To pull away from my close friendship because of her kids

[abouttimeforu]

My close friendship is with my sister. We are extremely close. My child can be very challenging , currently waiting on ASD assessment , attention seeking and has a hard time managing his anger although this has improved greatly .
My child struggles socially and doesn't have many friends.
He is also so kind and loving, very sensitive , thoughtful and funny He is 11.

My sister's two children are by and large, rude and moody. Their mother will often put this down to tiredness and hunger but reality is they are actually just rude and moody, mostly

They will engage with my child when there's no other option but if there are other kids around, they will practically ignore him.
So for example if we were grouping up for an activity, they will purposely say that they want to do x with 'Jen' and completely omit to mention my child's name or include him.
Despite him being the only one left out.
My sister does not intervene or correct them. I would be disgusted if my kids did this and very ashamed tbh.

Her attitude is that they don't have to socialise with people they don't want to socialise with .... until they have no one else and then ask to socialise with my
Child .He has been too available .. my fault.

To me he seems only good enough for them as a stand in but tbh I'm highly sensitive about this issue and biased.
I am very protective of himSo at times I am guilty of overthinking and over reacting when it comes to how I view his interactions with others , when In fact, he is absolutely fine with being on his own sometimes.

My child is always with me when we see my sister and her family. I generally make the effort more as her kids are younger and I have the time.

I think that for my sons self esteem and general happiness, I need to move away from the intensity of the contact , when with my child. He craves their attention and his self worth is so low that he will tolerate being second choice or not a choice at all, as the case may be.
This has only developed recently and I'm
Disgusted if I'm honest but then again , I'm highly sensitive when it comes to him.

My sister has zero insight with her own kids and has never once stepped in and said to her children, for example, to include my child or insist that he be part of a specific group that they were creating. They feel
Very Comfortable leaving him out and she feels very comfortable enabling that .
So, can you advise me here. I really need objectivity thanks.

I will add again that I can be very defensive as he was always labelled the 'troublemaker' which he was mostly, but not always, and always the one that was blamed when there was trouble among them... again, it was mostly him but not always. He has that label now though sadly as it has stuck.
Thanks .

I think the issue is that your dc sees his cousins as friends, her dc see their cousin as just a cousin they play with when at family gatherings but not a "proper" friend. Not sure if this makes sense? I played with my cousins sometimes but certainly didn't invite them to functions with school friends etc. they were family not friends. Once we were older we barely saw each other, just funerals, hardly an unusual occurrence

I also think it’s possible that if you overreact you’ll destroy a possibly lifelong strong cousin relationship. If they were previously good friends even when he was bossy and aggressive then they’ve accepted him even at the most difficult of his ASD, right?

it’s much more likely that it’s the endless visiting that is disruptive rather than that they suddenly hate him, right? Maybe your niece wants to have girl friends over without having to have her cousin hanging around all the time. Possibly even you visiting all the time is disruptive.

A bit of absence can make the heart grow fonder. My guess is that staying away a bit will strengthen the relationship and they’ll all be good friends soon enough.

Can I suggest you get your dc in an activity where it's structured enough to give him confidence, and he can make friends. My dd never went to friends houses, but she did lots of nice things through clubs, she's an adult now

I think I agree with this too, hard as it must be for you and your son OP.

I would massively cut down the time the cousins spend together, and make time for other friends who your son gets on better with from both points of view.

@IAmWomanHearMeRoar1 really?

You just dump friends when someone 'better' comes along? You sound nice.

You wouldn't encourage inclusion, courtesy, politeness and overall, decency?

Personally, I'm of the view that if someone comes to visit or there an arrangement, then you don't drop the person if someone else crops up.

Appallingly bad mannered.

But these children aren’t consenting to the arrangement, the cousin is just showing up. If they were inviting him, it would be very rude but it sounds like the OP is honestly spending too much time over there and the cousins are sick of it and want their home back.

You are all right.

I will be cutting down massively. I had a great chat with my child last night and explained that just because he is no longer controlling, angry and trouble making , doesn't mean that his friends and cousins realise this that it will take them time to realise this and trust him again. That trust is earned by behaviour. He understood exactly what I meant. Some distance and some self respect is what's needed here, for everybody. I've set him some challenges each weekend from now eg inviting a friend on a cycle or a sleepover.
He doesn't leave the house as a rule , so he's agreed to this .
Thanks again so so much. The perspectives for the most part have been hugely helpful to me and I feel stronger for it already. It's amazing what the support and advice from others can do to send us in a different direction with managing delicate situations.
I won't be talking to my sis about this. She is clever and intuitive and because we have such a high level of contact, she will instinctively know and will very possibly be relieved also.
We are due to holiday soon in a hotel that ive booked . Her kids are begging her to come with us as it has a pool etc etc. Before I started this thread, I thought it was a great idea but now I've decided that we will holiday on our own and perhaps bring a friend of his instead.

I realised that I was grateful that they would even come with us at this stage, such was my urgency at proving how improved my child is and rebuilding the trust again.
No more. Not fair on any of the children.

This will be a huge change in our dynamic as we always holidayed together and will be noted but not discussed.

While I feel for you I don't think there is anyway to change her view.

Pity her children when they start working and wonder why teamwork is a challenge.

your plan for going forward is very sensible

and it will benefit your DS to make/strengthen friendships outwith the family

You said those things to your child by way of explanation?
Wow.

Yes@Stomacharmeleon I did because we often talk about his progress with his psychologist and school as it has been so significant. He is self aware and this is all part of his regulation work with them.

I can see both sides as I have an autistic DC (shuts down rather than lashes out though) but I have also been the parent who has had to negotiate with her gentle children about them spending time with a friends child who lashes out. The child I know has no additional needs, but has had a few life changes they are acting out on, so I've drilled it into my kids to be kind to them.

In that situation my kids appear moody and quiet to my friend. I can see they are actually nervous and walking on eggshells around tricky DC. I'd probably blame it on tiredness and hunger to try and be kind to my friend.

Adding other kids to the mix would be difficult and too much for DCs to manage - should they still be kind if another child is being shouted at unfairly, or hit, for example. It's a situation that not many 11 or 12 yos could navigate easily without someone getting hurt or offended.

Luckily I have the option of only seeing her as an adult, the cousin situation is a lot more difficult. I think your sister is trying to be kind, is stuck between her DCs and you and loves you all.

@MarieRoseMarie and yet until someone else turns up, they are perfectly happy to play with their cousin.

Once someone better crops up, he's dumped. Not included. Dumped.

They are all that age now, where you cannot tell them who to play with. I'm sorry I know it's hurtful, but they're not going to want to play with an angry 11 year old. Both my siblings were similar to yours, and were told to play with me. No thanks, I'd rather go to my room and read, or go for a walk then face meltdowns/angry outbursts. You cannot make kids over 11, play together.

OP, I've been thinking about this over the last hour while watching tv. Something you said resonated with me. But first, I think if you had mentioned in your OP that your niece was whispering to her friend about your son and being mean to him, my response to you would have been 180 degrees different. Whether your son was mean before, is not really relevant now. What you are describing is mean-spirited teasing and bullying by your niece. Not wanting to play with your son, and teasing him are two entirely different things.

When I was at school I was..... very different from others. Intensely shy and quiet, and preferred to be on my own living in my own head in my own fantasy world. I had a few close friends as a child, but I was always very, very different. I remember whenever new kids came to our school, the school bullies would get to them first, they'd whisper about me and encourage the new kids not to be my friends and to join in the bullying. That is what your post about your niece reminded me of.

What I'm saying is I don't think your niece's bullying of your son is related to his past behaviour. She sounds like a mean-spirited bully and I think she would be like this with other kids too, whether they're NT or not. I know you've made up your mind about the future, but I am wondering if you have spoken to your sister about your niece's behaviour? And if so and if that did nothing, is it possible for you to speak to your niece, personally? I don't mean be aggressive but just have a quiet chat to her, explain how hurtful her behaviour is. That it's ok if she doesn't want to play with your son, but bullying him and whispering and being nasty is not ok and it's hurtful and how would she like it if someone did it to her? It may help her change, because I can guarantee she probably does it to others at school too.

If my cousins were at my house, and my best friend came over, yes, I would choose to go and play with my best friend.

Is that really such a bad thing?

Yes it is a bad thing if you exclude people.

We don't know that they are 'perfectly happy' to play with their cousin. He's the default, but not their choice. I really don't see what the problem is. They didn't invite their cousin over.

Really? So you're honestly saying you must associate with everyone, even if you don't want to?

Is that what you truly, honestly are saying?

Do you associate with everyone even if you don't want to? Or are you like 99.99999% of people who choose who they associate with?

They are cousins, of course they will hang out occasionally but might not be close. That’s fine

It has become more obvious in this thread that we all have different ideas about manners, friendship and what's acceptable socially .
So for example, in my home , if the cousins called as they do very regularly and a friend of my kids dropped in, there would be no tolerance of dumping the cousins who visited , to go off and play with the friend who called.
In my world, that's rude and Ill mannered.

They'd all be encouraged to get in with it.
@IAmWomanHearMeRoar1 thank you for clearing up your context.

Even at 11 and 13? They’re not babies and they are not inviting your cousin, you are. They have no choice in the matter.

At what point does this end? I’m not being facetious. I’m genuinely interested in where you draw the line on politeness. Your now 15 year old niece has two female friends over for a sleepover and your DS drops over, is she still obligated to include him? 14? 13?

This all just feels weird and inappropriate. Not sexually at all. Just that maybe your son is socially a bit younger than his age. But an 11 year old girl wanting to hang out with other girls is not bullying.

This would all make sense to me if they were 7 and 9. They are basically teenagers!

Sorry @MarieRoseMarie ... where are you going with 15 year old niece example And inappropriate.
Are you being deliberately confusing?
In my example, the cousins had visited, a friend arrived and how I would deal with it, described.
Not the other way round where the niece is 15.
Now that IS weird ...

I agree with this. It sounds like you are both very defensive of your kids and there is bad behaviour on both sides that is being dismissed by the respective parents.

I think you are right to stop forcing the kids together, but wrong to think that these kids should want to be close to someone that for years was aggressive and bossy towards them, regardless of whether he is ND.

They are young teens anyway, they won't need to be playing soon, they can just interact with the adults.