DS14 punched gentle DH in chest/face multiple times. Now vanished.

[WaffleWiffle]

DS14 was being horrible to DS10 at xbox swap over time (ie DS10's turn came to an end and it was DS14's turn. This was 1pm today). DS14 was rude, taunting and generally horrible to his brother, in a way DS10 would not do if reversed.

DH went to talk to DS14 as this was happening. DS14 continued to be horrible. DH told DS14 to go to his room to calm down (Xbox is not in bedroom but is in family area upstairs), reflect and apologise before he could go on Xbox. They were standing outside of his bedroom but DS14 refused point-blank to go in.

Stand off continued. DS14's phone taken from him. Stand off continued along the lines of:

"You have lost 1h of xbox time, if you don't go in your room before I count to 5 you will lose 1h of phone time in addition.
(After count to 5)
You have lost 1h of phone & xbox, it becomes 2h if you don't go in your room before 5

Etc etc

Stand off continued and was getting nowhere so it reached the point where it was obvious this tactic was not working.

I want to add at this point that DH is the most non-confrontational person ever and is never, ever aggressive. He was calm and low-voiced throughout. But DS14 was becoming increasingly aggressive and 'squaring up' to get past DH and not go in his room. It became important to de-escalate quickly because DS14 was getting scary.

DH tried to march DS14 into his room by holding his two wrists and walking towards bedroom with him. This evidently was the wrong thing to do and we can reflect on this another day. But the result was DS pulling his arms away and throwing punches at DH.

Raining punches at DH's chest, this was the point I became involved (I was in the shower throughout all previous, could hear but knew DH is a capable parent. From this point onwards I am wrapped in a towel with wet hair...). I hear the cuffuffle and as I come out of the bathroom I see DS14 throw 2 punches at DH's face while DH tries and fails to get hold of DS's arms/hands to stop the attack.

Now in DS's room. DH holds DSs chest against the wall, which allows me to get hold of both of DSs wrists. We are trying to stop his violence and help him calm down. We are trying our best in a situation we've never known before. As you can imagine, this is a really, really stressful and dreadful situation to find ourselves in. DH and I wait maybe 90 seconds holding DS as he is throthing (literally) at the mouth to, well I don't know, attack us?

I continue to hold DSs wrists and tell DH to leave room. Then I swiftly follow, close door and tell DS he needs to CALM DOWN. DS punches (and damages) door and breaks his alarm clock (I don't know how, I was holding door closed).

DH, having caught his breath and had a few mins to check our other children are OK and not scared, is now furious. In explaining to me what happened he raises his voice for the first time (something DH very, rarely does - he's a quiet discussion kind of guy). This passes a strong message to DS, who knows how rarely DH loses his rag. DH spelled it out to me what DS had done (he physically punched me about 20 times! How I didn't retaliate , i don't know- he was battering me!) and that, a long with DHs tone of voice very quickly quietened DS behind his closed door.

I sent DH downstairs and out the way. DS silent. I opened door (mistake - I should have left him longer. Hindsight is a wonderful thing). DS is like a bull facing down a mattadore. In a very angry voice he says he want to get out.

I think he means of his room. I say no, must stay in room to calm down. He squares up to me, I think he's going to hit me . He says her not staying in here, her going and DH calls from downstairs that leaving the house might be a good idea. I agree since he's trashed his room and seems still very angry.

DS14 leaves the house. This is around 1.30-1 40pm today. DH throws his trainers out of the door as he leaves, because he's barefoot.

So that's where we are. DS has not come home. We've phoned our local family members in case he turns up at theirs and his best mates parents. He has no phone or money. Dinner is always 5.30pm

I'm starting to worry. How long should I leave him to brood before I go look for him?

Should I be out there now? Am I a bad parent for not? I feel ok to wait until usual dinner time (5.30) because that's his normal time to be in when he's out with friends. But don't know how long after that to wait? His night time curfue is 9-9.30pm in school hols, depending where he is. Should I wait until then?

I'm soooooo cross with him. Like big, big style angry for his behaviour to his Dad. But of course I'm also worried for his safety given I don't know where he is. I don't want my worry to lessen his consequences for physically assaulting another. But the worry is overtaking now. What if he's so sorrowful that he has... oh god. What if he's hurt?

What should I do???????

People also saying he is scared to come home
Course he is he just twatted his dad

How is he getting home? I would go to collect him. A silent car journey.

I don't know if this will help but I am almost 40 now and my brother was what they called an explosive teenager. The best way to have dealt with it would have been to remove stuff and then leave him to calm down. If my father had physically tried to manhandle him to his room and then pinned him against a wall it may well have ended the same way. It was in no way ever going to deescalate things, only push them to 1000.

Obviously his behavior wasn't acceptable but I think you all need to learn from this. Physically moving children when they are younger is fine, but as they grow it won't work and at some point, they may well be bigger than you. You and your DH need to look into managing explosive teenagers and deescalation and discuss together how to react in future. Your son has to learn some anger management techniques and how to calm himself down.

It is very easy to say become draconian and society is crumbling, but OP and her husband likely want to improve things rather than severing the relationship with their son. I think the best thing here is to get him to come back and say you will talk about it all tomorrow once you and your husband have had time to discuss together and everyone has slept and calmed down. I think anything else is just going to cause it all to kick off again.

Obviously he is banned from XBox and needs to face some sort of consequence. But the three of you need to sit down and properly talk. Make it clear that his behavior was completely unacceptable, but I do also think you need to concede to him that the physical manhandling also wasn't okay. Talk about how all of you felt so your son also sees how his behavior impacted everyone.

Totally your choice and I know some may not agree. But clamping down, going draconian etc is not going to rebuild the relationship and may in fact make things worse to the point where the relationship is irreparably damaged. I also suggest that there is something more going on here in the background that will hopefully come out during the talk.

i am sure you know how to respond op.

No clue on consequences, this is a situation I never ever thought about how to deal with. I keep thinking we should tell the police, it is assault and he is a strong, muscley almost-man.

From what you’ve said I would tread carefully, your dh laid hands on him first and the police may judge dragging someone into a room against their wishes is assault and that your ds was defending himself.

I know someone in a similar situation where the 15yo ds refused to be sent to his room so the mums boyfriend dragged him. Boy told school who called the police. Boy went into foster care, younger kids put on the at risk register, boyfriend was charged with assault and went to court and was either found guilty or pleaded guilty. Mum was told by social services she had to finish the relationship with the boyfriend or she would lose custody of all kids.

I’m not making this up at all.

I think your dh ought to apologise to ds and hold his hands up and admit he handled it badly. Yes, ds response was completely wrong. But agree that if you treat him like a toddler he reacts like one.

Parents can take / put / drag their kids into their rooms - he’s not going to get fostered.

Sigh. I don't see anyone saying punching your dad is acceptable.
I see (a few) people saying that the son only hit the dad because everything the dad did escalated the situation. He treated him like a little boy trying to enforce his authority on him through an escalating series of punishments, culminating in physically intervening with him, rather than making any attempt to listen to his initial grievance or handle that.
Imagine how that feels when you are a bunch of hormones and unused to your own strength aged 14.

Imagine you are in a restaurant eating your meal with an acquaintance. Your much wanted pudding arrives. You have been looking forward to it. As you finish your meal you notice your acquaintance had eaten quicker. They finish their own pudding and start eating yours. You take issue with this and tell your acquaintance that that is your desert and you want it. The acquaintance carries on eating. The waitress comes over and tells you to stop making a scene. " But he's eating MY desert!" You say. Waitress says she doesn't care whose desert it is, they can't have other customers disturbed and if you don't sit down quietly they will remove your remaining food. You don't sit down and your plate if food is removed. Your acquaintance is still eating your pudding. You get more angry. The manager comes over and says you will have to pay double for making a scene. You refuse. The manager takes you by the wrists and throws you out of the restaurant.

Any wonder you might feel peeved? And the waitress says "you shouldn't have been shouting at your acquaintance".

Well as my friend found out they blatantly can’t. In her case the boy asked to go into foster care but the other kids were on the at risk register and there was a lot of input/visits from social services.

Oh come on! There's no handbook for being a parent! We are all just winging it. Give the woman a break!
OP you've got this. 💪🏻

sleepykat, your friend is not telling you the whole truth. Kids aren't removed from their parents, put into foster care, other children added to the at risk register, over one incident like this. There simply isn't the capacity in the system for that to be so!

That’s the worst analogy

that pudding/waitrose analogy is completely irrelevant and ridiculous

*waitress

@ChickenyChick

You’re clearly very keen to share your expertise with us all Shame it’s a bit irrelevant though as if you’d actually read the OP properly you’d have seen that the DS wasn’t playing in the Xbox so your advice, judgement and blame is actually pretty much irrelevant to this situation.
Perhaps you should check you’ve actually understood the situation before jumping in to judge the OP based on your own preconceptions?

A child would not be removed from family under this circumstance

The pudding \ restaurant story is the most stupid shit iv ever read
Vereraini I couldn't agree more with your post

Abstractedobstructed

the problem with your analogy is that as far as we know the younger brother wasn't staying on the Xbox/trying to eat his brothers pudding.

The brother was winding the younger brother up and got told off for it.

Although I don't condone the father grabbing his son's wrists, it is worth remembering the whole incident and not just the bits that we want to.

Why? It's not perfect but it illustrates a point.

Ds1 was having to wait for his turn while DS2 carried on on the XBox. He got irritated and handled it badly.
He got told off repeatedly and a series of escalating punishments for being irritated at DS2 taking part of "his" turn. Nothing apparently happened to DS2.

I think you should get the police involved to be honest, I knew some thoroughly nasty teenagers growing up- none of them would have done this to their own mum/dad.

I’m surprised you let him leave the house so pumped up, first response should have been police.

Unfortunately he’s old enough to understand this and shouldn’t be punching anyone, let alone his own father.

It only takes one punch to kill someone.

@WaffleWiffle have a read about Non-Violent Resistance. This is a good approach to use when working with children who are violent towards their parents/other family members.

Not saying that this will be a regular occurrence but you need to manage this carefully and NVR has some good strategies around not escalating violence, striking while the iron is cold etc

They also talk about consequences and how these should be relevant to what the child has done. So in this situation it would possibly be fixing stuff that's broken etc

Abstractedobstructed

Ds1 was having to wait for his turn while DS2 carried on on the XBox. He got irritated and handled it badly.

There is nothing to indicate that this happened at all.

He got told off repeatedly and a series of escalating punishments for being irritated at DS2 taking part of "his" turn.

As previous. + fronting up to his father and then punching him.

Nothing apparently happened to DS2.

Because its not relevant?
Because he didn't do anything wrong?

We don't know.

Boneyback
I am inferring that DS1 had not managed to get onto the Xbox at his turn time, that's true. That's because OP says that the dh told him to go to his room before he could have his turn. Which suggests he was waiting.

If it wasn't yet his turn then yes, I am an idiot for perceiving that (whilst handling the whole situation in an unpleasant way) the older boy was actually justified in being a bit pissed off because his brother was eating into his turn.

Calling the Police...

Imagine having to explain to the Police officer that your ds started hitting your DH AFTER he tried to restrain him. Him as an adult and a person in authority laying his hands on a child....
I’m sure that’s going to go down well.

But worst of all you will be showing your ds that
1- he can’t trust you ever again and you dint trust him at all
2- you are unable to forgive him
3- yiu are not ready to take your part of responsibility in what happened
4- the only thing you are able to focus in is punishment.

Time for a change. Punishing your ds is clearly not working. Nor is ‘standing up your ground’ and refusing to backdown until you have impose your POV.
Either you start treating your ds with RESPECT and as a young adult. Or if you can’t, go for some family counselling so you can learn how to communicate wo resorting to threats (on both sides - doesn’t matter if said threats are said in an aggressive or ‘calm’ manner)

Because if one thing, what has happened should have taught you that your way to deal with your ds IS NOT WORKING (and I would say is the consequences of the way you have dealt with him until now)

So your gentle non aggressive husband goes from quiet talking to physical restraint and pushing/forcing your exceptionally muscular and strong 14 year old in to his room, in about thirty seconds?

Also a secondary teacher who can't spell response, surge or kerfuffle, none were typos, they were typical of how some people misspell those words. Anyone else remember the poster who used to post about violence between teens and parents or teens and younger siblings?

DH told him to go to his room because he was taunting, rude and being horrible to his brother. DH went to talk to him about it and he continued his behaviour. Nowhere does OP say DS2 was taking his time or not coming off the console.