To find my 10 year old niece obnoxious

[Fawncard]

I love my 10 yo niece with all my heart but sometimes I don't like her very much.

I can't really explain it but it's like her personality is a little off. She comes across as very loud and almost arrogant when I know in reality she is actually a very insecure child.
I took her to the cinema at the weekend and during parts of the movie she shouted out unfunny "jokes" I asked her to stop as she was disturbing other patrons but she continued to do it a few times and afterwards I heard her telling her mother (who wasn't with us) how everybody in the cinema was laughing at her jokes
If we are out for a family meal she will dominate conversation and ask to sing which her parents always shush the adults to allow her to sing (she has a decent singing voice but does anyone in a restaurant want to hear a 10 year old singing Ed sheeran songs!!)
She doesn't have many friends at all and a lot of my friends kids actively dislike her.
She is not my kid so I don't know how I'm supposed to help here? And can you even help if a kids personality is like this? Her parents think she is the best thing since Sliced bread

The greatest gift you can give your DN is to teach her empathy for others and self-awareness in a 100% non-shaming way. Be firm with the message but do it with hugs and love and kindness. So, yes, being told that you have to leave cinema because people want to enjoy the film and not hear your jokes is going to be pretty harsh to hear but she has to hear it and then has to talk about and process it afterwards in a loving, non-dramatic space with her lovely and sensible aunt (too humiliating and that grandiose self-defence mechanism is at risk of just doubling-down).

Do it without drama - her parents won't be able to.

Seconding others on this thread who raise questions about possible neurodiversity. Please also be aware that it really hurts as a parent when other people tell you that you should be guiding/disciplining your child better when they just don't have the impulse control to stop shouting out in the cinema etc. We pretty much stopped going anywhere public for a long time - it was very lonely. The judgement is hard to bear when you are already struggling with an extra tiring, stressful parenting journey.

"was told that I don't have kids so don't understand that this is what kids do that's why I'm wary of bringing it up.... it's kind of like I'm criticising their parenting and what do I know about raising kids."

well maybe when she was a toddler that would have been fair.
She's on the brink of adolescence now in every sense. You can start to have a different relationship with her - woman to soon-to-be woman. She'll really benefit from it during the storm that's coming her way at secondary school.

My niece was like that at age 10 and age 4, 15, 24 and still spoilt at age 27. It is very draining when she thinks she's the centre of the universe. Her husband is the same in male form. Christmas is bloody shit.

I tried to say something a couple of years ago about her singing in public and was told that I don't have kids so don't understand that this is what kids do that's why I'm wary of bringing it up.... it's kind of like I'm criticising their parenting and what do I know about raising kids.

Well you know not a single child in that cinema or in those restaurants behaves in the same way for a start

I dont think you need to bring it up with the parents if you dont think theyre ready for that,but it might help if you bear it in mind and maybe adjust the type of things you do with her and the expectations. I couldnt do cinema with my daughter at that age

It's impossible to say from just a post, but I would seriously be considering neurodiversity too.

There were a few things that struck me - the inability to judge appropriate social behaviour which should be there at age 10, you mention she doesn't spot non-verbal clues, making things up to suit her narrative (everyone thought I was funny), correcting the teachers and the lack of impulse control when overstimulated.

Obviously she's not being helped by what sounds like poor parenting. So that will cloud the issue, but it really does sound to me as if there's more going on.

I have autistic twins - a DS and a DD. For context, I'm autistic and have ADHD myself. Autistic girls tend to either come across as real pleasers, desperate to be liked by everyone, or they can appear braggy, loud and a bit unpleasant (admittedly some of that is because unconsciously we judge girls on different social standards to boys).

ADHD in girls doesn't have to look fidgety - there's an inattentive type which doesn't have the hyperactivity. Autism in girls can be very very hard to spot especially if they're bright and very verbal. They can almost seem a bit precocious and not always pleasant to be around because they're hard work. My DD fibs about the most outrageous things - but never to gain any discernible benefit. It's bizarre. Her brother is truthful to the point of it being painfully embarrassing.

It might not be neurodiversity and I absolutely don't want to be medicalising it if it is just a parenting issue. We can't tell on here. But there are some signs that suggest it might be worth considering.

We have a niece like this! At our wedding, her parents encouraged her to run ahead of me and my husband on the confetti shots! We paid for slow drift snow confetti because we got married on Christmas Eve, but we had to set it up and do it again and use paper hearts because we only had a small amount of this super expensive stuff. My SIL and BIL have the professional photos of niece wrecking our confetti shots blown up on their wall. Looks like the whole set up was for her, twirling around in the snow outside a castle, surrounded by sparkling lights while there is a blurry bride and groom in the background.

Once we had a birthday in the family and we all met at a restaurant, niece was 10 almost 11 and immediately started dominating things with "Look at me, grandad, take a picture of me grandma!!" And when hearing that one of her cousins won a competition, "I've won like five competitions, haven't I mummy? Haven't I? I won one for dancing. Everyone watch me dance. I choreographed this myself!!" and SIL and BIL watch adoringly and expect everyone else to do the same. My husband has less social tact than most, or he's just not prepared to pay the social tax and his sister pisses him off. Apparently she was similar as a child. Anyway, he groaned and said "Not this again. If I knew I was paying to watch the Olivia show, I'd have stayed in and got a bloody pizza and enjoyed my meal. Ridiculous!"
SIL and BIL were aghast, left without ordering food, took my niece with them. DH got a text from his sister the next day saying he had "knocked the wind out of Olivia's sails" and that they doubted she'd recover from being humiliated in public. He replied "Hopefully she learns some humility before high school or she might be getting more than the wind knocked out of her." They didn't speak for about a year! Lots of Facebook posts about how family don't appreciate a shining light when they see one, consumed by jealousy etc.

It's definitely the parents!

Vikrum your dh bloody rocks!!

Yeah, Vikrum, good on him. His sister sounds obnoxious as well.

Mr Vikrum - well done!

Olivia sounds like Verruca Salt!

None of these descriptions are her fault.

Speak to the parents they're setting her up for failure, no-one likes a bossy boots.

Ugh I have a family member with a 9yo like this, and she’s a serial boaster. Last time I saw her we played mini golf and, as you do when you do this stuff with kids, the adults played badly on purpose to let the kids win as there were some as young as 5 playing. The 9yo won by about 2 points and for AGES was saying “Haha how embarrassing that a kid beat the adults, aren’t you embarrass Meg? I’m soooooo good at mini golf, better than anyone else here”. I actually said “Well I think next time the adults won’t have to let the kids win then”. She also ‘tallies’ things she’s done “I saw the red squirrel, then I spotted the deer and now I’ve spotted this unusual creature, I’m definitely the best in the family at spotting things”. Her parents just simper and fawn over her. Her mum last year confided in me that she has no friends at school and I tried to say kindly I think, at the age she is, the way she speaks to people matters and no child wants to have a friend who’s always trying to one-up them. It didn’t go down well you apparently can’t tell the parents unless you’re gonna tell them it’s everyone else who’s mean.

Anyway point of my post: avoid. Minimise contact for a while and do not do more days out. IME kids get worse before they get better

I'm another one who thinks the drama lessons didn't work because PFB didn't get the main roles every time. I wonder if she would benefit from something more... exact, less subjective? If she did athletics, for instance, her time would be X. Bit harder to say she's the best if little Timy is achieving X -3s.
Whereas in acting, you can go "they just don't see your talent".

@InTropicalTrumpsLand you couldn't be more right. I texted my sister this evening asking if DN wanted to go back to drama lessons and offered to pay for it but my sister said that "DN is not going back there the teacher only gives the good parts to her 'favourites'" apparently the teacher is favoring the kids from the more middle class areas and DN was being overlooked because she lives in an underprivileged area. I don't think it's true because my friends kid is in that group and lives in the same estate.

@Fawncard

I agree I should have taken her out of the cinema. Id say the other families were cursing me. I didn't want to hurt her feelings, the thing is she doesn't get to go many places her parents don't have much money and don't take the kids out very much so I like to treat her when I can but her increasingly strange behaviour makes me not want to do that anymore.

What about everyone else's feelings?

Poor child! Sounds like her parents really aren’t helping her. She’s going to need her favourite auntie because she is going to have a lot of friendship issues as she gets older if she doesn’t develop some self awareness. Keep taking her out, but give her some boundaries, too.

Oh my goodness, OP. It sounds like there is a drama class somewhere breathing a huge sigh of relief.

Very tricky to deal with this - it sounds as if the parents will fall out with anyone who raises it.

She is one of 4...
She needs to fight to be seen and heard
All the time

More lazy stereotyping. 🙄
Not all children with three siblings live in some chaotic, noisy zoo with exhausted parents who have no time for them. Ffs.
Maybe the parents just think the sun shines out of her arse and don’t pull her up on her arrogant behaviour.

OP don't stop taking her out, but before you go to a venue, drill it into her what behaviour is expected from her, not just by you but by everyone else there.

It should help to manage her expectations of the trip too, because without any input beforehand about how you expect her to behave - which is expecting her to behave like everyone else there - she will expect to do what she's always done before in that situation /in that place.

Cinema Trip -
Tell her she's expected to sit quietly and enjoy the film, the same as everyone else who has paid to be there.
Has she ever heard other people in a cinema shout out "jokes"?
The answer to that has to be a resounding no. so then she must have it explained to her in no uncertain terms that if other people don't do that as a matter of course, then she shouldn't do that either.

Restaurant trip - I'm sure you could take her somewhere for tea and cake, so a shorter trip than a full meal out, just the two of you. Again, before entering the premises, outline your expectations of her behavior.

Whilst you are in there, point out that other children are not standing up and singing or doing the things she does in restaurants.
Let her sit and enjoy her tea and cake in silence apart from conversation with you. Point out that's what people want when they go there for tea and cake. They go to enjoy that place and that food and drink with the people they are sitting with. All the people at other tables do not want to listen to some random child suddenly start to sing, get up and dance or anything else.

Never expect her to learn anything by osmosis. Even if something is patently obvious to you, the world and his dog, she could literally not "see" what's acceptable and what's not in a social setting. Explain everything. Especially everything you think she's old enough to know.

I agree (also autistic).

"Masking" in autistic girls often takes the form of performing. I remember at a similar age feeling as though nothing was quite real and I was performing the part of myself on a stage. But nobody had told me that a cheeky cockney who bursts into song at any given moment was only endearing in Mary Poppins (my absolute favourite film at the time) and not in a suburban eight year old girl visiting Pizza Hut. Fortunately my parents swiftly let me know what the social rules were - and OP you really need to do this for your niece if her parents aren't willing to do so.

I know it sounds bonkers written down from the vantage point of middle age but I genuinely had no idea at 8 that it was socially inappropriate to do this. I thought it was a good way to get people to like me.

Each time she did it I asked her to "please do not shout in the cinema you are disturbing people" but she just said "no I'm not people think I'm funny"

you're lucky i wasn't there. I am not above saying "take that child out" on occasions like this.

You're making a rod for your own back. Children are very very well able to adjust their behaviour according to their surroundings and who they are with. You need to set boundaries and expectations of behaviour - and be consistent and follow through each time with the agreed consequences. eg you go to the cinema, you say beforehand that there will be no talking our you are both leaving. And then do it. (other patrons who have spent a fortune on a cinema trip will thank you)

You should have stopped the "grumpy grandpa" talk by saying "well, he isn't wrong, you shouldn't disturb other people like that" etc etc.

It’s all well and good saying Op as Auntie should do this and that but like she says it will be taken as criticism of their parenting. If Op was to take a leaf out of Mr Vikrum’s book (sounds like he said what everyone thinking) then no doubt family fall out would be similar.
I’d be an Auntie to her. Plan nice 1-1 things. Make clear your rules. There’s nothing wrong with having with Auntie we don’t do x or y. It was kind to offer to pay and if she mentions another activity maybe offer again. It sounds very complex situation probably additional needs and clueless parents. I’d definitely spend time with her as she starts secondary school.