AIBU to not have sister and her autistic child (nephew) in my home.

[BetUWanna]

Hi all,

I'll try and give as much detail here with trying to remain anonymous. I've NC for this as this will have outing details in it. I'm here to ask for some genuine advice and opinions on a current situation with my family. I'll try not to drip feed so this may be long.

i (30F) have an older sister aged 33. She is my half sister with us sharing 1 parent.
she has 2 children, 5 and 11, one who is autistic (diagnosed) and the other is NT. I also have a 4 year old myself.
She was young when she had her son who was diagnosed autistic when he was 8. I want to preface that she is a single mum, with both kids having different dads, so I'm not saying for a second that this is easy for her at all. I genuinely love her with my whole heart, but our relationship is suffering hugely due to her son's behaviour. She came to stay for Christmas at my home for 5 days. Some of the instances that happened over Christmas:
We were playing board games in the lounge, my nephew said he was going to watch his iPad. I had a Christmas tree at the top of my stairs, and while we were playing games he picked off each bauble individually and threw each one down stairs and most of them smashed to pieces. There was glass everywhere and there were little children who could have hurt themselves.
he picked up one of the pillows on the bed he was sleeping on, took it to the bathroom and peed on it. Left it there for me to find it. He ate his Christmas dinner with his bare hands, slapping gravy over his face and genuinely making a mess. He picked up a glass, launched it across my kitchen which ultimately chipped my wall and smashed. He refuses to use any sort of cutlery whatsoever. He refuses to brush his teeth, to the point he has black, rotted teeth at the front of his mouth. He's apparently been to the dentist and it's 'fine.' He hits, kicks and pushes my sister and the younger children including his younger sibling. I'm worried about my niece who has to live with this and the effects this is having on her. I have offered countless times for her to sleepover at mine with my DD, but it's declined each time.
He scribbled over my walls and regularly went outside to pee in my garden.

He is incredibly intelligent and my sister says he is high functioning, but i don't know if this is accurate. He is home educated and goes to his dad's house every other weekend. My sisters house is clean, he doesnt wreck things in his house, but if someone comes over his house he will start to lash out and misbehave. He will call us names and tell us he hates us.
I am worried for my sister as he is aged 11 and the same height as me, she cannot control or restrain him at all as he is just too strong. She has had training / classes for this but he is too strong. There is no respite for her. My relationship, and the whole families, is suffering now. We don't want to go to her house because he will lash out, mainly at her. We don't want him at our houses, because he trashes the place and can, at times, cause danger to other family members. What is the answer? My sister works hard home educating her children, and works part time when they are at their dads.

I can see this whole situation is isolating her from the outside world as she lives in fear of her son. I want to offer support, but aside from being a listening ear, I don't know what else I can do. I unfortunately won't allow him in my home now, as I have to keep my DD safe and I will not allow her safe space to be compromised. Which means my sister and niece don't come over, as they are always together.

can anybody please advise me on how / what I can do? Will this ever get better? She won't call out his behaviour as she is too frightened of him, which I understand. But it's straining our relationship hugely.

my relationship with my sister is hanging on by a thread. She has other friends and family members but they all seem to be in the same position as us which is isolating her further and resulting in her losing friendships. I am heartbroken for her. Please can anybody share any words of wisdom or any advice. My parents are in the same situation as me, they cannot cope with his behaviour in their home and their house has also been trashed over the years.

ultimately this is a disabled child who is being gloriously let down by the system.

thank you.

No, it sounds like you are projecting your own issues and this thread hit a nerve with you.

I'll speak on a thread that I started as much as I like. If you don't like it, feel free to click off the thread!

No not really I just can't imagine kicking a family member whilst they are down and using them for internet gossip with strangers
But if we here all the same the world would be a boring place .
I will be clicking off op ,,to use one of your words it's distasteful .
I hope your sister fully engages and becomes the mum her kids need .

OP has taken a lot of (helpful) advice on board, made really difficult but necessary decisions, taken action and is now trying to solve new emerging problems. That’s not what gossip is about.

If this public forum has helped protect vulnerable children with rotting teeth, isolated and difficult lives, it’s a price to pay worth paying.

Yes it achieved that a couple of weeks ago when op reported ,keep up ,my issue is the continued gossip

Are you as invested in what you are calling gossip on other threads or just this one

Just this one right now .
I think once it was clear the children had been safeguarded we didn't need to know additional information personal information about someone who is
1 has no knowledges of this thread
2 is probably extremely vulnerable
3 is currently in charge of extremely vulnerable children
4 is going through what will be a extremely traumatic and anxiety inducing time
5 op is not directly involved in this situation as it's a matter between the parents and appropriate authorities,this is essentially and legally none of ops business .
Op has no right at all to share child's birth certificate issues or what child protection plans are in place etc or even that the dad is planning legal action .
And just because sister isn't using social media and it's unlikely children will be accessing this thread in future does not mean children's paternal families or their friends cannot access them now .
The only people who have a right to disclose this information and carry on this thread are the parents of the children .
Hope this helps.
We are not talking about neighbour disputes or a overbearing MIL or a cheating husband where a person directly involved has asked for advice ,, this is a really sensitive and private situation that should be handled with dignity and compassion .
Its a you problem if you can't understand that .

What a powerful statement. It's exactly that. Thank you. ❤️

It absolutely is my business. I class immediate family my business. I can only say sorry if you don't have that 'village.'

Anyway, I thought you were clicking off? I'm not going to stop posting because you (and only you) have an issue with it. So either like it or lump it. Hope that helps.

Anyway I'll repeat I hope your sister engages with services and becomes the best mum she can be for her kids ,,and if your her 'village' you should be hoping that too .

I would advise you to have the thread deleted if possible OP. I agree with the previous poster that it serves no purpose that is worth exposing this family any further now.

i have gone to the ends of the world for my family and sometimes that means doing things they don't like. You said you were going to click off the thread but you're still rambling on 😂

Please stop projecting your issues onto me, there's really no need to get nasty is there. I haven't once been nasty to you. Feel free to have a differing opinion or not agreeing with me, but if you start with the digs and insults you really let your point down. I won't reply to you further.

I'm not going to discuss anything more about this as there's not really anything more to say at this point but I do want to keep the thread up as there's been lots of helpful advice here and trying to screenshot an 800 post thread will take me a while! Unless there's a way for me to delete it but I can still see it perhaps? Is that possible?

No Ive been on here since twenty eleven so know that is not possible.

You kept your kid off school for five weeks until the school sorted out the situation where your kid was assaulted Totally agree with that but you are being hypocritical when you play down and minimize the assults OPs nephew has carried out.

I don't know why some people love arguing on here. Ignore them

OP, you've done the right thing and clearly care about your family, I applaud you for trying to help and stay involved, even though it's a bit messy right now

My mum was pretty neglectful, my aunt knew but stayed away and did/said nothing. Wish she was more like you!

I don’t know, sorry. Check with MNHQ.

You keep repeating this point like it's some kind of gotcha, but earlier on in the thread the OP had explained to niece's dad being interested and wanting to be more involved and generally quite a good parent, and nephews dad being typically a bit useless and disinterested and that she didn't think approaching him was likely to result in him offering any help (and presumably has the potential to make things worse)

The projection you're showing on this thread is really unpleasant. Most of what you're blaming the OP for, like queries about the birth certificate/registering the birth weren't even the OP, it was points raised by others that she might need to be aware of.

The OP is dealing with a difficult situation and has had to make a choice to intervene in the hope of safeguarding the children knowing it might cost her the relationship she had with her sister and her niece and nephew. Processing that, and all the advice on here, takes time. Perhaps try and have a bit of empathy.

@liamharha just stop.
You are not being remotely helpful and for some reason wanting a 'gotcha' moment over a person you don't even know on the internet.

I've found the OP's motives in this dodgy all the way along. This is her sister and she just doesn't seem to care. Is on some sort of mission to paint her sister as a failing mother, despite knowing the woman has a severely SEN child.

It seems vindictive to me. She's trying to pretend it comes from a place of caring for her poor neice but I don't think she's genuine. I'm not sure what's going on but she certainly isn't trying to support or help her sister, who is in a really hard situation.

I used to work in a school for children with ASD. A lot of these behaviours actually don’t sound unusual and I would call BS to anyone saying they are not the traits of an autistic person in some form of distress - does he usually cope well in other environments?

However, they are obviously not acceptable and it sounds like he needs more help than he is getting.

No shade to your sister at all, because less than that would have broken lots of parents!

In fairness it can be extremely difficult to get the right support in place but if your sister can do it there might be a lot of benefit for everyone. She might be surprised at what they can actually do to support her son, and ultimately at some point he’s going to have to get ready for life as an adult.

Would a more structured environment away from home, even a couple of days a week be beneficial? For a start just to get him used to different situations if hes predominantly at home.

I used to work with children that sound very similar and they were under constant supervision until they could be trusted to make good choices. We often found this behaviour improved in their home life as well after some intense support, as well as exploring different coping skills in a safe environment. Lots of these places also have access to Occupational therapists for more specialised input.

Safeguarding children is not gossiping.

There are two at risk children here. Social services have got involved and confirmed that they are indeed at risk.

The only people on this thread behaving in an alarming way are the ones jumping up and down berating the OP for contacting Social Services and then taking a swipe at those who encouraged the OP to do that.

The word gossiping is a smear and swipe at the idea of contacting social services with safeguarding concerns. These are people actively trying to stop people from safeguarding.

So forgive me when I spell this out and say anyone attacking the OP for safeguarding needs to take a long hard look in the mirror and those who don't want to do that we should look at with suspicion about exactly what their motivation is because it's not about protecting children.

This isn't a case of gossip. Social services have upheld and confirmed that the OPs concerns are not only valid, but valid enough to look at emergency interventions.