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.

There is nothing faux about my outrage. DD had many other choices apart from dragging a 6-year-old around by his hair, which is child abuse.

I wonder if a 6 year girl would be assaulting her brother in the same fashion? Better yet, I wonder if the OP would be pandering to her 6 year daughter assaulting everyone or if she'd be trying harder to caution against the dangers of doing so; because her older brother would automatically be deemed capable of hurting her.

@CrystalShoe being punched in the face, bitten and hair pulled is also abuse and was also inflicted on a child, and if we read the OP correctly has been inflicted regularly with no safeguarding on the same child. Why are you not concerned about that abuse?

Why is your only ‘concern’ and outrage focused on a teenage girl who is not safe in her own home?

I'd be inclined to think the same.

If she did actually drag him by the hair, he'd have patches of missing hair, which I'm sure the OP would have stated in her opening post.

Yeah, I'm not concerned about abuse coming from a six-year-old. As the DD showed, she was more than capable of manhandling him, her being pretty much adult size and him being....six.

Everyone on here who thinks it's OK to physically abuse six-year-olds by dragging them through three rooms by their hair is PLAIN WRONG. If Social Services got a whiff that a little child had been treated like that, they'd be round like a shot. DD's actions were indefensible. She could have screamed at him, which would really have startled him, she could have ushered him out of her room, picked him up and put him outside, yelled for her mother. But no. She had to abuse a six-year-old. She didn't have to do that. Absolutely unacceptable.

Many of the PP, if someone had done that to their six-year-old they'd be LIVID, no matter what he had done.

Such as?
She had a large child pulling her hair and hitting her face.

A feral, undisciplined, badly parented, pandered to six year old, who got exactly what he deserved for assaulting his sister. He’s not going to do that again in a hurry, is he? Ironic that the daughter has probably succeeded where the OP has failed for years.
Natural consequences.

Ah but he's ops baby, who needs to be pandered to, and the dd should just have to accept this is how life is, he gets to be violent and abusive, but will always be the victim.
His mother will always take his side and expect everyone to accept and forgive his violence and clearly cares nothing for any impact on her daughter.

A million things she could have done?!?

Name 5 that would have stopped him hurting her, because saying "No" and then asking him to leave her room didn't do it.

And it "escalated" this time because of all the other times he's done this.

Oh, get off your high horse. He HIT HER IN THE FACE. He's old enough to know right from wrong. He’s an undisciplined little shit. Even the mother who thinks the sun shines out of his arse admits in her OP that his violence is enough to hurt an adult.

I had something similar happen with sb years and years ago, and I lashed out, I don’t regret it to be honest, I was sick of being hit and it just being chalked up to oh well he can’t help it, he never did it again.
to rekindle the trust with your daughter, talk about how she won’t have to put up with being hit again, install a small lock out of the height of ds she can use on her room, make sure if he goes to hit her, he’s removed and suitably punished be that removing a toy or whatever. Let her know you’re going to enforce boundaries to keep her from having to put up with attacks at home.

Be interesting to see how the dynamics play out with him in the future. If he suddenly stops having meltdowns around her you know he is indeed capable of controlling himself and not the poor wee soul you think he is OP.

@CrystalShoe if social services would be ‘round there like a shot’ they’d be as concerned by the lack of safety for the DD as the son. Her actions were a direct response to an act of violence.

Again I would ask why your outrage and claims of abuse are directed solely at a teenage girl who has been subjected to prolonged violence in her home and not a word about the piss poor parenting which has given rise to a situation where everyone is being regularly assaulted by an out of control 6 year old with zero consequences or concern. That’s what indefensible. That’s what ‘didn’t have to happen’.

Your all caps ‘won’t someone think of the children’ rings very hollow when only one child is deemed worthy of concern.

What are social services going to do when they come round?

OP - there's nothing to be done except to reassure your daughter that you will take steps to protect her from now on.

But it's been two weeks now I think and BT her own admission op hasn't really done much to check her dd is OK.

OP - there's nothing to be done except to reassure your daughter that you will take steps to protect her from now on.

it might not just be her daughter she has to reassure. dd's father might also like to know.

OP is your views being driven by your current DH? Is that why you're so partisan towards your son?

@CandidPearlWasp I'm sorry but I'm completely on the side of your daughter. You have already said that your DS is big enough and strong enough to hurt an adult even though he's only 6. What are you going to do when he is 12 or 14 and still demonstrating uncontrolled (and uncontrollable) rage and violence.

And by rushing in to comfort him you will have undermined her attempt to teach him that hitting her is bad and given him the message that it's ok to be violent.

If you want to build bridges with your daughter then you need to apologise to her for not keeping her safe. You need to work out some strategies as a family for dealing with your son's violent behaviour, work with your daughter so that she understands what she can/should do if (when) this happens again.

The only way to solve this is with family time, where you and the family talk over matters, this is if you cannot solve the issues with talking to everyone individually.

@Fibonacci2, I'm prepared to bet your child hadn't learned perfect behaviour by the age of 6. Don't assume because you have a disabled child that you know everything about every disabled child. It's particularly mean to launch a personal attack against a parent in those circumstances.

Your daughter was put in a very difficult situation.

You acknowledge that your son is very challenging and difficult, requiring specialist input from a doctor and therapists. Why do you expect a 16 year old child to have the necessary skills for handling his challenging behaviour?

You need to apologise to your daughter and put in place some safeguards to minimise this reoccurring.