Can perpetrators of Would Hurt a Child be children themselves?

The Would Hurt a Child tropes says that violence against teenagers (with the exception of 13 and 14-year-olds) doesn't apply since teenagers are physically stronger than children and lack the completely defenseless element but then goes on to say that teenagers harming children applies. But it doesn't clarify if a preteen or child harming a much younger child applies as equally.

What I notice about most of these tropes about children being harmed is that while teenage victims can be examples in most cases, it is also completely permissible for examples of teenage perpetrators to apply if their victim is pre-pubescent even if the age difference is relatively small. But, on the other hand, I rarely see examples of preteen perpreators, as in characters below 13 or 12, no matter how much younger their victim is (even if the age difference is bigger than the one between the teen and child examples). I wonder why that is?

It seems to be on the misinformed grounds of tropers that children under 13 or 12 can't exhibit the same harm to a much younger child that a teenager can, and that any sign of a preteen child abusing a much younger child is a result of the preteen having been abused themselves, while a teenager on the other hand has more autonomy and maturity to intentionally harm a child even without prior victimization due to being pubescent. From what I gather here, Would Hurt a Child seems to indicate that preteens being prepubescent or primary school-aged makes them merely taller/older versions of little kids as far as how straight an example of an under-13 child harming a much younger child would be played, whereas the same can't be said about teenagers being taller/bigger versions of preteens despite the relatively small age difference between a 14-year-old perpetrator and an 11-year-old victim.

I would assume that a teenager hitting a child would count.

^ That's not what I was asking about; the trope already clarifies in the description that teenagers harming children applies. What I was asking about is if an under-13 child (a preteen) harming a much younger child (e.g. an 11-year-old beating up a 5-year-old) would apply.

That sounds like Kids Are Cruel to me?

The description openly says child-on-child violence doesn't count and points to Kids Are Cruel for examples of that.

^ No matter the age difference between the children, even if the younger party is as young as an infant or toddler? It seems weird to treat a preteen perpetrator just as Kids Are Cruel on the sole basis of both kids being in elementary school. Attending school in the same building doesn't make all the students there developmentally equal; why else do you think they separate the kids by grade level and have different schedules/sectors/recess and lunchtimes?

I believe a teen hurting a child would qualify as Teens Are Monsters. But I don't think we have a trope that would cover the scenario of something like an 8-year-old hurting a 4-year-old, other than just Kids Are Cruel. We might be missing some sort of "age-gap bullying/violence" trope.

Edited by BlackMage43 on Feb 3rd 2023 at 6:37:24 AM