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?

The mother should look after her own children then and not expect others to have to put up with her sons behaviour.

This is about the level of discourse from people who keeping bleating on about screen time loss.

OP, I hope you can take comfort from the fact that sensible people on this thread fully support you.

You are not a punching bag.

You deserve to be safe.

You are worth more than a free babysitter for a mum who gives zero shits about your safety.

OP, having a 14 year old boy physically assault you would be terrifying. I think it's absolutely fair not to spend Xmas with your family - you'd surely feel on edge the entire time.

You can just say you're still feeling shaken up and have decided to do your own thing this year, but that you hope they have a lovely holiday and maybe you can get together in the new year sometime. That would give you space to figure out what you want without cutting ties.

If your mum and sister react badly then honestly that's on them and shows a shocking lack of concern for you.

Don’t babysit for her again op,
As for Christmas- do what you feel is best. If you’ll enjoy it not going then don’t, sounds like your sister is using you.

Yes, I do. They’ve both sought to minimise what happened last night as being because he was “overstimulated” and that that’s that because he said it’s because he didn’t want to go to bed.

I’ve got a child with Autism around a similar age, you’re not wrong to feel upset and your sister is not in the wrong for talking to him about the situation without dishing out a ‘punishment’.
One thing you mentioned is that you are scared to be around him at Christmas because he may ‘flip out’ when you ask him to pass the salt. This is not very likely and I think deep down you know this is not going to happen.
If I had been your sister I would have probably already reduced his screen time to automatically turn off if she had wanted him to go to bed early, or you could have also given him a 15 minute warning, instead of telling him to turn it off, because a child that is already over stimulated is already in flight/fight mode.
The bite does look a little red but if he had hold of you for 20 seconds and meant to hurt you, you would have been severely bitten/bleeding requiring medical treatment, 20 seconds is a really long time!
My son is bigger then me and stronger, he knows this and when spiralling tends to storm away rather then have an altercation with me, when he was younger that awareness just wasn’t there, but it’s something we have spoken about regularly since he was old enough to listen because we knew he would end up bigger than me because I’m small.
There would be no benefit to withdrawing him from his kick boxing, I would put tougher constraints on the screen time in his usual schedule purely because I know even my neurotypical children struggle to come off devices let alone the one that’s neurodiverse, and that is what triggered this unfortunate incident.
I think you are perfectly sensible saying you don’t babysit him alone again if you’re are anxious, but not attending Christmas when there are other adults there parenting him seems unreasonable. He is not suddenly going to start chomping everyone around the dinner table…

And it suits you to think that by the sound of it.

I can't quite picture the scene really.

14 year old actually attacking/fighting his Auntie and your sister peering round the pair of you because you're in the way of the TV?

How am I deranged? I literally work with people that cannot return home, bounce around hostels, sleep street homeless. Because they were failed on interventions and support when they were younger.

How the fuck does a significant proportion of people as adults who then turn to sex work, drug abuse, and homeless. Because THEY state they were failed by their families, and the system regarding levels of support. Make me deranged?

YANBU

Personally i say never ever sit for him again.

It's not safe anymore.

And regarding the Christmas maybe go with your partner instead.

Let them make a fuss if you don't go.

I understand where you're coming from.

If it seemed like your sister was taking this incident seriously maybe you would react differently but they're just minimising it.

Miss out on Christmas and then consider how you want to spend any time with nephew.

Family gathering with lot of other people ok.
But any requests for sitting i wouldn't consider them safe anymore.

💯 well said.

We’re in a period where femicide has become so prevalent that even Italy has made it a crime.

And no one wants to tell these teenage boys they are wrong. Seriously worrying,

I don’t have any experience of autism, but others who do have posted that the way the OP wants her nephew to be punished isn’t the appropriate way to deal with an autistic child.

Because I’m sick of seeing male violence minimised by people under the shitty excuse of neurodivergence.

And unless you’ve been assaulted by a male and then had people tell you what you were wearing, how you spoke or what you said was probably the reason it happened and you brought it on yourself, then you may not understand how offensive some of the comments are here.

The OP has been told on numerous occasions that it’s basically her fault because she hadn’t researched or equipped her self with information on how to regulate this boy. She asked him a question. He bit her.

And I’ve said that I perhaps shouldn’t have raised this as my first instinct. But for some reason that’s being ignored by you and a couple of other posters who are determined to make out that I’m in the wrong for this happening to me

Just as unthinkable as a mum seeing the evidence of her son’s assault on her sister and shrugging it off as ‘in my mind, that’s it’. But it happened.

Jesus Christ.

And plenty of people who are autistic and / or have autistic dc have fully supported OP on this thread. Why do you ignore their views?

Those with experience of autistic children are posting otherwise so I’m inclined to listen to them about what is in the boy’s best interests

That's what you said. You insinuated I have no experience of autism and when I pointed out that's not true as I'm autistic and so is my daughter, you've now tried to claim I'm being over the top. You just look foolish 🤦‍♀️

Probably best not to give advice if you don't know what your talking about

So tell me, madam:

!) Why did you stay with your DP when he hit you for the first time? You are either utterly terrified of him or you're not.

2. Why did you forgive him and move back in when he begged you? You are either utterly terrified of him or you are not

3. Why didn't you scream when he raped you? You are either utterly terrified of him or you are not?

4. You say he raped you but you don't have a lot of injuries. Did you let him do it? Did you really like a bit of rough sex? You are either utterly terrified of him or you are not.

5. Why did you over stimulate him? Do you think you wound him up by getting into a row with him before he knocked you into the wall? Why did you do that? You are either utterly terrified of him or you are not.

6. You say he was violent over a period of time? Why did you not leave him? It's all a storm in a teacup isn't it madam. You are either utterly terrified of him or you are not.

@IPM. Every woman knows the sort of shit that is levelled at her in these situations and yet you don't. You and some others are not only talking bollocks, I think you actually have bollocks attached to you.

I hope that's why because women turning on other women who have been attacked are the lowest of a low-lower than an eathworm.

Because she knows far more than people who have a lived experience of it, duh 😅

There have been some mind boggling works of fiction on this thread.

I wonder if it would be the same had the autistic teenager been the owner of a vagina rather than a penis?

I think Op has clarified.

It's not the punishment but the minimising by her family members that she isn't happy with.

Why should she even need to worry about this?

No person should be biting another.
It's not her problem its her sisters.

You're as entitled to your opinion as the next person. Why you've chosen to see that in what I've posted I've no idea. But you do you ☺️