To tell my sister I don’t want to see her anymore if she doesn’t discipline my nephew for biting me?

[IGrewUpInTheFallOut]

My sister is a single mum to two children - my nephew, who is 14, and my niece, who is 13. My nephew has autism and her husband left when he realised how tough things would be.

I’ve just got back from a weekend of babysitting for her which has been a bit of a nightmare. My nephew used to be quite violent and angry, but my sister put him into kickboxing when he was 7 and he’s flourished, and it has really helped him regulate himself.

When I arrived yesterday, she warned me that he was quite overstimulated and that I just needed to follow the basic routine (get him to bed at a reasonable hour). I left him to his own devices until I went into his room at about 10:30 and asked him to put his iPad down and go to sleep.

He immediately grabbed hold of me and bit my arm, it must have been about twenty seconds before he let go. He was screaming at me to leave his room by that point, so I did, and went downstairs. I told my sister when she got home today, and she said she would have a word with him.

I’ve just got home and seen how bad it is (I’ve attached a picture). I sent it to her and asked how she had dealt with it and she said she asked him, but he said he felt overwhelmed and didn’t want to go to sleep, so he lashed out. She says that in her mind, that’s the end of it and she won’t be pushing it further as he can’t help feeling overwhelmed.

I’ve said in that instance I don’t feel comfortable being around him again and I won’t attend family Christmas. Now she and my mum are telling me that I’m selfish and I will ruin the Christmas period for everyone if I don’t come.

AIBU to draw this line in the sand?

This. You can just say I don’t feel comfortable looking after him. I was injured .

Because I was so scared after being assaulted that I just took myself into the room I had been given as fast as I could, tried to calm myself down and then tried to fall asleep as I knew I had to be up early the next morning. I then had to get them both up in the morning, make breakfast, see my sister home (and tell her what had happened) and then had a nearly five hour drive home from her house. I then had to get everything sorted for myself for the week ahead at work and take a shower. It was a non-stop day.

Don't look after him again. She will.be the loser. No babysitter would put up with that.
How disgusting of him
.
Wonder how your sister would like it if you'd bitten him.

OP I don't blame you for feeling this way. He's not a little boy. But some on MN always bend over backwards to defend male violence and misbehaviour if there's any sort of SN involved, even if the potential victims are little girls or even babies.

Saying she won't come for Christmas if the son isn't punished isn't asking her sister to put her before her son is it 😅. If she had said to her sister she won't be attending if the son is there then I'd agree with you, but it's not that

Also, there's different levels of autism and the nephew is high functioning, well enough that he's fully verbal and able to attend mainstream school and attend clubs where he is able to control himself. He's not a non verbal autistic child who doesn't know what day it is.

No, I don’t think this boy is the priority in this situation, at all. Just like i don’t think anyone who is any aggressor in any situation is.

I’m glad your son is doing well, and hope he continues to do so. But your son hasn’t assaulted anyone. This boy has.

I'm sorry if any of my comments have seemed I'm minimising what happened, just to be clear, it is not ok that this happened and it wasn't your fault. Autism is a reason for it, but it is not an excuse for it. Out of curiosity, how was he the next morning?

Your poor sister. How tough for her and how well she has done for toughing it out. She obviously knows her own son best and bow to deal with him. You shouldn't be threatening to cut her and her children off. I do think that you're being selfish putting her in this position. However, you are well within your rights to refuse to be alone with him and certainly not to put him to bed again. You should also show some concern and support for your sister and niece if you think that they are at risk.

You haven’t even read what I said.

Forcing her sister to deal with her autistic nephew in a way the OP sees fit, rather than what is best and what works for him, is asking her sister to put her before her son.

Sometimes these things take a while to come up. Probably there is bruising underneath that will come out over the next few days.

Ok you know him and I don’t.

My autistic daughter knows what she is doing, as does my ND step son and other children. So yes they need to know this has got an impact.

what if you need stitches or worse?

my best friend works with special needs pupils. All 14 years and above and there is usually 12 children in her room and despite them all needing 1-2-1 they are normally short staffed and she usually has 8-10 staff in her room. She has been punched, kicked, bitten usually once a week. The school has a no sanction policy - none. She has known these children for years and worked with them daily, they can regulate - but she firmly believes after 10 years there that the majority of the behaviour stems from no exclusion policy and no parental sanction policy. Ones who parents do sanction are better.

Pretty much normal. A bit grumpy, I expect that after I left him to it he stayed up for most of the night. But he was acting like nothing had really happened.

So basically it's all OP's fault? Her niece should just "learn" how to evade physical abuse from her brother? And everyone should just shut up and move along?

I work with people in their 20's/30's who we home as their parent(s) cannot house them due to risk towards them and younger siblings.

The softly/softly approach gets absolutely nowhere in my opinion. We then have to teach them to unlearn the fact they're just given whatever they want to shut them up. Why should his sister have to learn to tip toe around him to avoid being attacked? That's basically installing training into a young girl to prevent being "too abused" by a partner later in life.

Actions have consequences, he should definitely have been made apologise, the outside world isn't going to be do forgiven. She is not doing him any good.
If he can manage a sport, he can manage an apology.

Someone Probably should have said something similar thing to Raoul Moats ex…..the silly girl.

what if you need stitches or worse?

It’s pretty clear from the photograph provided that the OP absolutely does not need stitches or worse (assuming you mean vaccination).

OP asking her sister to punish her child by taking his tablet or not allowing him to go to a club AFTER he has assaulted her really isn't asking the sister to put OP before the child l. It's asking that there's consequences for his attack.

Teaching him that he doesn't have any consequences or have to apologise for assaulting someone isn't in that boys best interest at all.

Utter rubbish. Mums aren't automatically experts. How else do you explain the mums (and dads) who actively fuck up their kids by being too lenient, too strict, abusive, neglectful, etc.

Yes, he could have done alot worse to you.
Probably been on his i pad all evening too, which dosent help.
You dont have to be around anyone that makes you uncomfortable family or not.

To be honest should I have used those examples? No. But I just want her to do something that signifies she sees how serious it is. At the moment it feels like she’s trying to minimise it as being not that bad.

Why do you keep making over the top inappropriate and incomparable references on this thread?

I'll be honest, I was worried for a while that he would lash out when he was in mainstream, as he really, really struggled there. He has PDA in addition to being autistic and ADHD and of course, secondary school is full of demands. My son appears NT to most people who meet him, quite often are surprised he is autistic as his masking skills are almost perfect but I see when the mask comes on. I get what he did was awful, I guess it's just hard for me to see some pretty harsh comments against a child who does have a disability that means he's not always in control of his emotions, as I had the same judgements from his previous teachers. Labelled a trouble maker who was "choosing" to behave the way he did. If only they could see the amazing 15 year old he is now and thriving in an environment where he is understood more and helped in a way that works for him. That said, I couldn't/wouldn't brush something like this aside.

I think it's the fact you're utterly terrified of him in one breath so can't go for Christmas.

And in another, you're happy to go as long as your sister knocks off a bit of his screen time.

And yes I know you've explained it but it still doesn't make sense as utter terror doesn't tend to work that way.

And you have no idea whether your sister would get involved just because she gave in to your demand for punishment.

You just don’t want to listen to what I’m saying.