DP nephew and our new baby

[Girlmummyxox]

Hello

Opinions have been mixed about this so pleade be kind if im being unreasonable. I dont have much experince with autism and its my first baby. So DP nephew is 19 and severely autistic. I say severely as he relies on parents for everything, cannot look after himself and has the mind of a child. I mean no offence by any of this.

He has a bigger brother (not autisitc) and three younger cousins. My little girl is the youngest in the family by quite a bit (dp started family later in life).

Let me say first that nephew is a lovely boy. I genuinely love listening to his movie facts and hearing how passionate he is about games.

Anyway, since our little girl was born (5 months now), he has been.. i cant think of any other word, obsessed with her. Whenever we visit or meet up he has to be the person holding her. When he holds her, he rubs his face all over her and strokes her body. Ive taken her off him before because I find it all a bit creepy. A word me and DP have bickered about. His family encourage him holding her all the time and take lots of pictures of this. DP thinks its because he is unlikely to have a family of his own and they like seeing how happy and gentle he is with a baby. Whenever he gets too close I have started telling him to give her space and sometimes ive taken her back. He has started telling his mum that im giving him into trouble. He sits and just stares at her while being inches from her face. And sometimes kisses her all over, me and dp tell.him to stop. He also always tries taking her from my arms to "show her something" in another room which is usually a laser light or disco ball (she loves colours and movement) but i refuse to let him take her and go with him, while holding her. Why should I? He is a vulnerable adult. As if im letting him take her in another room, alone.
He has now started saying "does she love me??" If we say yes, he gets happy and tries rubbing faces and whispering "i love you too, pretty girl". I dont know, I feel awful as I type all of this but its weird in my opinion.

My issue? Well its crossing boundaries, also I dont want to enable behaviour and id like to set boundaries and expectations now. If my daughter came to me in a few years time telling me another adult was doing this, id be furious. Dp said he understands why I think what I think but his nephew lives in another world and means no harm. He said he doesn't feel the need to speak to his sister as it'll cause offence and what would he even say. Id like him to tell her that she needs to speak to her son about boundaries because it isn't okay.

She has gotten to the age now where she doesn't like being held all the time but this makes him annoyed as she "isn't close to him" he tries to force it until I tell him no. He doesn't like cries and will put his fingers in his ears and shouts "lalalalala" until he is ushered out of the room. They have offered to look after our daughter on so many occasions to let me and my partner go out but its just isnt going to happen.

Partner thinks im unreasonable. Am I?

Thans

I think you are absolutely right to put boundaries in place now as it will cause more problems long term if there are no boundaries. I think you need to be careful with the language you use. Rather than describing his behaviour with emotionally charged descriptors such as weird or creepy, take about appropriate/ inappropriate behaviours.

Again with the doll suggestion! People keep saying to get him a doll and for the OP to work with him using the doll. The OP has discounted this several times. She wants to protect her daughter. The young man's carers ought to be working on strategies.

Just because he’s autistic and the mind of a child doesn’t mean he’s not getting feelings of an adult, you just can’t risk it, he highly
like is completely innocent in showing her affection but is it a risk you’d be willing to take?? I have a severely autistic non verbal child, I'm sure I’ll have to deal with all this when he’s an adult but I could not sit there allowing him to be so inappropriate with such a small baby, innocent or not!! I can understand why OP feels extremely uncomfortable, everyone’s assuming he’s just being overly loving towards her but in actual fact many have underestimated adults with severe learning disabilities many times before, just because you THINK you know your child thoroughly, doesn’t mean you know what they’re thinking or feeling!! Besides that, allowing this to continue isn’t very fair on the baby, especially as she gets older and her adult cousin has never being taught boundaries where she’s concerned, they’re allowing him to think this is ok that he can touch her and man handle her how he likes and nobody stops him, it’s not right and he needs gently explained to so he understands he’s not allowed to get so close to her or rub his hands all over her when he’s holding her.

I currently work with secondary age kids with learning disabilities, some on a similar level to your nephew. It’s sweet that he adores your daughter, but you can and should put in boundaries for both their sakes.

You need to be very firm and completely consistent. We use the words “personal space” for some of the kids at work. You need to keep rules simple. Rather than letting him kis her all over, you could teach him two kisses, one on each cheek, and make that their special thing.

As to the worries about him being “creepy”, I think your concerns are valid. The students I work with are mentally quite young a lot of them, but physically they are developing at the normal rate and have all the hormones and sexual feelings that other teenagers do. It’s quite a common occurrence at work to have an all staff email warning about a new boyfriend and girlfriend situation needing to be kept an eye on to prevent them having alone time. They have all the drives, but no understanding whatsoever about boundaries and consent and what is and isn’t appropriate.

From what you’ve described he doesn’t have it in him to be a predator in the sense that we’re used to thinking about this sort of concern. But he may just have no understanding of what is right or wrong. Frankly if he were to ever do anything inappropriate it wouldn’t be his fault. You do need to guard against it for both their sakes. To put it fairly bluntly, if anything along those lines were to happen, what do you think would happen to him? You’d hope that there would be institutions who could look after him properly, but with the huge cuts in funding he could end up in a normal prison, which would be absolutely catastrophic. Mentally he is completely innocent, and he needs the mentally competent adults in his life to put in firm boundaries to ensure he stays innocent and happy and safe. Pretending it’s not a concern isn’t doing him any favours.

She called his behaviour creepy, because it is, but that’s his parents fault for not teaching him boundaries and respect for other’s personal space. Do you think a 19 year old severely autistic lad isn’t capable of sexual feelings? You just have to read the thread from people with experience of being on the receiving end of attacks or carers who work with autistic adults who have witnessed it on many occasions. Their disability doesn’t mean they don’t get normal bodily functions of someone the same age you know! Typically though, in a lot of circumstances, they don’t have the capacity to understand what they’re doing is wrong, that’s taught, regardless of abilities in every child, sometimes parents bury their heads in thinking their adult child isnt capable of these feelings.

So tricky - I have small kids, and someone in my family with similar needs, and also about 20 years working with autistic people who also have learning difficulties and mental health needs and all that stuff.

Like lots of ppl have said, it’s likely not “sinister” in a sexual sense, but I’ll be the baddie and say that his special needs do NOT rule that out. People with autism and LD who hurt and have a sexual interest in children do exist, very sadly. There are forensic learning disability wards for this reason. The fact he has special needs doesn’t mean you should feel guilty about your very appropriate protective instincts over your daughter.

in the MUCH more like my scenario that he is just very very fixated on her (and genuinely loves her!) his parents aren’t doing him any favours by encouraging him to be so over the top with her, physically. It’s behaviour that isn’t appropriate for adults - and he is an adult - and it could put him at risk in the future of being perceived as a risk to children. He might struggle with obsessive behaviour generally and encouraging him to direct the sort of sensory seeking behaviour you’re describing at a baby is not great.

It’s also totally unfair on a small child who will find it overwhelming (at best).

Feelings run very very high in these situations (he is their baby, remember), and it’s super hard for you (like this chapter of life isn’t overwhelming enough). Your partner is taking a very simplistic view that it’s no big deal, he means no harm etc. That’s pretty unfair as it leave you to navigate a family minefield and protect your daughter and shoulder all the responsibility.

Trust your instincts and hold your boundaries. You can be kind - you can say you don’t want her growing up to be frightened of him, and you’re teaching her from right now that her body is hers and she has a right to space and boundaries - around all people, not just him.

Really feel for you. Don’t second guess yourself. Mum instincts rule all! Xxx

I suspect this boys parents struggle to teach him many things… because he’s not capable of assimilating information in the normal way, taking instructions or exhibiting self control. Those are all good reasons for not allowing him to be alone with a baby or child (or perhaps even holding her). However, nothing the OP has said has indicated he feels sexual towards this baby. That is a massive leap.

Mum of 6 here, 4 have autism and I work in SEN schools . You are your child’s advocate and shat you say goes.
Redirection is key , he’s obviously keen to be near her, can he help make her snack ? Carry her bottle ? Pass nappy bag etc ? He wants to be involved ; this way he is, but under supervision and also building living skills :)
could he maybe look at cloth books with her etc ?

It is creepy. He is still a grown man in a man’s body and this is highly inappropriate. I would just not have him around her. All the sympathy for him, yet none for this tiny baby who will definitely start to sense his creepiness. You need to make it clear to dp that it’s one thing you are not budging over.

The problem is that they're not struggling to teach him, they're just letting him crack on. Even worse, they're encouraging and enabling the behaviour. It's sh-t parenting quite frankly. And gaslighting OP to make her believe she is the unreasonable one is not in the slightest bit OK. The adults are failing him, and if he were to take it further because he hasn't been taught boundaries, & consent, & body autonomy, that would be on all those adults who have stood by & called it "cute". It would be an utter travesty if this young man ended up in serious trouble because he was never taught where the line was drawn. It's not a massive leap to say he could potentially have sexual feelings he doesn't understand if nobody who is supposed to care for him has ever considered that he could have and addressed them. He should also have been taught all this stuff for his own protection, in case an adult had behaved in this way towards him.
Put it this way - if another 19yo male with severe autism was touching OPs nephew in the same way he is touching her DD, would they put a stop to it? I would hazard a guess at yes, they would.
Just because DD is a baby, and a girl, it doesn't mean she is fair game for being groped.

Literally no one on here is saying she’s fair game. The point I was making; the OP might reasonably object to his behaviour, she may not make unfounded (from what she has said) assumptions about the behaviour being sexual. That’s it.

You absolutely can not say with 100% certainty that there is no sexual motivation behind his behaviour. That's not to say it would be in any way deliberate on his part if there was, but it's an animalistic instinct and urge that he may not understand. Some fully compos mentis 19yo men find it impossible not to act upon sexual urges they fully understand are wrong, so why is it so hard to believe that a 19yo man with learning difficulties may believe from the supposedly responsible adults around him that his behaviour is correct and being encouraged.
The only way to find out whether the fears OP are having are unfounded would be to put a baby and a young man with learning difficulties into a situation they should absolutely not be put in, all for the sake of virtue signalling. I would rather OP acted on a gut feeling, however uncomfortable, that didn't result in two lives being destroyed, rather than be made to feel like she was a terrible person for voicing her concerns & be proven to be correct.
This is not the time to be taking even the smallest amount of risk.
If his parents & grandparents were more proactive in their approach, the risk would be zero, or close to. It's their inaction & enabling that has created the risk.
Put simply, I would rather someone was offended by hurty words than a baby was touched inappropriately.

I'd relabel creepy to "appropriate".
My 8oy does a lot of what you describe with my newborn.

But I've been teaching him to understand her queues and when it's appropriate to love her, cuddle her or when to give her space.

It's not a bad thing he loves her or verbally expressed that but he needs to know and follow rules, for holding, for playing for comfort, for others and especially parents having time he can't intrude on. She's not a toy. And she's not going to stay a cuddly newborn phase, it goes so fast. This needs to be taught as well.

Make rules for each scenario explain every time what will happen if it's not followed and for how long, set a timer. If not followed, remove.

Don't let her stay with them without you, sound like she'll be a doll and that they like that he has a new special interest but they aren't interested in making sure it's appropriate or following basic boundaries with you that are reasonable either.

Husband needs to get off the fence and you need to be a united front. You need to agree rules and both be consistent with DN.

It's fine to say no she doesn't like that on her behalf. He has to learn what he can and can't do. Would his parents let him have a pet instead? Would they trust him to treat it appropriately? No of course not. He needs supervision.
Maybe buy him his own doll.

I wouldn’t let a child or young person of any age do this to a baby so YANBU - my 3 year old likes to get close to his siblings and cousins faces to say hi and give a kiss - we always stop him, explain he shouldn’t get up in anybody’s face and remind him to ask if they’d like a kiss or cuddle and accept if they say no. Rubbing and stroking and kissing all over isn’t appropriate for any age and if you feel uncomfortable it needs to be stopped, probably by parents working with him on more appropriate ways to interact with her, so you probably do need to have a word just explaining she doesn’t like to be touched and held and ask if they could they work on other positive ways he could interact with her.

How many times has a doll been suggested now? Many. The OP has said that she won't buy him a doll and has given reasons.

You are NOT being unreasonable and I speak as someone with a child similar to your nephew. You are right to put the brakes on and if I were you I would remove your daughter from the situation completely. The social
awkwardness doesn’t matter. How you feel, how your daughter feels is all the counts.
Your nephews parents are nuts to allow this to go on. Your nephew is being a menace and they are doing him no favours at all allowing this behaviour. My thirty years experience has taught me that with my child with (severe) autism is that you have to set very firm boundaries about lots of socially inappropriate behaviours and work hard to nip them in the bud. Please feel free to DM me if you need any further reassurance on this.

To those calling the OP unreasonable would any of you actually allow a 19year old grown man(as physically that's what this guy is) behave like this with your babies?Clearly there are issues and unfortunately his parents have failed to teach him boundaries because it has probably been easier for them to pacify him and keep him happy. He is a physically developing adult with all the same hormones as any other man of his age but unfortunately he doesn't seem to have the mental capacity to know what is and isn't appropriate behaviour because he hasn't been taught that he can't go around just touching babies whenever he feels like doing so. Imagine if he did this to a strangers baby out in public he'd have far worse consequences than just having the baby moved away from him. It isn't OP's job to teach that young man right from wrong his carers should have already taught him all this whilst raising him

Trust your instincts, OP. I would not be OK with this, at the very least it's about boundaries and your daughter's comfort being respected.

I'm also concerned about the dismissal by so many comments, as though it couldn't possible be creepy if he's autistic, sorry but that's not neccesarily the case. Don't be led into dismissing your concerns, if it makes you uncomfortable you have every right to enforce the boundary and your partner should be backing you on this.

YABVVVVVVVVU calling him creepy.

She’s not though. His behaviour is creeping her out, it’s making her uncomfortable and it’s weird for a grown man to behave like that.

Stop policing the woman’s language.

SHE ISN’T CALLING HIM CREEPY FFS!
It’s his BEHAVIOUR that’s creepy and I 100% agree with her.
No way would I tolerate this 19 year old’s behaviour toward my baby even if you would @payrollquery .

If @payrollquerywas being honest with herself, she’d put her daughter before quibbling about the language she’d use to describe it.

Pardon?

Reading this made me a little sad for calling him creepy and not wanting him alone with her.

No she’s not. His behaviour is creepy!