Difficult situation with sister and nephew

If it was me I would not bother. If a child has got to 4 years and behaves that way, then the child is a brat. Look after your own and stay away from badly behaved children. Your parents should also say that they can't afford to replace broken items. Once she is isolated maybe she will see that something is wrong with her parenting skills.

Fiction.

It sounds a bit like neurodivergency is definitely in the wider family.

As the mother of 2 sons with 2 years between them, and a daughter 14 years younger than my eldest, that is absolutely NOT normal 4yr old boy behaviour. My son's were, and still are, very much typical traditional boys, and no matter how badly behaved they were, they were never that bad and when they were being naughty, I was happy for their aunts/uncles and grandparents, and even my good friends, to tell them off. They need to learn to respect people in their lives, otherwise they will end up in a lot of trouble as they get older!

Have you read 'We need to talk about Kevin' by Lionel Shriver. Terrifying. I hope it isn't appropriate.

@Sunshineandalltherainbows
What a difficult situation!
I have so many questions but will just add a few;
Has she seen you struggle with your ND son, hence so defensive re her son’s ’normal boy behaviour’?
Why do you let her get away with not paying for breakages?
Has she always been so disrespectful of others?
Is she ND or self centred?
If BIL disciplines more than her, why don’t you have family gatherings when he can attend?
You obviously need to respect your family ie your DH and DC and arrange a xmas that caters to them.
Good luck.

Mum of 3 here , one has autism and a learning disability .
That behaviour, taking the cake , chewing it and spitting it out into your son’s plate is completely unacceptable , disgusting 🤢
My child with disabilities wouldn’t have done that at age 4 , although was a bit messy with own food , and did things that would appear odd to others .
I parented her differently to my other 2 and managed her other behaviour appropriately.
And I had no help / support other than when she went to nursery for 2 sessions a week .

I'd explain to my sister that it's fine for her to parent as she wants - on her territory. In grandparents house, it's grandparents rules apply. In your house, your rules apply. Get right down to his level and explain the repercussions of poor behaviour in your house (start off with only well behaved people will be getting ice cream or whatever). He won't be long learning. Kids are clever. My own two behaved like angels in my Mother's house when they were small. She has high standards for behaviour at dinner table. Same two would descend into monkeys at MIL's table, where there were no standards. I'd suggest you have him over to your house without his Mother to introduce him to the new ground rules.

Hi OP’s sister.

My niece is like this op.she is 7 She is badly behaved due to lack of parenting and she loves getting other people into trouble such as my son and her older brother and the smirk when she achieves it is just a bit evil. I know you should not say that about a child but it just is. My nephew bless him was basically brought up by my in-laws as my SIL did not know what to do with a boy!!!! He now spends most of his time at our house and we have actually turned our spare room into a room for him.

My SIL makes excuses for her at every turn, apparently if she has been good at school at all week we can’t possible expect her to be good at weekend!!!
She just stands there and screams when she does not get her own way. My SIL is desperately trying to get her diagnosed with something so she can use it as an excuse but school are not buying it and won’t support her in doing this.

unfortunately my in-laws also indulged my SIL as a child and indulge her now. We don’t spend a lot of time with them now as a family since we went there for last Christmas lunch and my niece was allowed to sing and make fart noises all the way through the lunch.

Your sister is THAT mum and her child will suffer for it.

Don’t allow sister to bring nephew around during the holidays. He will break your children’s things, you know, because he’s only four.

Lol
I think your sister is raising a serial killer or something horrible. Next, he’ll be harming animals.

This makes me so angry. Another case of a child whose parents are choosing not to parent properly. There is absolutely no excuse for this behaviour. Stealing food from another child’s plate then spitting it out? His mother should have yanked him out of there and punished him for this abhorrent behaviour. “He’s only 2/3/4/8/14” is not an acceptable excuse. The fact that he is being excused for his behaviour and/or dad is finding it funny is not helping anyone.
Kids need boundaries and accountability.
If I was in Op’s position I would avoid contact with him for the sake of my own children. The grandparents also need to step up and make it clear that they won’t tolerate this behaviour.

I would have told your DS to take her 4 year old away after behaving like that. You should put your DC first.
I don't understand why your DP put up with that, they should refuse to have them around, l am all for peace within the family but they are limits, it is not doing the child any favours

Yes, he’s only 4 so he will have low impulse control…but how will he learn what is acceptable behaviour if he’s never told no.

School is going to be a huge shock to them both!

I think if the child’s behaviour is this bad, I’d have to say something and not tiptoe around it. It might be the shock your sister needs if you were to say something like, “Sorry DSis, nephew’s behaviour is unbearable, unless you can control him, I don’t want him in my house damaging my things.” And I wouldn’t arrange anything in secret, let her know why she’s not invited. She needs to know that everyone finds the behaviour unacceptable and that you’re not in the minority.

Off topic but I'd be tempted when it's anyone's birthday to have 'only x yrs old ' on the cake

Don't have your sister over at Christmas just spend it peacefully with your family, invite your parents only in the afternoon if you wish. Distance yourself from your sister until your DN is better behaved, he won't be invited to too many children parties if it's the way he behaves. Disgusting behaviour with your DC cake, l wouldn't put up with that, your DS is an idiot.

This is really shocking. If he were to repeat this in school I suspect a record of a safeguarding incident would be made.

My BIL and SIL don’t come round our house with their child. He is the same age as my youngest but they are poles apart in terms of maturity and behaviour to the point both of my sons can’t tolerate him and stay in their bedrooms. He had ODD, I’ll use that term very loosely as there have been zero consequences or boundaries in place since day one and he is now completely off the rails and was diagnosed last year after an appeal following a permanent exclusion from school. BIL still has a play pen around his Christmas tree because nephew would have it ripped to pieces on the floor, just because. He’s pulled down curtains, demolished expensive LEGO sets, tormented and hurt our dog and the last time he came over he tried to bite and smack my DH. MIL just said she can’t tell him off because he’ll have a meltdown and it’s not nice for him so she also never does anything. We drop things down for him and have video calls but he’s no longer allowed in our house, it’s not ideal but we work hard to live as we do and we don’t want our pets terrorised, us assaulted or our things trashed, especially when nobody bothers telling him he’s wrong. MIL had our sons for tea last year and unfortunately nephew was there without any of us knowing. My eldest text his dad and asked for him to come and get them after 20 minutes because he’d bitten him. MIL took the side of our nephew because he’d had a bad day. It really is the pits when this happens, we find it easier to keep away.

Her son needed a telling off for that, that is disgusting.

Excuse

My DD went to primary school with a boy like this. He was pretty bad from the off, By Y6 he was, frankly, an absolute thug - regularly assaulting staff and pupils, disrupting lessons every day.

I'd always wondered if there was some kind of condition beneath it contributing to the behaviour, however the main problem was the parents' attitude. They just wouldn't hear it, it was all made up according to them, boys will be boys, it's all harmless, he didn't mean it, he's only [insert any age between 4 and 11] etc etc. If the school wanted to put him through any assessments (I don't know if they did though) there was absolutely no point as the parents simply wouldn't engage with it all.

Sadly, I'm sure he will end up in jail at some point in his life.

You have my empathy OP. My DSIS is similarly blind to my D nephew’s (6) undesirable behaviours and it particularly riles me when he hurts his sister (5) and my DSIS insists they each give as good as they get. This, despite the fact that DNiece has received head teacher awards for helpfulness and D nephew has had 2 temporary exclusions from class for bad behaviour!! He is better now than he was at 5 but I can’t say if that’s because my DSIS and DBIL have improved their parenting or because he is genuinely very clever and has worked out for himself that his sister gets asked to have play dates but he doesn’t. I love him and I make sure to tell him and give him lots of physical love when he’s calm but have set a boundary that I remove me, my DH, and my Dd (5) from his vicinity if he is being unpleasant. My DSIS sometimes gets offended, but he is starting to get it!!