Cousins at the same school?

[Polly5678]

Need some advice please! Has anyone sent their child to the same school as their cousin? My brother and his wife live very close by and have a little girl 2 months older than our boy. The way the school catchments around our area works, would mean that our little boy and their little girl would be in the same year and same school. My DB is not horrible, we’ve never fallen out and we do see him and sis in law probably about once a month with the kids and it’s ok but it’s all on our own terms and we don’t get on well enough for me to be comfortable with spending the next few years seeing them constantly at the school gates. It’s like we will be forced into having a closer relationship that just isn’t there and probably never will be. We do have the option of sending our little one to a school further away which is not as good. I do want the cousins to be close but I’m constantly switching between it will be fine and stop worrying but my gut is telling me it’s not such a good idea and once they start together the situation might start getting on my nerves... am I being unreasonable?

I know this situation from a kids perspective but worse

My sister went to secondary that was different to mine as my parents were not satisfied with my school (pair of gits left me to suffer there though but that's another story).
She joined clubs at school and was in an end of term display her first term.
We of course went to look and support her. As we walked in, right by the door; my mum's family. Her sister, her brother, her mum and dad. We hadn't spoken to them in years and years even though we lived in the same town throughout. Whenever we would see them in town we would leave immediately.
So my mum gets really annoyed and asks my sister did she know who they were? The breakdown of the family relationship had happened when she was a newborn and I was 5 so I barely remembered them and she definitely didn't.
She said "oh yeah, a girl in an older year said are you x and your mum is y, and when I said yes she said oh I'm your cousin z". She hadn't thought to mention it at any point.
Bit actually, they got on very well and we had no other cousin so she had enjoyed this little secret relationship with an older family member, who also had the added bonus of being one of the most popular kids in school, meaning she became popular by association.
Due to the lack of contact, my parents had no idea the cousin was at the school already, or there would've been no way they would have sent my sister there. They also weren't happy to hear she was hanging round her cousin.
What made it worse was this was the second day of the show, she had seen my mum's family the night before and cousin had introduced them all, and she said she told them we would be there that evening so they all turned up again to bump into us.
My mum refused to speak to them and made a bit of a show of herself.

I always think after that situation, both sets of adults dragged two children into situations that were nothing to do with them: my mum's family by encouraging my cousin to introduce herself and then them and to "not say anything" and keep it secret, and my parents by embarrassing my sister in front of alot of school kids by telling her off for doing nothing excellent make a friend, regardless of it being a cousin she barely knew she had. She was banned by my parents of speaking to my cousin after, my mum even demanded the school keep them apart.
Don't drag kids in. If they make friends then that is great. If not, keep an eye on it. But don't include them in disagreements.

I really don't see the issue.
Its really not that rare to be in the same school as a family member.
I was in the same school as my cousins, my son is now in the same school as his second cousins and there is no issue we just say hello at the gates and walk past each other.

@FunkBus said "Just because you don't get along that well doesn't mean they can't".
Sums it up really.

No way would I even consider giving my DS second best in her education because I couldn't deal with what could potentially be a difficult conversation.
I would send him to the best school possible if my worst enemy went there and I might see them at the gates, let alone a family member I wasn't too keen on.

My child attends the same school as her cousin. We get on well, but are by no means in each other’s pocket.

We say hello in passing, and have a chat if not talking to other people. Due to different schedules and after school clubs etc it’s usually only one day a week we see them anyway.

I'd have had no problem sending my two to the same school as their cousins (brother and sister laws kids)

But I'd have NEVER sent them to the same school as my neice on my husband's side unless I could help it. Dd and neice are 3 months apart in age and sil is ULTRA competitive. She was constantly comparing them as children and it didn;t take long for dd to notice that she went on and one about her neice's achieevments and expected us to do the same but never once acknowledged anything dd did (dd actually achieved some fab things as a child we just never went on about it)

Thanks all I’m obviously overthinking thinking things. I think SIL will try to get closer to me because the children are at school together which I don’t want but I guess I just set the tone from the get go and politely decline too many after school play dates or coffees etc. I didn’t mention that DB and SIL are competitive and have made a couple of competitive comments before comparing the two children which I did shut down immediately but I'm worried about that getting worse because the two cousins will be doing the same thing at the same time academically.

@Marmite27 are the cousins in the same class or same year?

My children go to school with their cousins from both sides of our family! They think it's great! They were at primary school together and now senior school. All in different classes and years, even the teachers think it's great!

DS and his cousin have been in same class all the way through primary school with no issue.

He had 4 other cousins in school also.

Three who he knew about as they are close and one he doesn't know about due to a huge family fall out. Not an issue at all either way to date.