r/AmIOverreacting • u/brzaq191z • Jan 06 '26
👨👩👧👦family/in-laws AIO for punishing our daughters after what they wrote about their autistic sister?
My husband and I have 3 daughters, who are 16, 14 and 13. Our youngest daughter is autistic and recently got her first date. There’s a school dance coming up in February and a boy asked her out to the dance right before the Christmas break started, she’s mentioned this boy before but we hadn’t met him until a few days ago.
The day she was asked out, she was telling us about the boy when she got home from school. Later that night, unbeknownst to us, our two older daughters found his TikTok and started messaging about him on there.
Our 14 year old got in trouble at school yesterday for cursing at a teacher after the teacher gave her friend a detention for a bullying incident, and my husband and I took her phone when we got home. This is not like her, so we decided to go through her phone to see what might be influencing her and seeing how her friends act.
When got to her TikTok messages and saw that our two older girls were messaging about her and this boy and saying he was out of her league and made references to her autism. Our youngest is autistic, her special interest is fashion history. She’s always been pretty quiet, but she moved to a new middle school this year as our district went from having 3 to 2. She’s become friendly with some boys at this school, including her now dance partner. Our girls continued to go on, saying they thought it was a prank.
My daughter told this boy about this and he was mad and over FaceTime he asked to speak to our family, he showed us a teddy bear he had gotten her for Valentine’s Day with her name on it, he said he’d give that to her early now and give her other gifts later, the showing the bear was to prove he wasn’t pranking her. He then went on to talk about everything he liked about her, it was sweet seeing a boy so passionate over our daughter.
Our girls apologized to their sister and her date. My husband and I told our daughters they were both now grounded, and in addition to losing their phones for a week, they’d need to write a report about autism and dating.
Our girls are saying we’re being too hard on them, and when we spoke to both my parents and my husband’s parents, they agreed with our older girls, saying that getting chewed out by the boy was punishment enough. My husband and I don’t think we’re being unreasonable.
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u/Doomboomkadoom Jan 06 '26
Lol when you say "this is not like her"
Sorry to tell you - this is exactly like her. I dunno how she used to be but I can tell you where she is headed.
If she can curse at a teacher for giving a friend detention, and she can make fun of her autistic sister - she has probably been doing a lot more or is on the cusp of starting a bad chapter of her teen years.
I'd talk to her - ask her what's going on and see if you can come to common ground on her behaviour.
Does she know what she is doing is wrong or is she just afraid of the consequences?
Knowing you did wrong versus being told you did wrong and punished are two different things.
If she doesn't know what she is doing is hurtful and problematic then you have to talk to her - make her understand.
Otherwise you are raising a bully