unpleasant. This one's on you. Find them something better to do with their time.

I agree. And I just can't get the mindset - anyone beating the crap out of anyone for any reason is not normal.

You really sound perversely thrilled OP, I guess she is your favourite and you sound quite mean towards him, don't cancel his cinema trip.

Absolutely. In an ideal world.
But it sounds that he’s walked himself into quite a harsh learning scenario here.

Your son needs to learn to keep his hands off other people.
His sister taught him a valuable lesson.

She hasn't the right to beat people up.

I think that’s too harsh.

But both should be sanctioned in some way, e.g, phone use. They’ve both been violent. It’s not entirely self-defence if your DD beat up DS.

I can’t say how she felt, but as I said previously, if a 9 year old girl is getting to the stage where she feels unsafe or full of blind rage because of her older brother, there is a massive parenting issue that pre-dates this attack. Or, she made the choice to dominate him. Either way, she needs help because neither of those things are acceptable. Suggesting it’s fine because she needs to learn to fight men off is ridiculous.

It's not harmless though is it? I really would have thought you'd have learnt that from this. If they're trying to get each other to the ground then someone could easily be seriously hurt by hitting their head.

Play fighting with your dad when your 3 is one thing (although not something i think is appropriate because why would you encourage fighting at any age) but having siblings and cousins fighting at around secondary school age is really inappropriate.

You're the one who's to blame and who should be punished IMO for allowing this to go on! You need to put a stop to all this now.