Accused by my niece for something I haven’t done

[liliesandrose]

I was wondering what is your opinion on this and am I being reasonable for being upset about it.

My niece basically accused me of doing something to her homework.

Sister-in-law will always dump her children at me and my DH, even though sometimes we don’t feel like it we still agree to have them.
She uses this time to see her boyfriend, go party or see friends.
This particular time I was doing HW with my niece(13) and I really enjoyed helping her and making sure she is ready for school next day.
The day went really well and their mum picked them up late in the night.

However, next morning I got a message from my niece asking if I have seen her homework as it’s not in her bag?
She put her HW in her bag, my DH saw that too. She kept going on and on about it like basically suggesting I have done something with her HW.
After a while, she said that’s it’s fine she has it on her PC.
It’s so weird and I’m so upset because I’m basically looking after them, feeding them, helping them with their HW and now I’m falsely accused of doing something to her belongings. Why did she keep going on about it when at the end she actually said she has it on her PC?

I keep thinking it’s deliberate and spiteful because her mum was upset with me and my DH some time ago.

I’m quite shocked this small incident has led to you reducing the time you spend with the kids tbh. I think you are blowing it all out of proportion and it’s very sad that you are doing this to vulnerable kids

i doubt very much the mother was involved at all - I imagine the girl couldn’t find it and panicked and then remembered she had saved it

While I think there’s some truth in this - you’ve also got every right to cut the relationship back. Adult life is hard enough without being wrongly accused of things!

I can't see where she made an accusations against you.

She repeatedly asked you if you had seen her homework rather than ask you to look and check she hadn't left at your house as an adult might have done but she didn't accuse you of doing anything to it. Hopefully you messaged and said you saw her put it in her bag but you have checked the house just to make sure its not there and you don't have it.

To stop seeing her over such a small incident seems a bit OTT.

Unless there is more to this story I think you need to be less sensitive, your interpretation of her behaviour is quite paranoid.

I think it's perfectly reasonable for you to want to take less responsibility for parenting your SIL's children so if this incident is your way out then I don't blame you. Maybe your brother or BIL could step up and parent their children.

Imagine being a teen who is absolutely convinced you put something in your bag that now cannot be found in your bag and you know you’ll be in trouble if it isn’t found.

Thats where your nice was at. She’s also comfortable enough with you to blame you for said piece of homework missing and comfortable enough to know when she’s finished being unreasonable you’ll still be there for her!

and like most things we are panicking we can’t find it was probably where she out it all along 😂

My teenager blames me all the time for things she's lost. She loses things a lot. Then moves on, not having the slightest idea she's been a bit rude. I do tell her. But I would say it's no more than that. They go through a phase of not being very grateful. It would be a shame to lose your relationship over something like this.

Wow this poor girl hasn’t done anything wrong! She couldn’t find her homework and asked you about it in a stressed way. She didn’t accuse you of anything.

It feels like you’ve jumped on this non-event to stop your nieces and nephews from coming round.

I feel really sorry for the girl.

I agree with @FOJN she didn’t actually accuse you though just asked

a lot of this seems to be you spiralling out from a normal teen interaction

but don’t see her - she has an unstable life as it is she doesn’t need another person who flakes on her

Definitely sounds like a teenage panic. Especially if she put a lot of effort in and, like you, enjoyed working on it. I definitely wouldn't take it personally, I'd focus on how much that piece of homework meant to her. Probably because you took the time to work on it with her.

Your niece trusts you if she is talking to you like that…it’s what kids do with their safe adults/parents. What you are experiencing is a normal part of raising kids and while unpleasant it’s actually a testament to her feeling close to you. Crazy right? Don’t give it too much thought. If you want, you can gently talk to her about how this made you feel but be careful how you phrase things as the last thing you want is her guarding her words and actions around you. You are a good aunt!

This is such a complete non-event. I've got two teenagers who regularly throw a strop because they can't find their glasses/bus pass/tie/calculator that they absolutely, 100%, no doubt left just there so I must have moved it. It blows over the moment they find the offending item (which they had inevitably moved from there and completely forgot about it)

It's frustrating for you to have to act defacto parent to this kid who sometimes acts annoying.
The thing is all these little things are building up to make even minor issues seem worse.
I hope you can take a step back from childcare or monitoring of your sister's kids.

Even I've done this, as a very absent minded adult. I'm not proud of it, but when I mislay something yet again, I'm prone to flailing around and having people looking in places where I KNOW I had it (and possibly implying that I think they had it). And then discovering I had it all the time.

I'm not one to forgive teenagers everything, but you seem to be having a huge overreaction to a very normal situation. Have you had your honesty and integrity questioned in some kind of traumatic way in your past? Because deliberately not having her round again, is a really over the top response.

No I think it’s opposite it’s because my honesty and integrity has never been questioned by my friends or family- people that know me.

Please bear in mind this is not my sister’s child but my husband’s sister.

So it got to do with because my family they just won’t do this.

It’s not my sister’s kid but my husband’s sister.

Ah, ok sorry I misread that .x

MASSIVE overreaction on your part, to normal teenage behaviour. She didn't accuse you, she was panicking about not being able to find something and asked you, repeatedly, because she was with you last time she saw it. It was panic. Nothing more.

Her behaviour I understand, she's not an adult, she hasn't yet developed the emotional or psychological abilities to manage panic effectively yet.

You're the adult here, but instead of understanding that she is only young, and was panicking, you're determined to make it all about you and to be affronted.

"No I think it’s opposite it’s because my honesty and integrity has never been questioned by my friends or family- people that know me."

That's YOUR interpretation of what happened because you clearly place a high value on your integrity, at her age that will not have been her intention - she was too busy panicking about getting in trouble for lost homework to decide to deliberately challenge your "honesty and integrity".

You may be the most honest person on the planet, and overflowing with integrity - but you need to work on your understanding of teenagers.

Poor kid.

My daughter does this too. The moment she can’t find something or something doesn’t go wrong she’s immediately looking for someone to blame. As she gets older she is starting to have the good grace to actually apologise for having blamed me when I manage to find the lost item within two seconds of starting looking for it, usually in exactly the place I told her to look!

She just sounds stressed she can’t locate her homework .. if she has a perfectionist or anxiety streak this will be about her jumping through school hoops rather then accusing you.

What did the messages actually say?

because I agree it is an over the top reaction to a child panicking about the fact she can’t find her homework - and the consequences of not finding it being a potential detention.

Do you have kids? Because her reaction is well within the realm of normal teenage reaction your belief that your honesty and integrity was questioned is not

Agreed. Surely she was just doing the very standard "it can't possibly be my fault, I'm freaking out, where is it, you must have moved it" thing that so many people do when something 'moves' from where they think they left it?

This all seems very dramatic and much ado about nothing on your part.

Not weird, just totally not a thing until you made it one in your head.