in expecting my bil to punish his child for her distructive and violent behaviour?

[williamsmummy]

one of my nieces was in my care for the afternoon. She is develpmentally delayed and is 10 yrs old, and will go to a special school in september.
I am fully aware of this and have worked with children who are often much younger in there head than years.
However, it seems that there are no boundries in this family. I respect and agree that any form of corperal punishment is not a way forward. However that seems to be an excuse not to have any rules.

Well apart from the children having complete control of daddy.

This 10 yr old child , was rough and voilent with a 3 yr old guest, waiting until i left the room to do this. shoving and throwing things at this child.

Smacked my 8 yr old daughter because she didnt want to play her game, with her.

tried to slap my other nephew around the face, but being quick of foot she missed.

Then to cap it all, she spilt 1/2 litre bottle of bleach all over my bathroom floor, staining my bath mats, and being walked across my landing.

She lied about it to our faces, until I pointed out that she was the only child with bleach stains on her clothes.
We did check her for any harm to her hands, but she was very careful not to spill any of it on her skin.

The other neice 9yrs sulked all day because my daughter didnt want to play her games. At least she was quiet.

My BIL decided that as a punishment he would take the children home early, but that was what the children wanted to do anyway.
I didnt have the guts to mention the violent behaviour , as we did try some years ago, and he wouldnt accept that our son prevoked his daughter, ( and implication that he deserved it)

A couple of hours later BIL rang hubby and said he had a little chat with daughter , who had told him that it was only a small amount of bleach, so no harm done.

This man sees his children through rose coloured glasses. They have no respect for many adults , there father ( who she does smack as well) or any children that come in her way.

My children have started to ask that we do not invite these children in our home.

recently, they have broken a double glazed window, lost some parts of my sons toys , and where caught putting glasses of blackcurrent squash on full heat in my microwave. ( but that story is for another moan!!)

I want my hubby to say something , but he is right in saying that he will never listen to us. so I am at a loss at what to do.

We have been pressured in to going to his home on mothers day, the whole family will be there, but I am sick of my children being smacked by these children. I have told hubby that one incidence of violence or controling behaviour and I will pack up my children and leave.

I never let my children bully other children, why should i let them be builied, but a child who may have learning difficulties, but is aware of what she is doing and needs rules and boundries.

end of rant.

thank you.

[dejags]

Well 11 kids to one carer, is just a recipe for disaster.

That's not the fault of the children though.

I am getting frustrated - Williamsmummy, you only seem to be looking for negatives in this situation.

[williamsmummy]

jimjams 2 I think you are right, but that means that its getting impossible for me to look after this child.
Having this 3yr old around was a spur of the moment desision. It wont happen again.


much of the comments everyone has said my hubby has said. I am taking them on board. perhaps its because they are family that i am not seeing this as clearly as I would a child I have care of outside the home.


As for the children picking up bad vibes, well, they are always keen to play over here, when they have an idea of what we are going to do.

I cant approach my bil as its clear he doesnt approve of our parenting methods. When we have broached the subject in the past, with one of our sons, he replied that she must have been prevoked. That was the end of that!

There is so much of her behaviour that I ignore and accept, as norm for her, I dont give a monkeys about my bath mat, I dont live in a show home by any means. I do want them to be happy, but I want my children to be as well.


as for the comment about her being young in her head, well , emotionally and educationally she is not ten yrs old.
how do i phrase this?

There are peaks and troughs in this, but her general understanding is good.
She explained quite clearly what poison was, and identified some around the home.

Again, lesson learned and all dangerous stuff will have to be removed and hidden when she comes to the house.

And plan to follow her from room to room.

It would for instance be a doddle to look after the girls if I didnt have my children with them.
But that is not an option. For them they want to play with my daughter, its part of the day.
But planning activites, and lining up other choices is enough when babysitting.
which is in effect what I do. everyone is right I only have them for a day, and dont have enough contact with them to make a difference to their lives.

[williamsmummy]

microwave thingy, two adults in the house btw, most of the day with me , makes three adults, when I left for doc appointment had ten children, when at docs, ended up with 11 as neighbour came in to play.
6 outside, on heelys , others indoors playing babies etc. snacks and drink left out. brief instruction for heelie children to go in at certain time as getting dark. ( older child 15 watching)

found BIL and SIL on sofa had no Idea how many (or who)children where in house, left kids alone with microwave, and Upstairs window broken because while i was gone one was hanging out of window.

I was in the house for ten mins checking on the children and starting to cook tea before they even noticed I was there.

i feel very grateful that I didnt find a child on my front lawn from falling from window and didnt have to deal with broken glass , cuts and burns.

So I suppose when I think about it, bleach incident very minor in comparison!!

[coppertop]

As others have said, just because your niece is rouhly at the level of a 7yr-old does not mean that she is able to act like an NT 7yr-old. It's not that simple.

Being able to tell you what poisons are doesn't mean that your niece has the maturity to control her impulses or compulsions around them. Again it's just not that simple.

I am still genuinely interested in hearing what you would consider to be a suitable punishment for your niece.

[KristinaM]

sounds a bit chaotic to me! does your niece coep well with chaos? Some children ( nt or sn) prefer a quieter more structured environment. Maybe she woudl do better with fewer children as well. Are the ten children just yours and your BILs?

[williamsmummy]

my bil has two , sil has four and i have four.

as for punishment, i think that removeing child from situation and having time out would be a simple first step. With clear, simple, explanation.

warning that if bad behaviour happens X will happen ( e.g favourite toy removed for a previously set time), and again time out. and so on.

give suggested ways to overcome shareing / playing difficulties, with calm explanation.
while observing play.

This is something that would apply to all children and not just single out one child.


other points taken on by other parents and children, understanding of cousins problems, flagging up problems ASAP so that can be delt with swifty before problem escalates.

BIL to point out and GUIDE us on how he wants this to be delt with before it happens.
As its clear that dump and run out the door ( with my hubby) is not working for me or the children!!!

[juuule]

In your own house do it your way. Let the adults know your expectations. If they don't or won't agree then they must go home with their children. Decide for yourself what allowances you will make. You need to decide what you can live with. When you are in control of your own home and what you can cope with you can then decide what you have left to help your bil and sil with their situations otherwise things get too chaotic (and from what you've said, dangerous) as you have found.
When visiting you can decide what you consider to be appropriate behaviour for your own children. You might make suggestions about other people's children but you can't impose your way onto other people. Your way might seem to strict/slack for other people's comfort zones. You don't know what they have to deal with day to day. You can't force them to be you. What you can do is remove yourself and your children if you are too uncomfortable with a situation.
As it's your bil and sil I would make several attempts at discussions about expected behaviour on all sides. As long as people don't fall out over it, communication can be eye-opening and very helpful to all concerned. An insight into the difficulties that other people have can make a difference to how we view situations.

[Alan]

williamsmummy thank god you are not my daughters aunt because it doesnt sound like you looked after her at all, infact she sounds like she was neglected

[BigCookLittleCook]

I would not leave bleach in reach of any ten year old, SN or not. It could kill a child if they drink it. Even if she had to stand on the loo seat or a chair to reach it (just a guess), it is "within reach". You need to lock these things away. I know you said your house is "no longer geared up for pre-school children" as your youngest child is 8, but surely you dont want your 8-year old, or other three kids, to be able to get hold of bleach, especially in a bathroom where they can probably lock themselves in.

[ElenyaTuesday]

In fairness to Williamsmummy, I have bleach on the windowsill in my downstairs loo. My kids are 10 and 7 - when they were toddlers the bleach was put away but now they are old enough to understand not to touch it and they don't. Do other people really still lock stuff away when their kids are that big? I appreciate that the child mentioned in the OP was SN and that's a different situation.

[ThisFrogIsGonnaWhoopYouAss]

I can't understand why you are exempting your SIL from any blame in this - although to be honest the thought of any adults being left in charge of 10 (or 11) children when they quite clearly don't care beggars belief.

[tearinghairout]

Williamsmummy - just wanted to say that you have my sympathy. Sounds like a big headache. I have nothing to suggest, excpet try to limit numbers - ten children sounds too many at once if one has 'challenges'.

Certainly, communication is the key, with child and BIL. Also need to patiently explain to DH why certain plastic cups can't go in the microwave. I don't know why women can learn these things & men can't. Mine still puts non-dishwasher stuff in the dw, despite me explaining what can & can't go in.

[Bozza]

I have bleach in a kitchen cupboard without a lock on. My DCs are 6 and 2.

[Bozza]

As I understand it her SIL is not married to her BIL - they are presumably both her DH's siblings. The mother of the 10yo who is the BIL's DD is not on the scene. the 10 children are all cousins.

[williamsmummy]

My Sil has similar problems with our nieces when they visit her home. But we are aware that any gentle chat over the children with BIL will be taken as knocking his parenting skills.
He doenst give himself credit for the good stuff he has done, and takes to heart any thing we say. we think the best way forward is as I have previously posted.
But this will have to be checked out with BIL first, as he is not comfortable with this ,as he feels his children should never be made unhappy in any form. which is understandable.

As for leaving the children with uncaring adults, well, they were looking after their OWN children in the house.
I spent the whole day looking after them , except when I went to the docs.

As for neglect Alan, I have seen first hand what neglect really is, and you have no idea what that is.

I also have a child with different special needs, that needs protecting, however I havent mentioned that aspect of our lives, as I wanted a opinon on these children.

[Alan]

how do you know I have no idea what real neglect is? massive assumption there love

[Saturn74]

I think you should stop looking after your nieces at your house.
I find it very concerning that your BIL believes his children are being looked after in a caring and understanding way, but from your posts it would appear that you have very negative feelings towards these children.
These negative feelings will doubtlessly have an impact on how you treat these children, and how you behave towards them.
It also appears that you know that your neice has developmental delays, but make no allowances for them.
The bleach incident could have caused serious injury. You should be relieved that the only casualties were your bathroom mats, TBH.
It doesn't seem fair for any of the children - yours or your BIL's - for this child care arrangement to continue.

[sunnysideup]

williamsmummy, I think you need to take control here - what you're describing sounds a very chaotic household, with all these kids around and out on the streets, and your BIL and SIL neglecting to supervise adequately.

Don't leave kids in their care in future.
Don't ever have them all round at once; if you have lots of kids already, and a neighbour comes to play, say no.

You can't care for all these kids safely, and you do have the power to take control.

[kimi]

I would refuse to look after the children again, and not invite them to your home at all.
I have a 10 year old with SN and he is a lovely child, but like all children he can go to little sh*t mode, he gets punished.
I hate parents who use SN as an excuse for EVERYTHING.

[Jimjams2]

kimi- your son doesn't have learning difficulties though does he? Emptying things (luckily for us its always been washing up liquid rather than bleach), hitting other children and adults just goes with the territory of learning difficulties. Of course it should be dealt with, but it is not safe to assume that a child with learning difficulties should understand not to do it, or as CT said earlier, be able to control their impulses. The only way to prevent that sort of behaviour- or deal with hitting in a timely fashion is to supervise.

WM- if you can't cope with seeing them then don't. There are plenty of people that I would never visit with ds1 (and therefore don't visit!) because I know they couldn't cope with it. There are very few people that I would leave looking after him (other than paid, trained helpers, my Mum, and my in laws for short periods or with help from DH).

[kimi]

JJ2 my son has tourettes and the social skills of a dead mackerel.
And sometimes he will do something just because he is a 10 year old and they all play up sometimes but try's to blame it on the tourettes. Sometime he does not take others feelings in to account or see their point of view, that he can not help, but if he does something wrong he gets punished, he (like all children)need to know what is right or wrong and what the boundries are

[BigCookLittleCook]

OK maybe I am wrong about bleach and older children. I only have DS, who is just a year, so have no experience of how responsible older children can be. I just know that if any child, my own or someone else's, managed to drink bleach in my house under my care I would never forgive myself. DH is crap at putting the cupboard locks back on and I am forever telling him off...

[Jimjams2]

yes but the behaviour/understanding of a child with learning difficulties is different from the behaviour of a child the same age without learning difficulties. That's why so many courses for parents of children with learning difficulties are on challenging behaviours- it goes with the territory and is difficult to deal with- which is why parents need lots of help. Poor social skills is a different ball game from learning difficulties. Having tourette's is different form having learning difficulties. One reason ds1 will get into mischief if unsupervised is because he doesn't have the skills to entertain himself at all- hence walls get drawn on, or bottles of washing up liquid get emptied throughout the entire house. With someone engaging him that doesn't happen. He never blames his behaviour on learning difficulties as he doesn't know he has any!

The clinical psych came to visit me to help with ds1's challenging behaviours. In front of her he climbed on top of the freezer, pinched me, and generally gave a good display of his problem behaviours at the time. She said there was no point coming to see me again as I was using the correct responses, she would leave me her phone number so I could use her to bounce ideas off, and that unfortunately the things we were dealing with were part of the territory- we could sort some of them, but they would come back, and/or be replaced by something else (as I already knew). Challenging behaviours are responded too appropriately most of the time as we've had training in dealing with them, but it doesn't make them go away.It's just a case of making sure they[re not escalated by an inappropriate response (like shouting in ds1's case- shout at him and you've got that behaviour to deal with for months as he desperately tries to get you to shout again).

[Jimjams2]

Been thinking about how to explain this- kimi- presumably as your son is bright there are things he can do with his free time off his own bat- eg play a computer game/read a book/play with lego/play on gameboy etc. This may not be true of a child with learning difficulties. DS1 for example can do nothing alone. Not even watch TV - except for a very limited period. He can't read, he can't play on game boy, he doesn't understand how to play with trains for example, he can't draw..... So unsupervised he fiddles with doors, raids the fridge, climbs on high places and looks for someone to pinch to get an interesting reaction to liven up the day. ie because of his learning diffculties he needs that constant supervision and guidance 1:1.

This girl may not have such severe learning difficulties, but she will have the same sort of problems regarding entertaining herself, and having language to express problems etc.