Upset at the way my niece & nephew treat my dcs

[Mommymoments]

DH & I live in Cardiff with our 3 dc who go to a Welsh speaking school, they love it.
I'm from rural Wales & go back quite often to visit my parents. My brother lives in the village still with his wife & kids. Their dc are similar ages to mine. We met up with them last night & they were so nasty to my dc.

Firstly they were slagging off their school, saying how much they hated the Welsh language & would prefer to jump off a cliff than go to dc's school.

Slagged my dc's off for going to a Welsh language camp during half term saying they spend their holidays relaxing not doing stupid camps.

Anything my dc said they liked they hated eg Harry Styles!

Really annoying, my DH & his wife just smirk. My dc's are a bit crestfallen & confused at how resentful they are... My mum also picked up on it & put it down to hormones.
They also seem to hate Cardiff with a passion even though they've only been their a couple of times..
Aibu to just do our own thing when we visit my parents & try to avoid them. My parents are late 60s, completely self sufficient so no bitterness about us not "helping".
My parents help my brothers kids with childcare etc, are very active. The family just seem to resent us.

it must stem from their parents.
visit your parents, avoid sister and her poorly behaved brats,
Good that DM has picked up on it - just let her know in advance of your next visit just in case she's likely to arrange family events.

the brats sound vile

The Welsh / Cardiff rights and wrongs is a red herring. Irrelevant what it is you don’t criticise someone repeatedly over their benign life choices.

Life's too short. I just wouldn't see them. Why are you making your children waste their time with these people?

Welsh is spoken in my region (don't want to out myself too much) but the village school is English speaking,they do learn Welsh but most of the teaching is in English.

I would act surprised and ask them where they heard such silly ideas. Tell them you've never heard such nonsense - in front of their parents of course 😉

Can you not talk to your brother about it?

I went to a Welsh medium school and had similar rubbish from cousins/ family members. It's very weird. Glad you pulled them up on it, I'd avoid taking my children around their cousins/ aunt and uncle after this.

I’m not sure I align with posters that the kids are jealous yours go to a Welsh speaking school and Welsh speaking camps. As an adult it’s great that they are learning the language, as a child I’m not sure it’s seen as something to envy about other kids, I suspect the parents have made some comments they’ve heard, or kids tend to pick on anything they see as parochial or different, also possibly kids at their own school take the mic out of these schools, as less than 20 percent of Welsh actually speak welsh.

personally I’d have a quiet word with the parents and tell them to have it knocked on the head.

Absolutely no excuse to be nasty to your DC about their school, Harry Styles or anything else and they should be pulled up if they are being nasty. If they don't like Harry they should be saying I prefer x, y, z to him.

The Cardiff thing could be similar to the way a lot of English people hate London despite hardly visiting it.

Is there some local argy-bargy over Welsh Vs English language schools, and your DC have ended up on the receiving end when you visited? I've been on the receiving end of North Vs South, or Welsh Vs English, or North Welsh Vs South Welsh "bantz" when I was in Snowdonia, it was baffling. Cousins might have been on the receiving end, and took the opportunity to pass it on. Not very nice for your DC and it needs calling out with your dB and sil.

We stay at my parents when we visit, they have plenty of space. The last time we were visiting my dc went to their cousins house (on sister in laws invitation). I went went them to catch up with sil.
The cousins spent their time on roblox ignoring my dc completely.
I cut the visit short saying we'd have to cut the visit short as dc wanted to bring my parents dogs for a walk.
No arrangements were made for this visit but they called up to my parents last night which is when the comments happened.

Not that I'm aware of.. It's annoying as my brother is very patriotic & proud of all things Welsh 🙄
We'll enjoy the rest of the weekend, plenty to do locally with the dc & my parents are great company.
Thanks for taking the time to reply everyone. Whatever about being rude to me but being nasty to my dc isn't on.

If the parents and grandparents are unwilling to pull the children up on it then I will. It is my job to teach my children what behaviour they should and shouldn’t tolerate, and I don’t want them being on the receiving end of that and blindly putting up with it.

I wouldn’t be horrible (as that’s obviously not teaching them either) but i would have to jump in and directly say “that’s not a kind thing to say” “everyone is entitled to enjoy different things just because you don’t do anything at half term doesn’t mean everyone should do nothing too” and eventually if they carried on I would be more direct and either remove my DC from the situation or say to the others “if you are not planning on being kind to your cousins then perhaps you should go and find something else to do”.

My brother & his wife really should pull them but they don't, they smirk.. My mum is incredibly soft but blaming their hormones is a bit 🙄

How horrible, it does sound like jealousy. Agree with others who said to limit contact. Tell your mother why you are drawing a boundary and this needs to be done to protect your DC. Also your brother, if you have a relationship where you could do this without it backfiring.

When something similar happened to my DC from their older cousins, I also sat down and talked to them about what had been said and why the cousins may have said things/acted that way (pinching, pushing from the niece and the nephew saying some bizarre and unwarranted rude things). I wanted DC to be clear the behaviour was wrong and noticed, that DC had not done anything wrong - I did not want any of the negativity to stick.

@Mommymoments youre right they definitely should be pulling them up on it themselves. I was brought up not to say boo to a goose so I find confrontation on my own behalf really hard, but when I see my own children heading the same way and not standing up for themselves it breaks my hearts so im determined to show them they don’t have to be put up with being treated like this x

So model to your dc what you think adults should do in this situation (ie what you want your brother and sil to do). Show them how to handle nasty comments gracefully but without being a doormat or expecting others to jump in and save them. You are not victims or villains unless you allow yourself to be ones

@Changingdetailasthisisawkward it's horrible isn't. My DH says it feels like inverted snobbery to him & their dc have a superiority complex.
Personally I feel like we've been bitched about & my dc's education has been discussed in front of the kids.

@SeaToSki as I said above I did call out the dc in front of my dc's & my mum.. We'll be avoiding them from now on.

So bollock the cousins yourself!

“Excuse me, but enough of your rudeness. If you can be pleasant to my kids then kindly stay silent or remove yourselves before I do it with a boot up your arse. I wouldn’t take this crap from knuckle dragging strangers and I sure as hell won’t take it from family.”

if/when their parents kick off say something like “finally, you ARE able to pull people up on behaviour. If you can’t teach your kids some manners I will.”

then leave.

make the scene. Your kids need to see they are defended and valued.

I would have pulled them up sharpish, its not a good example to your (polite ) children to see that when someone is repeatedly downright rude, their parents don't intervene.
To the brats
' Don't be rude'
'l am sure you know better than to be horrible to your cousins'
'you may have different opinions but it is narrow minded to not consider another point of view'
' l don't expect you like it when people are horrible to you so consider what you say first'

to the parents
'surely you teach them to behave better than that'
' if your children continue being rude. and you continue smirking we will say goodbye and leave'
Smile say goodby and leave.

I agree it's inverted snobbery - they think you think you're 'special'. Sad, really.

Someone on here once said about a similar situation that it was best to grab the bull by the horns but not in an angry way - treating it as a phase rather than a permanent split.

So something like, 'DSis, kids do go through phases don't they and yours don't seem to like mine much at the moment do they haha. Probably an age thing, but it's a bit demoralising for mine, so shall we give them all a bit of space for a bit? Sure things will change over time, you remember what we were like etc etc.'

So not apportioning blame (though obvs your sis and her h and the kids themselves are EntirelyTo Blame ) but also not letting yourself down, or letting your DC down by teaching them that they have to take this kind of shit.

If your brother and his wife won’t pull their children up over their nastiness, then you need to, @Mommymoments.

”That is a really nasty thing to say. Do you want to sound like a bully?”

”If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all!”

”I am glad my children can be nice and polite in both English and Welsh.”

I'd have said pointedly, "At least my DCs learn MANNERS at their school. Apparently yours doesn't teach that, so thank goodness my children don't go there'.

I agree with other PPs. If your DB and SIL don't pull them up I would have done.

It IS pretty special to be bilingual!