My sister is upset with me for snapping at her son

[FionaHoney]

My 6 year old daughter, and 9 months, is being bullied by her cousin. She has a doll which I bought her, the chad baby ava doll from argos, and she loves it very much and plays with it all the time at home.

Recently my sister's child, a boy, 10 years old, has been playing a very mean joke on her. the joke involves him finding the toy and pupeting it whilst doing a voice called "baby dave" which distresses by daughter very much.

I tried to stop my nephew and "baby dave" politely by suggesting he give her the toy back. but he continued across Multiple visits with this cruel joke. Eventually my daughter and I had enough of "baby dave" and i snapped at him. My sister overheard and has berated me on whatsapp for being to harsh with him and hasn't visited since.

Am I being unreasonable? What can I do to make sure my sister feels welcome, but that "baby dave" doesn't make a return??

I think the issue is probably that Ava is almost real to your 6 year old DD (I don’t mean that in a weird way, just that she has the imagination to almost see her as a real baby) and your nephew sees her as a toy and is finding a way to play. He’s also family; is 10; and is doing what older siblings do when they find a way to piss their younger siblings off without actually being naughty which is do it on repeat and then look innocent while adults can’t really explain why doing a voice is wrong…..
If your DD doesn’t want Ava to be played with as a toy that’s fine, but I agree with others, Ava is put away to avoid conflict. A separate question is your sister needs to understand that family will call her DS out on things or he will find invites out to be in short supply as he grows up.

Well done for standing up for your daughter. I was bullied by my cousin growing up. It was open knowledge and never addressed by my family. Unsurprisingly I now live far away!

Yes all this handwringing is baffling to me - of course your aunt can tell you off if you are being naughty! Some of you must have some very stiff and formal relationships with your siblings.

It does sound like that & that's fair enough up to the point where it is actually upsetting your daughter @FionaHoney so you were right to step in, it's just a pity your sister didn't first

My son has just come back from a few days holidays with his cousins & I have no doubt there were a few disagreements (most likely over Hot Wheels) but I'm confident enough that his auntie & uncle would step in if things got too heated, you've done nothing wrong & tbh if I were you I wouldn't mind a bit of a breather from them & I'm sure your daughter feels the same

Oh god yeah. Callum, I know him. Little brat

You did nothing wrong. He was being a spiteful child and deliberately going out of his way to upset your daughter.

Mind you I would have made him a "baby Dave" T-shirt to wear when he comes over.

Some of you must have some very stiff and formal relationships with your siblings.

People do- being siblings doesn’t mean you have a close or open relationship.

My sister would definitely be pissed off if I told my nephew off.

My best friend however has been known to phone me to go round and sort her lot out when she is at the end of her tether.

This.

It takes a village. You were fine to admonish him.

I wouldn't call it bullying. 10 year old boys can be very silly. He probably thinks the voice is funny and although he knows your dd doesn't like it, he doesn't have the maturity to understand how upsetting your dd finds his "joke".

As her mum, you completely understand how his behaviour makes her feel.

You were right to ask him politely to stop the behaviour. As he didn't stop and your sister didn't intervene, you were right to use a firmer voice to get him to stop.

It's a shame that your sister has taken offence and hasn't visited since but at least your dd isn't being upset by her cousin's stupid joke.

Your sisters child is also your nephew. I don’t get why people struggle to like correctly do it. I think there’s such a disconnection there that it seems to be like you feel something of some sort towards him so you struggle to call him what he is to you. It’s weird. My niece who is severely autistic has tried to hurt my two year old daughter on a few separate occasions but you’d never find me calling her my sisters daughter. She’s my niece.

me myself would have removed the toy from the situation and got toys out both could play with and also me and my sister correct our own children’s behaviours and our nieces so my niece and her niece ( my daughter) and don’t get offended so your sister is either soft or you stepped too far.

Do you have to use his name on here? And do other posters have to? I’m predicting that OP will have concerns about privacy and because umpteen posts have repeated the name the whole thread will be pulled.

My daughter had a friend who broke everything. When she came to play, we would remove all the precious toys and leave out only the soft toys and old toys so she could not break them.

You are fine to tell your nephew off. Your sister is being ridiculous.

They're not using his name. One poster used a random boys name to illustrate what she was saying, and because another poster thought it was his actual name, someone else made a joke about it. 🙄

Why aren't you/Callum's mum removing the dolls and enforcing barriers more proactively before it gets to the point of raised voices and why aren't you giving your dd a safe space to play away from cousin if she wishes?

Are you encouraging dd to stand up for herself? Giving her chance to use her own assertive voice and tell him to leave her alone? To walk away if needed?

Are you expecting too much 'play' between them? A prepubescent boy and a not much more than a toddler girl may care deeply for each other as family but are likely to struggle to find much common ground ITO play. If you really want them to play nicely then perhaps you have to facilitate this a bit and find a board game or something that they'll both like, go to the park or just let them enjoy popcorn and a movie.

I know it's your sister and dd's cousin but do you need to spend tonnes of time together? Both kids in all honesty would probably prefer the company of kids their own age. Family is important but on the flipside childhoods are short, too short to be wasting on niceties that are causing your child stress and bringing them no joy.

I say all this from a very similar experience as my 6YO dd also has a 10YO male cousin. They fleet between playing really nicely and the 10YO being a bit obnoxious to dd and her getting upset because she idolises him. There's really little point getting cross/upset at either party. It's an expected dynamic when there's such an age gap. All you can do is have realistic expectations, give both kids the option of moving away if they've had enough and the tools to stick up for thenselves.

Why are there so many commenters OK with boys teasing, bullying, talking down to, and harassing younger female family members all of a sudden? It's so weird.
Every time I see someone post about how much easier boys are to raise than girls, I'm guessing it's because their parents don't bother to actually raise them, they just let them do whatever they want and blame someone else for their bad behaviour - just like a whole load of commenters are doing in these comments.

Get Callum his own doll. He can bring it when he visits.

This.
I also find sometimes its more effective when my sister tells off DS for something he does to her DD. It doesnt happen often, so he doesnt expect her to raise her voice and it has more of an impact.
For us its normal, because my sister has my kids often and I have hers. It would be hard to watch each others kids if we werent allowed to tell them off.

Also youre being a bit precious. I can see how this would be a fun game for a 10 year old boy. Mine loves winding up his younger sister and cousins this way.
Use it to teach your child a bit of resilience.
But if he just keeps it up and doesn’t stop of course someone should tell him off. Learning opportunity for both kids.

Sorry, but Baby Dave sounds hilarious. Isn’t he just being funny?

To be fair to your DSis: Did she understand that her son made your daughter upset? You know her by heart but maybe Dsis thought they were just playing. And maybe her son thought so as well. I would have told Dsis to please intervene because her son is making DD upset. That gives Dsis a chance to handle it. If he would continue after that I think telling him off in a stern voice would he appropriate.

No, OP used it in her second post so I assume that’s his name

I think baby Dave is on YouTube surprise surprise.
I think telling him off is fine. But I would have hidden the doll however that doesn’t mean he won’t find another way to wind her up - maybe shorten visits.

It’s nothing to do with the sex of the children. Don’t try to make it into a feminist issue. Girl children can be absolutely vile pains in the butt to younger kids too. It’s fairly normal behaviour from the boy. I would have told him off too if it was upsetting her so I don’t think OP did anything wrong. However I’d also have a word with my DD and tell her to try to ignore teasing like that because the person teasing is just looking for a reaction.

If your DSIS wasn't quite such a lazy parent, you would not have had to step in and do her job for her.