To think Dsis is overeacting after SS hit niece?

[PapaSteel]

I've been with my partner for 8 years and we have dc together, he has a son from his previous relationship. He's 15 and not his bio son but he's been in his life since he was young and he sees him as his dad

Alot happened when we got together as his ex would tell SS that DP didn't want to see him anymore now he was dating me which wasn't true at all. She was physically & verbally abusive towards him and he's been living with us since he was 13 (after he told school about howHe has a lot of trauma and anger which school are supportive about and outside of school he gets help on how to manage the anger and he is a lot better than he was but the anger is still there so we are just patient with him

We're currently on holiday with my sister and her 2 dc and have been here since Monday. There was issues almost straight away as ss got angry at the claw machine but he and dp left the arcade and went for a walk to calm down as the arcade was busy so there was no way he'd have been able to calm down whilst in the arcade. My sister described him as a tantrumming toddler who didn't get his own way and said partner wasn't doing him any favours. I ignored her

He loves drawing and usually if you ask he will show what he's drawing but earlier he was at the table drawing and my niece (10) kept asking what he was drawing. He told her but she kept saying “show me show me” despite him saying no, she pulled his sketch book away from him which caused him to shout at her and she “accidentally” spilt her water on it. He was clearly very angry/upset and walked off to go to his room and she followed him and called him a baby, asked if he was going to cry etc, and he turned round and hit her and now he's being made out to be the bad guy

During this my sister was out with her other dc, my dp was in the shower and I was telling her multiple times to leave him alone and do something else even when she was repeatedly telling him to show her his drawing and she ignored me

My sister is now back and furious, she said she doesn't want her children to share a space with a “violent man”, and has even mentioned going to the police and social services on us if we're happy to have him around our children as he's not related to us when asked where he should go she just replied care

AIBU to think she's overreacting? I know SS shouldn't have hit her and he knows this too but she hasn't apologised for her part in deliberatly winding him up and sister says she doesn't need to as she's a child and he's nearly an adult

Are you always this dramatic? How on earth do you get through life????

But you dismissing acts of violence and claiming he can't hurt other children, will undo everything. Most 15 year old can rape and kill adult women. How big he is doesn't matter, he has more muscle than girls and most women. He has denser bone density. It's crucial that you explain why men, or in his case, a young man shouldn't hit out. Or he's going to end up in young offenders, or getting done in by someone's family.

now he’s being made out to be the bad guy

in this situation, he is. And it’s not doing him any favours to pretend otherwise.

Your sister’s daughter sounds like an unpleasant brat who thinks it’s ok to bully - I imagine she’s a delight at school. But it doesn’t mean she should be hit.

Quoting YouTube, hilarious 😂

You are entirely wrong, I’m sorry but you are.

You are clearly working hard to support your SS, and he has clearly had a very hard time of it but a 15 yo boy is 2 to 3 times stronger than a 10 yo girl even if she is the same size as him.

Who was in the wrong in the argument is entirely besides the point.

He was violent towards a child. Her behaviour is irrelevant.

He is not currently in control of his behaviour.

You need to take him away from your nieces and I’m very sorry but he shouldn’t be left alone with your baby.

Would you also teach your daughter that it's ok to call someone names and deliberately destroy something they worked hard on because they are older and bigger than you so shouldn't react or get annoyed no matter what you do to them.

If you think the niece should also apologise then you are a fucking appalling parent and person in my book. You cannot go round being a little shit to others without consequences. Bullying can happen upwards as well as down.

You can deal with both you can teach her nit to accept violence
but also you need to teach her not to gaslight people as one day you will pick on the wrong person which she did

there are 2 issues the violence and her behaviour to SS was atrocious she do get a free pass

Siblings or cousins giving her other a whack during the normal course of messing around, playing, annoying each other, rough housing… yeah, fine. That happens. But this isn’t that.

This is a 15 year old who had to be removed from an arcade due to his anger. His hitting her was not in the theme of “family messing about.” It was the reaction of an angry, violent male.

Our society has a huge issues with angry, violent men using their physicality to dominate and abuse women. Hie behaviour is very much showing those signs, not those of family messing about.

Do not ignore boys when they behave like this or you end up with men who beat their wives for cooking the wrong food or saying the wrong thing.

Imagine you call your DH a prick, he walks off and you follow him to say "an absolute prick!". He turns around and punches you in the face, breaking your nose. Is this your fault for winding him up? Or his fault for not controlling himself?

Clearly a terrible idea to go on holiday together.

Just fine thanks. I don’t tolerate any form of violence in my household or from family members. You realise abusive men started off once as boys? I’ve got two boys and I’ve taken my responsibility to raise them as decent non violent non abusive men very seriously. So I have got through 50 odd years of life just fine and continue to do so, thanks.

Your sister is talking rubbish in my opinion. I think you also need to take some responsibility. You should’ve removed DN when she wouldn’t do as she was told and leave him alone.
I’d go home. This poor boy is living with people who his Mum told him don’t want anything do with him. Even though you’ve explained that isn’t the case it’ll still be there in the back of his head. Now your DS is treating him like a violent adult instead of a troubled teen.

It's clearly not working if he is physically assaulting a child in frustration.

Your sister is right that he probably needs more external support and monitoring to ensure safety of those around him.

It’s one of those situations where both things are true at the same time. He shouldn’t have hit her, at 15 he’s gone through puberty and despite what you’re saying there will be a significant difference in strength.

It’s also true that he was strongly provoked. The niece needs to be clearly told that when someone walks away, she should recognise she’s pushed too far. Following him and calling him names is very wrong. She needs to take responsibility for respecting other people’s boundaries and knowing when to stop.

@PapaSteel I am glad that you say he is getting help with his anger. I do think you are minimising the potential for real physical injury here. I stopped letting my sons win playfights with me when they got to 13/14, they genuinely were stronger than me then. I am short but was actively training in a martial art too. A 15 boy will definitely be a lot stronger than a younger girl.

That is not to say that her behaviour wasn’t wrong, she clearly was out to wind him up. She also needs to understand when to shut up and stop. If she was to do similar in another context she may well end being hurt really badly by someone.

Ach this is a really hard one. Your niece was completely out of order. But your SS shouldn’t have hit her.

But I’d be inclined to go easy on him as he was being put under extreme pressure by your niece’s behaviour.

Him hitting her can’t be excused but her behaviour was out of order. He needs to learn that as he grows to become a man, one of his responsibilities will be NOT to hit out even under extreme provocation. Can you and your DP talk him through this?

And your sister is raising a very bratty girl. I’d be furious.

She’s not equally in the wrong. Yes she was annoying. Lots of ten year olds are. But violence is not an appropriate response from a 15 year old boy towards a 10 year old. He can’t go around hitting everyone who winds him up. And you aren’t doing him any favours if you give him the impression that his response was in any way proportionate, and that he deserves an apology for being pushed to violence. He needs to own his own behaviour and his own anger and learn other ways to react in this sort of situation, rather than blaming the situation for his reaction.

Does your boyfriend have parental responsibility for the unrelated teen? He absolutely should not be assaulting anyone, nevermind little girls.

Are social services involved? Being discarded by both parents and living with unrelated people is so traumatic it will be hard for the boy for life.

I haven't told him that he should have hit and that it was ok, I've said multiple times that he knows it wasn't and he’s apologised.

To the poster saying that their 3yo knows not to hit, presumably you aren’t physically and verbally abusive to them? In an ideal world he would be able to control his anger but all through his childhood he was abused by his mum which is a big factor in all this due to the trauma he went through. That isn't an excuse but it's not clear cut as a teen boy with absolutely no trauma at all getting angry and hitting. To a PP asking It was more of a hit/push on the shoulder not a punch or anything

My children are younger than 10 and know not to purposely destroy (or try to) someone's things and that if SS or anyone walks away from them not to follow them and carry on provoking them, she's nearly 11, she's going into secondary school in a few weeks so she should know.

it's 6 of one and half a dozen of the other. Tell them both off and get on with your holiday.

And I don’t think you should minimise the continual carping and commentary from your sister. She and her daughter were bullying your SS in a particularly femininely nasty way. He responded in a toxically masculine way.

A mess, but your SS was probably feeling hot at by your sister and niece. I agree with PP that it’s not a very healthy or supportive environment for your SS. Maybe best you all go home.

OP is falling over herself to excuse his behavior, and paint the niece as a nasty piece of work.. so I doubt her version of events is true to be honest, because if it WAS true, why would OP sit there and let all that happen to him in the first place?

She should have also intervened properly as soon as she tried to grab his notebook, and definitely as soon as he started shouting at her, before things escalated.

OP is either a thoroughly shit parent figure, or she is telling a very one sided embellished story about what actually happened.

Personally I've never called my DH a prick and he has never called me names either. I don't think that's normal or desirable in a relationship, we never have that kind of personal slanging match argument. He is very mild-mannered but we don't put one another to the test. Everyone has a tipping point for losing it.

As someone with a DS who has previously been pretty aggressive, had police involvement, but has now calmed down, I can suggest the following:

• Police would not necessarily do anything but if they did, they'd talk to him about alternative strategies for when he's wound up (which he has, and was trying to implement), about respect for smaller children and women and honestly, if they heard what you've said and you also told them about how you are working on his anger, they will probably say "you are doing a good job but it's a work in progress". They might have alternative help available e.g. we had a youth worker come and talk to our DS which was part of what helped him.

• If you had thought of it at the time, a good strategy would be to stand between the DN and the DSS' bedroom door, to prevent her from going in. Our DD winds up our DS and sometimes we do have to physically intervene, even to the point of holding her still (he's now much more likely to avoid her and to avoid people who are winding him up in general, but she's younger and they both have ADHD but she isn't medicated yet and finds it really hard to simmer down when she's wound up herself).

• Among the children at his school, which is a specialist SEMH school, there is a strong culture of "if you provoke someone, that is not right and you will also get a consequence for provoking". DS has taken this on board, and the "just stay out of their way" idea, which are two of his big leaps forward, and it sounds like your DSS has also. Your DN needs a talk about not provoking people.

• The last time DS was actively aggressive with a major effect was over a year ago and an adult shouted directly in his face, he was 13 at the time and he slapped her. We know he shouldn't have done that but the other adult witnesses agreed that the adult shouldn't have shouted either. DS apologised directly and the adult has since gone out of her way to be nice to him, but hasn't directly apologised... I know who I think is the bigger person here! Though in his case it was an adult (and taller than him).

So in summary (and no I did not use Chat GPT) I would suggest either she doesn't stay with you in the future, or you develop better strategies for keeping them apart.

Perhaps if you apologise to the SIL and the DN saying something like "we have learned that DSS can't always stay calm when someone winds him up. He's doing a good job at trying hard and he knows to take himself away from people who wind him up. But I should have kept you away from him better too. You might find yourself in these situations again so you can learn now while you are young not to tease and provoke people and then we'll all be happier".

So, acknowledging that you weren't on the ball, but also pointing out she has some growing up to do.

I see that DSS has already apologised. He will be in situations like these in the future, he already has some strategies, if you see him using them again give him a thumbs up and let him know you've noticed them.