My sister is upset with me for snapping at her son

But there's as much chance that OP is being a lazy parent. It's also lazy parenting to expect a pre-teen to want to play with a 6 year old or have the maturity to care for them. His behaviour is not appropriate don't get me wrong but it might well be the 10YO's way of saying 'I don't want to babysit thanks'. As per my pp I have a 6YO dd and 10 YO nephew. They play nicely sometimes but when it's becoming clash of the titans I pull the 6YO aside and play a game/set up an activity for her. The nephew is also free to disappear and play roblox/whatever his parents see fit when he feels like it and I make it clear to dd that she has to accept this. If neither parent is managing expectations here then it isn't really the 10YO's responsibility and it's on OP just as much as her sister to parent their respective children.

You and your sister (when everyone has calmed down) need to have a talk about discipline, I’m sure you have looked after your nephew before and your sister has had your daughter. You both need to be able to intervene when children are not playing nicely or if they are doing something dangerous or wrecking the house etc.

Maybe your sister is struggling with her son’s behaviour at times and feels defensive as she feels it’s an attack on her parenting. Maybe you find it hard to take the doll off them and put it away and direct them to do an activity they both can enjoy. You both love the children so you need to work together so if one of the children or both are acting up you can calmly tell child either play nicely or I will take you home and keep that promise.

Your house has toys specifically catered for your six year old daughter and your nephew might feel bored and that’s why he’s acting up, could his mum bring some toys of his with him? Or you look in second hand shops so there is something for him to enjoy at your house?

Fairly normal for both boys and girls of that age to try to seem more mature by winding up slightly younger children. Not normal because he’s a boy. I can imagine a girl doing it to a younger cousin too. It’s annoying but not shocking. I would tell him off for upsetting her.

I don't understand how this continued across multiple visits, lack of parenting and lack of management on both parents part I assume. You were right to eventually deal with it. If my child was corrected by someone else ,it wouldn't bother me if it was needed. Text to say you'd love to see them, let's put it behind us. Bit of storm on a tea cup which should've been dealt with first time .

Wouldn’t have been an issue in my family- I tell my nieces and nephews off all the time and expect my relatives to do the same if they’re being annoying or dangerous.

Callum would have been told to pack it in but the dynamics between a 10yo and a 6yo will be a bit tricky. Have you got things to occupy him at your house? I’m quite conscious when older kids come over that my house is very girly and doll orientated re toys whereas at my friends with boys that age there is much more Lego, more gaming stuff (which we don’t have) and just a really different set of toys.

Have you just not illustrated exactly what @tillytown referenced? Oh It’s fairly normal behaviour from the boy. So it's fine for him to keep acting like that and op and her daughter haven't to do anything about it...

God your sister is an almighty twat @FionaHoney

Callums off to secondary school in sept I assume, he’s going to get barked at waaaaaaaaay worse than that on a daily basis

tell your sister to have a word with herself, her TEN YEAR OLD was being mean to a little girl repeatedly and NOTHING was being done about it. You gave her as much of an opportunity to correct it, and you’d tried gently but he wasn’t listening. He was 100% in the wrong. And. He. Knew. It.

id also add, I’ll never apologise for standing up for my little girl when being upset by a boy old enough to know better.

If your DSIS wasn't quite such a lazy parent, you would not have had to step in and do her job for her.

It’s nothing to do with the sex of the children. Don’t try to make it into a feminist issue. Girl children can be absolutely vile pains in the butt to younger kids too. It’s fairly normal behaviour from the boy. I would have told him off too if it was upsetting her so I don’t think OP did anything wrong. However I’d also have a word with my DD and tell her to try to ignore teasing like that because the person teasing is just looking for a reaction.

I think baby Dave is on YouTube surprise surprise.
I think telling him off is fine. But I would have hidden the doll however that doesn’t mean he won’t find another way to wind her up - maybe shorten visits.

No, OP used it in her second post so I assume that’s his name

To be fair to your DSis: Did she understand that her son made your daughter upset? You know her by heart but maybe Dsis thought they were just playing. And maybe her son thought so as well. I would have told Dsis to please intervene because her son is making DD upset. That gives Dsis a chance to handle it. If he would continue after that I think telling him off in a stern voice would he appropriate.

Sorry, but Baby Dave sounds hilarious. Isn’t he just being funny?

This.
I also find sometimes its more effective when my sister tells off DS for something he does to her DD. It doesnt happen often, so he doesnt expect her to raise her voice and it has more of an impact.
For us its normal, because my sister has my kids often and I have hers. It would be hard to watch each others kids if we werent allowed to tell them off.

Also youre being a bit precious. I can see how this would be a fun game for a 10 year old boy. Mine loves winding up his younger sister and cousins this way.
Use it to teach your child a bit of resilience.
But if he just keeps it up and doesn’t stop of course someone should tell him off. Learning opportunity for both kids.

Get Callum his own doll. He can bring it when he visits.

Why are there so many commenters OK with boys teasing, bullying, talking down to, and harassing younger female family members all of a sudden? It's so weird.
Every time I see someone post about how much easier boys are to raise than girls, I'm guessing it's because their parents don't bother to actually raise them, they just let them do whatever they want and blame someone else for their bad behaviour - just like a whole load of commenters are doing in these comments.

Why aren't you/Callum's mum removing the dolls and enforcing barriers more proactively before it gets to the point of raised voices and why aren't you giving your dd a safe space to play away from cousin if she wishes?

Are you encouraging dd to stand up for herself? Giving her chance to use her own assertive voice and tell him to leave her alone? To walk away if needed?

Are you expecting too much 'play' between them? A prepubescent boy and a not much more than a toddler girl may care deeply for each other as family but are likely to struggle to find much common ground ITO play. If you really want them to play nicely then perhaps you have to facilitate this a bit and find a board game or something that they'll both like, go to the park or just let them enjoy popcorn and a movie.

I know it's your sister and dd's cousin but do you need to spend tonnes of time together? Both kids in all honesty would probably prefer the company of kids their own age. Family is important but on the flipside childhoods are short, too short to be wasting on niceties that are causing your child stress and bringing them no joy.

I say all this from a very similar experience as my 6YO dd also has a 10YO male cousin. They fleet between playing really nicely and the 10YO being a bit obnoxious to dd and her getting upset because she idolises him. There's really little point getting cross/upset at either party. It's an expected dynamic when there's such an age gap. All you can do is have realistic expectations, give both kids the option of moving away if they've had enough and the tools to stick up for thenselves.

They're not using his name. One poster used a random boys name to illustrate what she was saying, and because another poster thought it was his actual name, someone else made a joke about it. 🙄

You are fine to tell your nephew off. Your sister is being ridiculous.

My daughter had a friend who broke everything. When she came to play, we would remove all the precious toys and leave out only the soft toys and old toys so she could not break them.

Do you have to use his name on here? And do other posters have to? I’m predicting that OP will have concerns about privacy and because umpteen posts have repeated the name the whole thread will be pulled.

Your sisters child is also your nephew. I don’t get why people struggle to like correctly do it. I think there’s such a disconnection there that it seems to be like you feel something of some sort towards him so you struggle to call him what he is to you. It’s weird. My niece who is severely autistic has tried to hurt my two year old daughter on a few separate occasions but you’d never find me calling her my sisters daughter. She’s my niece.

me myself would have removed the toy from the situation and got toys out both could play with and also me and my sister correct our own children’s behaviours and our nieces so my niece and her niece ( my daughter) and don’t get offended so your sister is either soft or you stepped too far.

I wouldn't call it bullying. 10 year old boys can be very silly. He probably thinks the voice is funny and although he knows your dd doesn't like it, he doesn't have the maturity to understand how upsetting your dd finds his "joke".

As her mum, you completely understand how his behaviour makes her feel.

You were right to ask him politely to stop the behaviour. As he didn't stop and your sister didn't intervene, you were right to use a firmer voice to get him to stop.

It's a shame that your sister has taken offence and hasn't visited since but at least your dd isn't being upset by her cousin's stupid joke.

This.

It takes a village. You were fine to admonish him.