If your older DC accidentally hurts your younger DC, do you punish or not? If not, how do you deal with it?

[MrJelly]

Ds1 (5) and DS2 (3) play a lot of physical games with each other which invariably end in DS2 in tears as DS1 will accidentally hurt him in some way - having seen a couple of these accidents over the last few days, they are genuine accidents (such as this evening, they were both bouncing on my bed and DS1 kicked DS2 in the face). Unfortunately for Ds2, he is not the most physical agile of children whereas Ds1 is very active and sporty which I don't think helps.

However, I know that Ds1 is not doing it deliberately but not sure how I can get him to stop - it is usually due to giddiness that just goes that step too far.

It seems mean to punish him and he is genuinely sorry afterwards - but it is happening more regularly now and poor DS2 must feel like a punchbag

It's a tough one and at some point there's a line that gets crossed - the point at which it stops being an unpredictable accident that couldn't have been anticipated, and becomes the sort of accident which was bound to happen - if you swing long pointy knives around a crowded room, you can reasonably predict that sooner or later you'll stab someone.

So if I think that the accident was due to lack of thought/carelessness, I would "punish" or at least do a bit of telling off. If it was completely unpredictable, then I make them say sorry and leave it there - but I do insist that they apologise even when they didn't mean to do it. They still hurt someone, and that's what they're apologising for.

Thanks - I think that is where I am struggling as I have no idea where that line is. For example, bouncing on the bed is fun and I don't want to stop them having fun but, yes, chances are that DS2 is going to get hurt (he is one of these children that just seems to attract accidents )

Again, the other times it has happened, DS2 is having a whale of a time and you can hear/see him giggling away - it is difficult to wade in and ask them to stop.

I do make DS1 apologise although, to be fair, he has usually apologised straight away anyway as he is genuinely upset that he has hurt DS2.

It is a bit confusing as me and DH have both witnessed DS1 deliberately hurting DS2 (tripping him up etc) and that has been dealt with appropriately but also left us with a slight sense of suspicion that if the 'accident' happened whilst neither of us were in the room, how much of an 'accident' it actually was

I think you have to be clear with the older/stronger/bigger child that they have to play gently with smaller children from the outset. Set the expectation and they've got chance to tone it down and not be so rough.