Friend has a horrible child or is this normal?

[BackoffSusan]

We've come away on holiday with friends and they have a 4 year old that relentlessly torments and taunts my 4 year old. They seem dismissive of his behaviour and think "the kids are just winding each other up". I think that their kid is just a horrible kid but maybe I'm being precious. Am I? Are kids normally like this at this age? Some examples:
Deliberately destroying my son's den to upset him, whilst saying "im going to break your den", deliberately breaking his toy whilst saying your toy is broken, mine isn't, snatching DS toys out of his hands and refusing to give them back, whilst saying I've got your toy, you can't have it back, chasing after him with some toy scissors saying "im going to cut you and all your toys" and pretending to do so, pushing DS or doing something mean on purpose when he thinks noone is watching & then when DS gets upset he then cries and lies and says DS has hit him, constantly telling DS "im better than you, you're no good at this, you're too small, not strong, not good, I've got this and you haven't". Constantly telling tales. Deliberately doing things he knows DS doesnt like to upset him - DS is quite vocal in saying please dont do that i dont like it, its not nice and this kid just says "im going to do it" It's relentless. Is this normal for a 4 year old? To be deliberately mean and spiteful? Is it a phase? Today both kids attended a class. Friends kid has had more lessons so is at much higher level. He came out waving his medals taunting DS with look what I have, you don't have any, I'm better than you, you're not getting one. DS got upset so I just took him to one side to explain it just takes time to progress and it doesn't matter about the medals. Meanwhile friends kid is following us carrying on with the taunting. He's like it all the time. I snapped at him today and told him his behaviour isn't very kind and he needed to stop. Because his parents just ignore it. Needless to say I won't be holidaying with them again. Any advice on how to manage the last few days. I've tried to keep them apart and just watch them very closely when together but I've had enough.

Yep my thoughts exactly - and why it doesn’t happen when toxic dad isn’t around. The poor kid probably does it to gain attention from his dad “that’s my boy” bla bla.

You handled it well OP and it must be frustrating they don’t necessarily ‘get’ it still.

Well that's exactly it! His parents ignore him and never educate him in what's right or wrong. He's not being correcte. He's jealous on the attention your son gets from you so he takes revenge/ trying his best to show he deserves as much attention and love as your son but in a very wrong way.
I would speak to parents and tell them to stop brushing it off and ignore it , pull their fingers out their ar ses and start educate their little darling.

Sometimes it's helpful to let children work things out for themselves but for autistic children managing social stuff can be challenging enough. You did the right thing in intervening .

Some seriously shit parenting by your friends there. Seems to me that there is a lot of either under parenting or over parenting going on these days. Does make me worry for the future.

A 4 year old seeking revenge! Really? It’s simply lack of guidance and maturity.

No its not normal the kid sounds absolutely vile and you've been nicer than I would of about it .
They sound like those parents who think their little angel does no wrong and can't understand why no one wants to spend time around him ( or them for that matter)

My cousins son was/ is like this child i stopped doing things together she quickly cottoned on and would make a point to say x is at his dad's this weekend when asking me if I wanted to go somewhere. He was basically spoilt with no boundaries and now he's at secondary he's relentlessly bullied because his peers are unwilling to deal with his bs attitude

It's worth saying the OP did want to spend time around the child - they went on holiday together! Holidays are different from standard play dates - you see more because you spend more time together. The DC is not too old to be guided - he's 4. He can start to improve how he is around others and might be like this due to his dad being around. He wasn't deemed so awful that the OP swerved the family before the holiday.