To think my nephew is dangerous?

[bumsandtums]

I love my nephew with all my heart. He is 11 and lives with my sister who is his mother.

We are a very close family & he spends time with my family on a weekly basis. We love having him here and my children & husband are besotted with him.

Over the years starting since he was 7 various claims have been made.
It started with several claims that family members had said malicious or hurtful things to him when they hadn't. He even said to my sister that I had called him a 'waste of space'. Which obviously was not true. It then progressed to claims that people had nibbed/pinched him and that my children and his grandmother and grandfather were constantly poking and harassing him.

The family as a whole tried to nip this in the bud as soon as possible as eventually the family and my sisters friends were afraid to spend time with him alone.

In September 2018 he claimed that my sisters best friend who has babysat him regularly for his whole life threw him down the stairs. It (obviously) launched weeks worth of investigation and pain until he eventually admitted after weeks of pain for everyone involved that it was not true. He had fallen down accidently after not hanging onto the rain and she was only there to help and bring him to hospital.

Nomatter the claims we have tried to believe him each time and always always tried to find the whole story.

Today he came to our house, as per usual, to play with my children. After coming home from the park we all went inside and he went back out to the car to get his wellies so he continue playing in the garden. My husband arrived home just as he was opening the car (I couldn't see any of this). He grabs the wellies, closes the door and starts to run back inside but, slips and falls forward leaving a nasty gash on his cheek and eyebrow. He runs in and immediately starts screaming that my husband punched him. The children & I are shocked.

My husband states straight away that this didn't happen and we can all check the driveway camera and my nephews story changes instantly to it didn't happen and he starts to cry realising he's been caught out.

I pack up his stuff and drive him back to his mother and explain everything and say that I can't trust him. Someday he will tell a lie that will ruin somebodys life. He's not welcome to my home and I will not let any of my children spent time with him individually. AIBU?

Agee with the PP. in our area at the moment there’s a mum with 3 boys under 11 all with autism fighting for some help and respite and there just isn’t any (this is in the media so I’m not outing anyone). I hope your area is better equipped.

At age 11 he might be old enough to take himself to the library after school, or just attend every after school club. Or even stay home alone for an hour or two with strict boundaries?

Situation sounds very sad and distressing. Thank God you have security cameras. YANBU, totally. You can't afford to take chances with a child that could cause serious trouble because of his lies.

Understand your heartbreak though.

Arewehumanorbones

Afterschool clubs are only going to be a solution if there are more than two adults there all the time.

Boneyback hmm yes good point. Wouldn't want to be that teacher!

I really feel for you all in this situation. Especially your dsis. You have done the only thing you could.

Your DS and DN both obviously thought that all they had to do was apologise and everything would go back to how it was,

I feel heartily sorry for your DS, but if you had agreed to let DN come to your home again, he would have thought that he was totally bullet-proof. It may be that because you have refused to back down (and that can't have been easy for you) he will at long last realised that his actions have consequences.

I hope for all of your sakes that he gets the help he needs.

My mum had appalling PND and basically couldn’t cope, so would smack me for perfectly irrational things. If I fell over and hurt myself, I might be smacked for ‘being so stupid’ depending on the day mum was having. We also weren’t well off and causing accidents that cost money to put right (tearing clothes, losing pencils, breaking cups) might get a smack or a shouting at.

I remember one afternoon being left alone in a pub garden. Bored, I was throwing stones about and I accidentally broke an outside window. When I was quizzed about it I lied and said the stone came from a neighbouring garden. Even though it was obvious bollocks – there was no one in the next garden – this was accepted and I wasn’t punished! So it taught me the (utterly rotten) lesson that little white lies might stop me being smacked or shouted at (given I was punished for irrational things I rationalised that it was quite ok to do what I could to get out of those punishments). To this day I find myself telling pointless little porkies to try to avoid confrontations if I think I can get away with it.

If your sister is like this – I don’t know if she is of course – your nephew might think “I’ve fallen over, cut myself, torn my trousers – mum will punish me for that, but if I say Uncle Fred punched me I’ll get out of it” and “I’ve fallen down stairs, broken a bannister and scuffed the wallpaper, but if I say the babysitter threw me down the stairs I won’t be shouted at. Or at least by the time they’ve worked out she didn’t throw me downstairs they’ll have forgotten about the scuffed wallpaper and punishing me for it”

I think you did absolutely the right thing OP. If he ever made a serious allegation against you or your husband, social services would remove your children temporarily during the investigation.

That cannot of have been easy but absolute respect to you for standing firm and protecting your family.

I agree with everyone else- What happens if a teacher says something he doesn't like and he accuses them of something unthinkable? and it sounds like he didn't admit he was lying until he realised he could get caught- it could've dragged on for ever.

This is a real case of the boy who cried Wolf isn't it- and your DN needs to understand that one day, something serious could happen and nobody will believe him.

I think there does need to be a level of punishment/therapy. I wouldn't be letting him play with my children until at least he had a good talking too about his behaviour.

such a sad situation,

YANBU. I often made up stories as a child and my 7 year old DD now does the same but it’s always innocent things. Accusing people of seriously harming you is a whole other ball game, he needs psychological help. I would advise distancing yourselves from him too.

What a difficult situation. I think you have done the right thing by making your stand OP, as it seems it is spurring your sister on to action and getting help.

I wonder - the million dollar question - why he lies though? Does he have anything to fear, even if it's only in his own mind, from telling the truth?

In the incident at the weekend, is he embarrassed/ashamed that he fell over? Massively projecting, I'm sort of wondering if without a father he needs to be the "big man" and so he can't "fail" type thing.

Your DS and DN both obviously thought that all they had to do was apologise and everything would go back to how it was

I admit I'd been thinking about that myself. Granted she was never going to be thrilled, but given that it "went badly" and "became heated" when the sister learned things weren't going their way, I wondered if there'd been any element of coaching DN on what to say

Personally I'd have thought further apologies were more appropriate than temper, but anyway it probably doesn't matter since OP's done the most important thing in protecting her own family

@ElizabethMountbatten that's not helping. The OP loves her DN, that's very clear all through the thread. But what can she do? He's made a serious allegation against her DH, which would have led to likely SS involvement if it hadn't been for the camera evidence.

It isn't fair to guilt trip the OP here.

No ElizabethMountbatten - I think that he is a very unhappy child, and it's heartbreaking - but putting other people at risk from his very vindictive and dangerous lies is not going to help hm.

He needs to learn, for his own sake as well as other people's, that lying is just not acceptable behaviour.

This isn't an over-imaginative child pretending he has a pet hippo in the garden! - it's one who is making horrible accusations which might one day be believed and someone could end up with their lives and prospects totally destroyed. Or one day someone could abuse him, and he wouldn't be believed if he reported it, because his reputation as a liar would undermine his testimony.

At best his lies are very distressing for the people he accuses.

My stepdaughter does this, we know have cameras in every room of the house including outside and except the bathroom, we have car cameras and I have to make sure I’m never with her alone.

Last year she nearly ruined my life, everyone takes her side though cause she’s apparently this poor unfortunate soul from a broken home (her parents split up when she was one) needless to say I never see her without my fiancé there.

We should split up really but he’s the love of my life and we have children together and I’m scared she’ll hurt them if I let them go to his unsupervised.

I agree that it sounds like a self esteem issue in part at least. I think the issue is that he feels ashamed.
Not having his dad in his life is likely to have a serious negative effect on his self esteem - there can be internal scripts such as why didn't he love me enough to be in my life? Is it because I am unlovable or not good enough?

When he trips it's not because he was clumsy or careless or stupid it's because he was a victim deserving of special attention and sympathy and definitely no blame. When he continues to lie he kind of has no choice because if he tells the truth he will be shamed.

I would recommend Brene Brown's book The gifts of imperfect parenting

Going back to where everyone believes him until proven otherwise or till he admits it was a lie.

What would happen if you took the power back and didn’t believe him?

I don't blame you for backing away, as safety not punishment. Your SSis very much needs to talk to the GP and get a referral either to CAMHS or to a private children's clinical psychologist or psychiatrist. Counsellors and therapists can't diagnose and the counselling clearly hasn't helped with this problem so your nephew needs to be seen by someone who is qualified to figure out exactly what the underlying issues are and how best to deal with them.

She said to me when I was leaving that it was an injustice to him to let him continue this behaviour and as a parent the best thing now for him to learn a lesson is too be harsh.

It all sounds a bit mad to be honest. Four years of unsuccessful counselling and your DSis isn't going back for a diagnosis or for a re-investigation? Who recommended this counsellor? Who recommended the strategy of telling your nephew that what he said was untrue and then shutting him down? Why has DSis suddenly decided that being harsh is the answer?

Your DN and DSis really do need some proper professional assessment and advice.

The op has done totally the right thing i think this child needs to be punished severally. Why on earth is he being allowed to go to scouts/swimming when he could easily make an allegation towards one of the leaders there . I think this will teach him a lesson and your sister seems horribly entitled by things “getting heated” she doesn’t seem to have any idea about how your dh could have gone to jail and wrecked your marriage and he may never have been allowed to see his children again. You can in no way even think of letting him back in your life. All you can do now is try to do your best to support your sister.

I will apologise first op as I always seem to be a thread killer so I hope this doesn't happen this time as I feel that anything that is posted my be of some help. If it's not, it can be disregarded.

I so feel for you. It doesn't matter why. I hope that you won't be offended by this but is there anyway, anyway at all that your sister is envious of your life and your family and your nephew has heard your sister (maybe best friend also) talking about how you and your children have more/ a better life? I am just trying to think how a child would process this if it was mentioned a lot throughout his childhood.

I hope that what I have said is not offensive. You are in an awful position.

Yanbu sounds like he needs some serious psychological help 😔