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.

Nannycam

Kids with ADHD seek dopamine and conflict can be a source of dopamine for their brains.
This is pseudoscience. We all seek dopamine. Many kids also seek attention and it they can't get it other ways, get it by acting badly.
However, in this case, this child (known for his kicking, biting, and fighting) was seeking his sister's ipad. And prepared to be violent to get it. I think his sister showed a good deal of restraint.

OP - she shouldn't have done it, and was old enough to know better.

However, it is very difficult living with a sibling like that, even if they are much younger.

I'm not sure you can move forward 'as a family'. From her point of view, he is much younger, very difficult, and a half-sibling. She can certainly remember a time when he wasn't there.

You can have a relationship with your son, and a relationship with your daughter - but if she chooses not to have a relationship with him, then there's not much you can do.

If you have no other children, and depending on how disabled he is, you will need to make plans for his independence and his ability to cope after you and his partner have passed on. He won't be your daughter's responsibility unless she chooses to take that on.

If she perceives that you have 'chosen' him over her, rather than managing to be a parent to both of them - even if necessarily in different ways - she will find that very difficult.

@seriouslynonames that sounds immeasurably hard life for 14 yo, is she registered as a young carer to get support for her?

She was outside. The nannycam is "downstairs". Presumably she didn't stop to check the footage while she was running in and rushing into her son's room to pander to his "wailing"?

She's created the narrative she wants to here. Her son is the "victim" to be immediately attended to - but she didn't even see it.

While I can see why you would feel a need to step in to protect a 6 year old against a 16 year old, I think you need to remember what you said about his size and that he hurts when he hits out.

You are an adult and he hurts you. She's 16 and he got up on the bed to be taller when he went for her.

You have comforted him, now you need to spend time thinking about her feelings in all this. It sounds like you have all been through a lot with him and I'm afraid just saying 'he can't help it' doesn't cut it when it's your job to protect ALL of your kids, not just him.

If I were you I'd be taking her out for lunch and really listening to her. She clearly has strong emotions around all this and is feeling abandoned by you.

If she ever decides to come back to your house, it would be a good idea to get a lock put on her bedroom door.

Is it OK to drag a younger sibling across the room by their hair? Obviously not, but neither is the way he treated her.

I think he may well have learned a hard lesson, there. As horrible as it sounds, she may have done him a big favour because sooner or later, if he acts like that outside of the house, someone will retaliate and he could get a lot more hurt.

Call your DD, OP.

She needs her Mom.

I think making plans for his living arrangements after his parents have died is a little premature. This kid has not received a diagnosis as yet. And may not ever get one. There remains a strong possibility that he is a spoilt child who has been poorly patented and has learnt that violence works to get his way. Even if he does receive a diagnosis of ADHD and or ODD - he would remain criminally responsible for his actions as an older child and adult so about time he started learning about consequences

@JustSawJohnny

Call your DD, OP.
She needs her Mom.

Given the OP's response to her DD, I doubt that "mom" is what she needs.

The OP needs to realise that she may have destroyed any chance of a relationship with her DD and that the DD is old enough to let this be known.

TBH, at 16 the DD needs a safe place where she can revise for her exams without fear of being attacked.

You need to be supervising your son who is out of control and can’t be trusted, should she had hit him back no, but you are a failing parent and she should never have been put in that position of being attacked.
Sounds like you need parenting lessons extremely quickly and you need to take responsibility for your childs behaviour. Poor daughter having to put up with that.

I think what the daughter probably "needs" is to report this to social services.

I agree OP shouldn't be picking sides, and needs to make that clear to her daughter to restore their relationship.

The framing of the iPad incident in the original post reads as a little loaded. It doesn't sound as if he were 'intrigued' by the iPad - he wanted it to play with. The OP seems to be implying that it was unfair that her daughter had one (bought by her father) when her son doesn't. And that since she'd let him have a turn before, it was natural for him to expect another turn.

A teenage girl's iPad isn't really shareable! And my own bitter experience has been that an iPad has been the worst thing for my own ADHD/ASD child.

What has worked has been strict routines and an awful lot of exercise. Which has had as much an effect as the meds, but unfortunately involves an awful lot of work on our part. It's tiring. But necessary.

But she'll have seen it afterwards, won't she?

OP, I think you were uncaring to leave your badly behaved DS upstairs with his sister, when you know what he's like. Or were you expecting her to be the responsible one?!

They’re siblings, she is NOT an adult, it was her room he went in.

Apologise to HER for not keeping her safe and get a lock for her door.

Just because he has these conditions doesn’t mean he can’t learn from it. He is less likely to attack her now.

Can you guarantee that she won’t be hurt again if she does come back? If not, why do think she should come back? To be your sacrificial lamb?

My sister bullied me for years and I was never allowed to retaliate. I eventually went NC with my mother and her but should have done it years ago. My self esteem is in shatters due to the behaviour of both towards me.

If you won’t protect your dd then she needs to protect herself.

Yes, but she wouldn't have seen it at the point where she was rushing in to attend to her "wailing" son. Why did she do that? What about rushing in to attend to her daughter who'd been hit in the face by a badly behaved and badly parented little shit? It's clear who she favours, and why he behaves as he does. The entire OP is written to paint him as the victim.

I'm not sure that would have a positive affect on the DD.
The OP seems pretty fixed in her views towards this and previous violence.

It is also possible that social services are already aware of the situation, either through either child's school or whoever is diagnosing the son.

Maybe, but given that the OP says her son has a "paediatrician" and refers to his weight in pounds I'm wondering if she's in the US where things are done differently. Kids in the UK without a diagnosis don't have a "paediatrician", they see a GP.
Edit: "physician", sorry, I misremembered. Physician is a very US term. We don't generally use that in the UK, we'd say doctor or GP.

I have a very tall, solid 8yo who is at least the size of an average 10 year old. Luckily he's quite a laid-back character but if he lashed out and had violent tantrums, he could do a lot of damage and this has been the case since he was 4/5. He still needs reminders to be careful not to take things too far when engaged in physical play as he can hurt other children without realising it simply because he is bigger and stronger.

It's difficult when you have bigger, stronger children who don't have a level of maturity and emotional regulation to match their physical size.

This is very true. OP why didn’t you go and give him a bollocking?

Does he act like this at school? I suspect not. He’d surely have been suspended/expelled by now if he did??

They're not in the UK, unless she's an American who lives here with a British husband. She refers to a physician and she uses the word "apologize", so I'm going to take a wild guess that they're in the US and he's probably homeschooled.

Just realised it should say 'NOT assign blame'!

It’s the daughter I feel sorry for! You should be apologising to her not moaning coz she hasn’t said sorry for reacting 🙄 why should she put up with being assaulted or him being in her room kicking off for HER things?! She shouldn’t, end of.

What an awful situation for you all.

DS is too young to have sufficient impulse control, taking into account his SEN, to respect his sister's boundaries of his own accord. Therefore, if you want any concession from her or an apology, you, as the parent, first of all need to take responsibility for the fact that there have not been sufficient measures taken to protect her in the home from her brother's violence and acknowledge that, apologise, and say what you are going to do to change that and prevent future incidents.

Then, you need to take some preventative steps to ensure that DS can't just go into DD room at will, she needs some privacy and safety in your home. She could have a lock on her door. You could have a family conversation about rules and boundaries, and you commit, as the adult, to reinforcing those boundaries and redirecting him if he hurts his sister, or does not respect her privacy or her stuff. If she has a safe space to retreat to, they might be able to spend time together more calmly, in areas of the home where you, the adult, can watch him and intervene to redirect or remove him if he shows signs of not coping.

Hopefully, this might create enough safety for both children to be able to apologise to each other. Your daughter's reaction was not okay, but I'm willing to bet she was fed up with the repeat incidents, and it was the final straw, and this needs to be taken into account. So does DS's SEN, but SEN also does not mean we don't teach children that hurting others is wrong and we need to apologise when we have hurt or upset someone else.

I've just realised this is a pure drama triangle - the Victim, the Persecutor and the Rescuer.