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.

Thanks for the update OP.

I think that your nephew will be taken into care if his dad can't have him full-time and your sister is not deemed able to care for him.
That could mean foster care or possibly a specialist residential placement.

It's not ideal, but at least he should get the care and support he needs.

💐

I imagine they'll look into kinship care as well as other options.

Anecdotally, a neighbour of mine works in residential care for troubled boys. It's a tiny unit where they do lots of outdoor activities, a bit like all day scouts/orienteering. They have great results with boys who are at risk of going off the rails. My neighbour describes them as having too much testosterone and no healthy outlet, so the staff get them doing lots of physical stuff and feeling competent which brings confidence. I wasn't aware that these places existed, hopefully there will be specialised options like this available. The right intervention now could be the making of him, fingers crossed he gets the professional help that he needs.

Us as a family sadly won't be able to take him under any kinship and his dad is a single man who works full time and from what my sister has said previously, won't be anymore involved than what he already is. I don't think my nephew has much of a relationship with his grandparents / dad's side of the family which is what's making me question what will happen to him now.

Could foster care be a good thing for him? I don't know much about it but I've read some not to nice stories on here. There's no one on our side of the family that could meet his needs at all. My sister evidently couldn't meet his needs either. But the difference in my little niece and how happy she all is, is one huge silver lining in all of this.

Blimey, I had no idea places like this exist either but this could be a really good thing. Hopefully he gets some help too as my nephew evidently is in a very troubled state currently. God knows how long he's been like this for as my sister has concealed a lot.

Do social services find out about the concerning internet search history?

Kids who go into foster care go into it with some trauma.

You will hear more bad things about foster caring as the good placements aren't talked about very often but they do exist.

The issue with foster placements is it can sometimes be challenging finding the right foster placement and then with trauma informed carers too who will proactively look for therapies and interventions, but they do exist and they're not some tiny minority. Every transition though has the potential to add more trauma.

From his perspective his mum has failed him and his dad doesn't want him enough to make lifestyle changes to facilitate him, even though the dad could say that he simply can't meet his needs and it isn't a lack of love, and it's a sensible choice to make sure you're fully equipped to handle a child with such delicate needs.

It isn't a black and white case of fostering is either good or bad, it is the best of a bad bunch and some placements can be revolutionary.

It will take a lot of work for your nephew to see it this way. His status quo has just been removed and he's so young he doesn't have an understanding of the grey areas of life.

If he is placed in a residential school then he will hopefully have the continuity he needs.

I'm sure SS will consider any placement very carefully and monitor it very closely in light of his past behaviour. If he is carefully placed, this will be a step in the right direction.

I think it would be highly unlikely that he'll be placed in a foster home where there are other young children. At least I would hope so. And I agree with you that your family isn't an appropriate source of care. Even placement with his dad (if it were possible) probably wouldn't be a good idea. He needs more than just a 'home', he needs specialized care and psychiatric intervention.

I'm glad for you that your sister has been in touch with someone. Even if she won't speak to you at least you'll be able to know how she is faring.

i presume so but can't say for sure

Just back on this as I half answered, the information came from my nieces dad, so I presume SS may have told him but I'm not sure, I didn't ask. I don't know how much SS would share about nephew unless there was direct danger to niece.

There was a separate incident to this which SS do know about, which was a bit of a catalyst in this, my nephew had taken something from the kitchen which could be used as a weapon and put it under his pillow. My sister found it when making his bed in the morning. He injured my sister too which I mentioned previously so with everything mounting up she (thankfully) told nieces dad to collect her. So he did and is now working with SS wanting permanent custody.
Theres more that's happened too but that's the crux of it really.

Based on what you’ve said, they may not consider kinship/foster care to be appropriate for him, considering the risk factors.

I think it’s likely that they will look to place him in either a CAMHS inpatient unit, or a secure children’s home. This can be in the short, medium, or long term.

Sorry but in my experience this is very unlikely. Whilst I appreciate the things being talked about sound scary, they are very much in the remit of what experienced and trained foster carers or children's residential staff deal with regularly. And those homes are much better for children if it's an option, whereas secure children's homes or inpatient wards are pretty much a last resort, and by nature are very institutional and come with their own issues (often being far from home, very loud, large unpredictable places due the nature of the children they work with)

You are correct. I should have said ‘it’s possible’, rather than said it was likely. It entirely depends on a number of factors. His psychiatric profile, the level of risk he’s deemed to pose, how best his needs can be met, and how he responds to treatment will all be considered.

Op has shared some specifics, but she also mentioned more serious incidents. The vagueness may be solely because of privacy concerns, but it could also be because he’s done things he can be held criminally liable for and she’s been advised to not share the details.

I’m not disputing that trained foster carers don’t deal with these serious cases, but they aren’t suitable for all serious cases.

OP I'm so happy you got to see your niece and that she's seeming happy and settled with her dad.

You did the right thing for all three of them including your sister, even if it doesn't feel like that to her right now.

Your nephew will likely end up in a local authority residential group home or small foster home. Either way it's good your niece and sister are safer now and hopefully services will now be involved that your sister wasn't accessing for him. The local authority may also look at educational provision which again will be helpful as it's more professionals involved to hopefully help him in the long term.

They are probably a bit vague due to me only hearing them from 3rd person which has tricked down to me from my nieces family, or other members who have spoken to my sister. Apologies if some of it is choppy and doesn't make sense

I wasn’t criticizing the vagueness, and I’m sorry if it came across that way. Whatever your reasons, it’s entirely up to you what you want to share. You don’t have to share anything, no one here is entitled to know the specifics.

Please, also remember to look after yourself. This has been an incredibly difficult situation for you as well, so take some time to meet your own needs.

Thank you. I really appreciate it❤️

Hi OP,
Try not to panic about foster care, there are some very good foster carers and specialist placements out there.
It might help you to remember that your sister did try and meet the children's needs, in her way. From what you said there were no drugs or alcohol misuse involved or prioritising a boyfriend over them, she just couldn't or wouldn't engage with society and ask for help.
They are both safe now and hopefully your sister can have supervised contact.

Yes you're right. My niece is definitely better out of there knowing what I know now. I don't know if I'll ever have a relationship with my sister again or my nephew sadly. But what's done is done. Hopefully he gets a good specialist placement but from what I've read on here placements are incredibly rare.
I hope he gets some decent dental care too to sort out his teeth. Would somewhere like this do that, as well as vaccinate him?

@BetUWanna absolutely. All children in care, regardless of whether it's fostering, resi, kinship etc, are supported with health needs and it's really common that children haven't had proper dental care. They get extra priority to get a dentist if they're not registered. They'll also be seen by a paediatrician for a health assessment who will do a bit of a general health MOT and see if any referrals need to be made that might have been missed in the past. Your sister will get a say over his treatment but if she refuses consent and SS feel it's in his best interests they can override that (they'll try and work with her, but if he's in pain and she's refusing because she doesn't believe in modern medicine for example, it can be done)

If it was a father who had done the same things the reply wouldnt be at least he didnt drink or prioritise a girlfriend. The reply would have been Wow the bar is low

Again I'm in US so this may not apply, but here there are clinics held by Dental Programs at various Universities so their students get clinical experience. Teeth are cleaned/worked on by dental students under the supervision of licensed dentists and hygienists at no cost.

Since you have the NHS this may not be 'a thing', but since UK dental students need clinical experience it may be worth looking into and passing the info on.

Sometimes in life, no matter how much we love someone or how well intentioned we are, we cannot save everyone.
You sister made terrible terrible choices which affected her children greatly. She put her self and -unforgivably - her young daughter in danger.
The more you have written the more we can all see how your niece going to live with her father was without doubt the best outcome for her.
While your nephew cannot help being disabled your sister had allowed his terrible behaviour, which isn’t all down to autism/adhd.
She stopped being his mother and became his handler-enabler.
He will struggle at first without doubt but hopefully, hopefully his long term outcome will be much brighter than if he stayed with his mum. It’s sad but that’s how it is.
As for your sister- well I don’t have much sympathy for her I’m afraid. She has been a poor mother .
Wether or not she has any place in your life in the future I feel will be your choice,
But your precious niece - oh,I wish her so much joy. The poor little bugger deserves safety and love. I’m sure she will get that with her dad and with her very loving aunt and cousin there to provide further refuge and support she will be fine.
You did the right thing.
Never ever doubt that for a moment. You saved her when no one else did.

edit - *bugger is meant in a colloquial loving Yorkshire way. Not anything mean.

I imagine if the nephew is going to have dental treatment, it will be fairly extensive as well as likely needing him to be sedated considering I doubt he will willingly allow people, especially strangers, to put their hands in his mouth.

The NHS has specialist paediatric dental units based in hospitals, which take on complex needs patients. My daughter is on the autistic spectrum and needed a tooth out and, due to her dental phobia, she was referred to a nearby hospital with the most amazing team.

Yes the hospital will be able to put him under for the work. They see quite a lot of children due to various reasons be that neglect, fear or sen related issues meaning they just cannot tolerate dentistry awake.