AIBU to be upset that family members thought it funny to frighten my son and film it?

Your Mum is just trying to keep the peace. Totally wrong of her, obviously. She should be standing up for your son.

Your DD and DN both need to understand that they have showed their immaturity and cruelty in both finding the fear of a child so amusing and their defensive reaction to your questioning.

Let them know this and that you will never allow them to care for the children again as they cannot be trusted.

I would steer clear of the lot of them until they turn up with apologies.

@TheOccupier

From how the OP described it, it sounds like the distressed son wasn't actually involved in the game and that it was just the adults doing it. Incredibly immature of them.

Is there jealousy at play here?
There is a big age difference so guessing you were young when you had DD. Did your mum help raise her - is that why she is taking her side?
Does your DD see you with your kids now when you are older, in a stable relationship and being more 'present'
Just want to add, I hope this doesn't sound judgemental or suggest you weren't a great mum to her - just wondering how she can treat her brothers this way

I'm not sure I understand your post. You're surely not blaming him, are you? Given that the whole thing distressed him, I'm not sure that FAFO was a lesson he needed to learn.

There was an awful video circulating last year of a child - perhaps about 4 or 5. The mother and grandmother are playing’a game’ with him. They blindfold him and then they get an orange with the centre poked through and filled with melted chocolate. They get the kid to put his finger in the orange. Then they grabbed the dog and held him up backside in the kids direction, so he thought he’d put his finger in the dogs arse. He was inconsolable. It was so distressing. But get this. The family posted in on social media and then a news agency bought it and the a newspaper website published it on their site. Imagine ALL of those adults thinking this l video was OK. I hope that little one is doing alright.

There was an awful video circulating last year of a child - perhaps about 4 or 5. The mother and grandmother are playing’a game’ with him. They blindfold him and then they get an orange with the centre poked through and filled with melted chocolate. They get the kid to put his finger in the orange. Then they grabbed the dog and held him up backside in the kids direction, so he thought he’d put his finger in the dogs arse. He was inconsolable. It was so distressing. But get this. The family posted in on social media and then a news agency bought it and the a newspaper website published it on their site. Imagine ALL of those adults thinking this paedophile/ bestiality adjacent video was OK. I hope that little one is doing alright.

It’s painful to lose your support system and loved ones. Reframe it with yourself that they have lost you and your boy’s. I cannot understand your daughter’s mentality, she’s 27 not 7, her and her partner are weird as fuck, idiots, and your mother, take the high road, don’t bend.
They need to realise that there are consequences to their actions.

Its never nice to see your child so upset. And if he has additional needs that obviously explains why he was upset and that’s horrible. But if he was neurotypical I’d think he was having an extreme reaction tbh which is probably what your family is thinking. Hes almost at secondary school but was hysterically crying at playing Knock a Door… that’s unexpected for his age. And not his fault, but I wouldn’t blame the adults for not anticipating he would react like that. However I do agree that they should have apologised to him and comforted him when he clearly was distraught.

YANBU, poor lad. This is a horrible thing to do.
I guess you won't be going away and leaving him or your other children with the 'adults' in your family anymore (including your mum, who supported it).

It's about power. Weilding gratuitous power over a child just for the sake of it is not acceptable ... and to film it???

On YouTube there are so many videos where adults have filmed children (often quite small) in distress, confused, frightened ... just why? The child needs a hug ....

This is awful behaviour.

I did wonder if they find this funny, what on earth goes on that you don’t see? No wonder your DS needs ‘working up’ to spending time away from home.

Your right to be furious. I could never look them in the eye terrifying your child when he already feels vulnerable at his parents being away.

Dick heads.

I can't be too specific as its outing however as a child one of my parents told me I was going to shortly die.

They said that something had happened to me and I would die. I would have been about eight at the time.

They and others including my own mother then laughed as I screamed and cried, begging to be taken to hospital to get the medicine I needed to save my life.

Ive never, ever recovered from that incident and I never trusted my parents again.

People who do things like that are sadistic devils.

You are focussing on the wrong thing here. Your relatives do sound like immature arseholes but why aren't you annoyed that they taught your kids to play a selfish, nasty game? Is it all fine if it's only other people being frightened and disturbed? Sounds to me like DS could learn a lesson from this (FAFO)!

Thats not funny at all. Its disgraceful. Why would they do that to a child. Its mean and cruel. They need to be accountable for their poor behaviour.
I suspect your mum is trying to stop a fall out rather than taking sides.
They all need to apologise to you and your child

Well this is 100% your daughter's fault, whoever was laughing most she was in charge and she let this happen. I wouldn't leave any of my children with anyone in this story again though - there's no reason to prank a vulnerable 10 year old and once something isn't funny for everyone it shouldn't be funny for anyone.

No capable adults by the sounds of things!

I read it a few times over now and I still don't really understand. Who was in charge of the children here?

I'm a bi confused also about who was where!

Didn't your daughter want to look after her siblings?

Doesn't she like them?

I’d be fuming! I really hate pranks

She’s lying or a poor mother!

Apart from the upset to your poor little boy, knock down ginger is a pain in the arse for some on the receiving end, including old people who might risk falling in hurrying to answer the door (or my late DH when he was having cancer treatment and we lived on a route to a school) OK, kids don't get that aspect but grown adults should.