I've come for advice as my husband has a strained relationship with his niece which is affecting his relationship with his sister and brother.
I provide childcare for my niece while my SIL and BIL work (I work part time from home) so we see them often. Neither of them are very interested in appearances so their child often comes to us with a dirty face, with dirty clothes, uses their clothes as a napkin and has unbrushed hair. I found it a little alarming at first as that's not how I parent but I appreciate that it is just their way. They also have a rather blasé attitude when it comes to parenting their child and with discipline. When their daughter wants something she screams into their faces and directly into their ears, pulls on their clothes and hits them and they don't ask or tell her to stop. She does whatever she wants to with no consequence and is not gentle. She has broken several of our children's belongings and doesn't apologise, neither do her parents. She used to hit our children too but I stepped in as I couldn't let that slide and I told her that it was unacceptable in our house so the hitting has now reduced. It got to the point where my children asked that she not visit us anymore so I tried to carefully speak to my SIL about her daughter's behaviour but she gets very defensive and lashes out at me verbally.
My niece had broke an electrical appliance in our house that belonged to my husband and his sister only apologised because he got angry/upset. My husband is getting increasingly fed up and I have to admit that I am too.
They've now come to us with headlice and when my husband addressed it my SIL basically just shrugged it off and said that they don't worry about that sort of thing. My husband lost it and said that he doesn't want to see them anymore. I appreciate his point of view but I'm worried that he will regret it so I'm trying my best to remind him of the good points. (Even though I have to admit that having them over is becoming more and more difficult.) The problem is that even if I had reached my limit too, I don't want to be blamed for him not seeing them as it would somehow become my fault, (my SIL looks down on me.)
Can anyone advise on how best to address this?