DD (16) physically retaliated in a fight with DS (6). I don’t know what to do.

[CandidPearlWasp]

Hi everyone. I’m having a very tough time with my children and hoping for some advice.

My DD is 16, and my son (her half brother) is 6. DD splits her time 50/50 between our house and my ex husband’s house.

Recently my son has been having behavioural challenges. Our physician suspects he has ODD and ADHD, and we are awaiting therapy and services for him. In the meantime, he has explosive and sometimes violent meltdowns and everyday tasks are a battle when he’s not getting his way. He has hit, punched, pulled hair, bit, etc. all of us and it’s been awful, but we can usually deescalate the situation, but since he’s a tall boy and weighs 65lbs it does hurt.

Two weeks ago my DD was in her bedroom watching something on her iPad, which her father bought for her. We do not have one for my son, so he’s been very intrigued by it and she’s let him use it before. This time, he went in and said he wanted to play on it. She said no. He started to have a verbal meltdown and she said “I said no, get out of my room please”. This escalated into him climbing onto her bed, hitting her in the face and pulling her hair. She then grabbed him by the hair, got off the bed by standing up while holding his hair and dragged him out of her room and across the hall by the hair. He was screaming in pain and fear and she threw him into his room, said “that doesn’t feel good, does it?” and slammed the door.

I was outside as this happened and alerted by the nanny cam we have downstairs. I rushed in and ran into my 6 year old’s room to calm him down, as he was wailing. My 16 year old came in and got angry with me saying it’s all always about him, even though he was “a little psycho who attacked her”. I told her that I understood it’s not okay he attacked her, but he’s a small child and what she did wasn’t okay. She left for her father’s that night and hasn’t been back, is barely speaking to me and won’t speak to or apologize to her brother. She’s made it clear to me she thinks she did nothing wrong.

I’m at a loss - about how to handle my son, how to reconnect with my daughter and how to move forward as a family.

Your son has "behavioural challenges" - you are waiting to see if he gets a diagnosis but meanwhile what strategies have you tried? It's possible that your son is just being poorly parented. What have you done when he attacks and what advice have you given to your daughter on how to safely handle him when he's aggressive?

She shouldnt have been dragging him by his hair but she could have been holding his arm. I suspect you'd have reacted just as badly to that. The pain he felt means maybe he'll stop pestering her in future. You handled it badly by not recognising HER distress at being attacked.

She needs a lock for her door and both children should be apologising - your son first as he started it and has more to apologise for.

Oh I'm not saying it's not - the lock thing is as much about her not having to feel she has to 'hide away' as much as it is about whether or not it's an effective tool for keeping her brother away from her and her possessions. I agree with the father thing too, hence why being asked if she wants to stay not asked TO stay if you see what I mean? I feel for everyone in this, sounds like an awful situation.

He was screaming in pain and fear
Cor. This phrasing really shows where your sympathy is! I have a DSD with audhd and when she lashes out at her siblings she sometimes gets whacked back. Her dad's and my view on that is pretty much FAFO or 'play stupid games, win stupid prizes' in a more child friendly phrase. Of course the older one gets a telling off too but it's pretty typical sibling behaviour. Excusing violent outbursts because of ND isn't ok.

I agree. I give the girl some leeway for being only 16 but most of the responses seem to not even mention ages and launch straight into how anyone provoked that much would do the same, how he needed to be taught a lesson etc.

yet turn the genders around and 16 year old boy dragging his 6 year old sister by the hair would probably have people screaming that he’s going to abuse women. And an 18 year old would be legally an adult yet inlyb2 years older. Would they get the same leeway?

the reaction wasn’t an instinctive lash out either. It was an aggressive act of dragging him out if one room to another.

i think the girl should not have to put up with being attacked but she also needs to be taught that retaliatory violence will end up with her also in trouble. In a couple of years she’ll be an ‘adult’.

Additional needs or not you do not attack others. My 7 year old has severe additional needs and is not allowed to assault any of us.

Punish him appropriately and don't just enable this by blaming his needs. Your poor daughter isn't being protected by you and that's your failure as a parent. Do better and learn how to manage additional needs.

She removed him from her room and shut the door. That's pretty restrained TBH. She wasn't beating him up in a corner.

Your poor DD.

@CandidPearlWasp Why do you have nannycams? Is it because of DS’s violence? Did you ask DD if she’s okay with being filmed?

While a lock on DD’s door is a great idea and should happen, I suspect that DS won’t care about a lock and will just try to break the door. Give him a few more years and he’ll probably be capable of breaking it if he isn’t already.

Ideally she would not have dragged him by the hair, but that's adult me talking. I was 16 once too and I would have reacted similarly, and hell would have frozen over before I apologised to my brother for him hitting me in the face and kicking off the chain of events afterwards.

Ideally he would not have bashed her either, obviously. Kids move on quickly, do you think he would even remember hitting her if you tried to get him to apologise? I suspect trying to force this wouldn't help either of them now, but maybe something to think about in the moment next time he upsets her? Leaving them unattended is not going to be feasible any more.

I hope she comes round. Can you go and see her, take her out and listen to her? Try to work out how to move forward.

The calls of mysogyny are laughable.

If the op had replaced '16 year old dd' with '16 year old ds' then the thread would be FULL of posts telling us the 16 year old boy was violent, abusive and dangerous - and advising op to refuse to allow him back home, to call the police, call SS, to protect the 6 year old.

This is a girl which = free pass. The poor lamb was defending herself. She was a victim of 'male violence' (from the 6 year old) and everything she did to him was deserved.

To me it sounds like the op has two violent yobs. Only one has the excuse of age and sen.

How was she supposed to react to being attacked, sit there and take it? I've got an almost 16y/o DD, she weighs just under 100lb. There's no way she could safely remove a tall 65lb boy who is kicking and screaming from her room. She wouldn't have the strength nor the skills to do it. Maybe she went a bit overboard with the hair pulling, but she's not done anything intrinsically wrong by defending herself. She was attacked and then she was blamed for defending herself.

I think we’d all react to being attacked.

it’s a natural human response.

This is why siblings of children with send are seen as young carers. Do you have a local young carers group she could attend to speak to other children who go through the same. It’s her house too and she also needs to feel safe there.

It’s not as basic as that though is it.

would it be acceptable if YOU dragged him by the hair and threw him on the bed?

would it be acceptable if a 16 year old boy dragged his 6 year old sister by the hair and threw her on the bed?

would it be acceptable for a 6’3” man to drag his 5’2” girlfriend by the hair and throw her on the bed if she slapped or pushed him?

or are your rules specific to 16 year old girls being attacked by 6 year old boys?

Probably. I have two adult sons and an adult daughter. The priority lesson for my sons was that they should know their strength and never use it against a smaller weaker person. Because men who reach adulthood without learning this lesson are a danger.
Equally important not to teach my daughter she should not defend herself, because women who grow up thinking they must be passive in the face of attack may be in danger.
Such is the difference between the sexes whether we like it or not.

i think the girl should not have to put up with being attacked but she also needs to be taught that retaliatory violence will end up with her also in trouble. In a couple of years she’ll be an ‘adult’.

Bit tricky when the girl decamped to her Dad's and is barely speaking to the Op her Mum.

Which is part of what Op is asking for help with.

What message do you think your son got after this incident? That he is allowed to act with impunity, that he is allowed to hit and ride roughshod with no consequences. Think of the messages you are giving this young boy and how that will impact his development into a young man.

He should have had a firm talking to afterward and an explanation that this is what will probably happen if he behaves like this outside the home.

I completely agree.

I have seen this happen and the child who retaliated did so out of pain and sheer frustration that the other child is always allowed to 'abuse' him and nothing is ever done.
In the same way, the parent rushed to comfort the instigator and told off the child who retaliated. Suffice to say, their relationship is shit; but the little one never brought hands to him again.

You seem to be all about what's good for your youngest child and it doesn't matter about your sixteen year old daughter being, by the sound if it, regularly assaulted by her violent younger brother. Good on her I say. I am the mother of neurodivegent childre and I hope you realise that neurodivegent children, assuming he is not just a spoilt brat, still require discipline and boundaries. It is not a charter for doing whatever they want when they want. At the very least get your daughter a lock for her door and don't punish her for defending herself in the face of your lamentably wet behaviour.

Team DD.

You have to support her. She will stop coming to your house if you continue to make it a physically unsafe environment and then punish her when she defends herself.

She initially responded calmly and rationallly to him and he then attacked her, while I can't condone her for lashing out I can't blame her either. She must have been in pain and shocked. Horrible for all three of you for different reasons. How is your son now?

A bit more of that and he might think twice about his behaviour.
We might not have the behaviour epidemic that we seem to with kids nowadays, SEN or otherwise, if they got this reaction when they were violent towards other people.

Good For her ! He won’t do it again . Get your daughter a lock for her room. I wouldn’t come back to your house at all if I were her either.

And adhd etc is not an excuse to be physically violent.

while I understand your concerns, he sounds very challenging.

siblings react very differently to anyone else. For an adult to behave like that, it would be wholly unacceptable.

However, he may have learnt a lesson from this. I feel very sorry for your daughter and she is still a child, and although an older one, she reacted in a way that is hardly surprising given the circumstances. She doesn’t deserve to be over-berated for this.

Not ideal but I imagine she was at the end of her tether with his behaviour. If you have already told her off the don't tell her off again. Is there a way she can be taught to restrain him and move him in a gentler way if he's attacking her? If she wants to spend more time at her father's house you can't really blame her. Are you able to spend time with her without your son, I would increase that if you can.

SEN isn't an excuse for bad behaviour. Your son has learned a valuable lesson here and that's if you hit somebody continuously, especially somebody larger than you, you need to consider what happens when they finally react.