Should we skip a family holiday because my nephew hurts my children?

[KidPlantMum]

Hello, I'd like your thoughts please. My nephew (9) likes to play with my children (similar age) but often ends up hurting them. That has happened a few years now but hes getting bigger and the hurt is dangerous now. The most severe incidents have been attempted drowning in the pool on holiday. My children don't want to be alone with him any more and of course I honour that and want to protect them so I supervise all playtime. But sometimes the nephew is sneaky with his behaviour and I see the hurt just afterwards. He is aware that I watch and sometimes says 'come over here where your mum can't see us.'

His parents do not address the behaviour. They behave as if my account of what happened or my children's account isn't true/important and there are no consequences or sitting down with him to discuss his behaviour. They simply remove him and find something else to do, but that hasn't been effective. Other members of the family say he's always looking forward to seeing my kids, but I won't have them as his guinea pigs for playdates.

We have a family holiday coming up again and my children don't want to go. I want to keep them away and keep them safe so do not want to attend but my husband disagrees because he doesn't want to let down family.

Your advice please. Is there anything I can do to make family time safe? l can't think of what else to do but supervise but that has not been good enough. If we don't go on the holiday, how do I explain that to family?

Thank you

You shouldn't even need to ask, OP. If you don't protect your kids from this horror child, they will hate/despise you in the future for not doing so. These kind of incidents stay in the mind for ever

I wouldn’t be going and make sure everyone knew why. Your nephew sounds awful.

No way would I put my children at this clear risk of harm. Awful for them and awful for you.
You have a duty of care to your children and clearly you want to exercise that.
If you go on the holiday your children may lose trust in you; children need a safe adult and you are that person.

Oh come on op, this is a no-brainer. Of course you don’t go. You tell them why. At the end of the day your children have said they don’t want to go, they don’t want to be hurt. Stand up for them, protect your kids. Put on your big pants and deal with the flack.

I think it’s important that you and your husband are on the same page here. What does he say about DC not wanting to go?
would he go without you all and would he be ok with this?
Also, I’m assuming all the family know about your DN and what has happened. What does your PIL think? If they’ve seen things happen then this may not come as a surprise to them.
basically you have very different parenting styles but this is impacting on your DCs safety and your enjoyment of said holiday.
I think you need to let them know now that you won’t be attending so they don’t go ahead and book. You can’t really come up with an excuse as this is going to be a regular occurrence if you are often expected to go on holiday with them.
how is the relationship generally with the ILs?
are they likely to turn on you? Obviously it will be awkward for your DH but your DC should come first and it should be more awkward for SIL/BIL who haven’t dealt with the dangerous behaviour. They are the ones who should feel terrible.
remember you can’t control the actions of others, only your response.

Tell your "D"H that he needs to stand up for his children who have made plain.THEY DONT WANT TO GO because of the nephew.

Supervision hasn't protected them in the past and the parents are in deep denial.

HIS CHILDREN HAVE BEEN HURT AND WILL BE HURT AGAIN IF THE BOY CAN GET TO THEM ON THE SLY

This is outrageous.

i/attempted drowning in the pool
ii/your children don't want to be alone with him
iii/his parents aren't interested in addressing his behaviour

No further justification needed to decline the "holiday" / psychological torture

Even if nothing happened this time, you're not going to enjoy it in any way, shape or form because of 1/being hypervigilant of the risk something bad happening is much higher than zero. combined with 2/the resentment for what's he done previously - that's also gone unaddressed by his 'parents'

More importantly, your children feel unsafe around him, so them having to go on holiday with the budding psychopath is definitely something they'll have to unpack later on in life

Nephew's behaviour in the past has posed the risk of injury to our DCs, they are very uncomfortable around him, are afraid of what he might do and do not want to play with him or spend with him so unfortunately we will not be joining you on this holiday but hope to celebrate with your big birthday at another time.

Yes, it will probably cause a big bust up but why should your DCs suffer because their cousin is a little thug?

I wouldn’t go and would tell them why.

I wouldn't be going anywhere near this little psychopath, regardless. It only takes OP getting sick or injured and being unable to protect her kids for a couple of minutes, and he might actually kill them.

There may be reasons he's behaving like a psychopath, but OPs job is to protect her own children, and that includes never having them in the same space as the nephew again.

Not much of a holiday for your kids! Definitely don’t go.

The husband's parenting "style" is to allow his children to be assaulted and possibly drowned so he doesn't upset his extended family.

And OPs is to wonder if she should go along with that.

It shouldn't matter if they attempt to turn on her, as she will hopefully have enough care and concern for her children to ensure none of them are ever in the same space as the nephew again.

I think the right question here is why does your dh want to take his children on holiday with a child he knows hurts them? Is he really willing to risk his kids lives because he cant say no. He tells his family no "x keeps hurting my children and tried to drown them on x,y and z occasions" As his parents dont address his behaviour it has only escalated so I cannot and will not place my children in harms way. Its not safe and god forbid he does successfully manage to drown one of your people children next time your child will end up dead

I never noticed the 'come over here where your mum can't see us.' bit

For a kid to be saying that on the back of the harmful acts is deeply concerning, that's not just rough-housing, that's dark and pre-meditated.

The fact your husband isn't concerned may point to normalisation of abuse in his family of origin

Nope, I wouldn't force my kids to put up with that.

The issue of supervision is beside the point, and also inadequate. Your nephew is sneaky so there's no guarantee that ANY amount of supervision will be enough. He knows what he's doing is wrong and is doing it anyway - this makes it very difficult to ensure that his crossing of lines only goes "so far" and not far enough to actually harm your children permanently.

We'll leave aside the issue of whether your nephew is truly malevolent - just consider the fact that there are examples of children who have permanently harmed other children EVEN THOUGH they were not malevolent, just acting childishly or disobediently, and didn't understand that their actions could have serious consequences to life and limb.

The big indicator here is that your children don't want to go on vacation because of this child's behavior. On vacation! That tells you that your children are truly afraid of this child. Why would your husband ruin your children's vacation by forcing them to be subjected to dangerous behavior, just so that his relatives can play happy families?

The easiest way to handle this is to just stop going on vacation with these people. There is no entitlement on their part to accompany you and your children on YOUR vacation. And yet your husband won't even do that.

Your husband has placed the comfort of his other relatives over the safety and wellbeing of his own children. Tell him to pull himself together!

Don’t go.
He’s a violent criminal in the making.

I'm 100% with you here - your children deserve a proper holiday, not a holiday where they're constantly having to contend with a cousin who is trying his best to avoid adult oversight so he can hurt them.

Having said that though, a lot of what you're saying about your nephew's behaviour points to calculated, premeditated attempts to cause harm. Where has he learnt that behaviour? Because it seems unlikely that it would have come out of nowhere. Do your in laws have form for lax parenting? Obviously your priority needs to be your own children but I would be questioning whether there could be something that might need to be reported here.

It's clearly not enough if his kids are asking to not go on the trip!

I say let him go and stay home with the kids.

The overall decision is not his.

Both you ND the kids get a say and he does need to hear you all.

Jesus Christ listen to your children, protect them and dont go! Tell these parents why, they have failed here. Don’t put this on your kids!

Let down family - his own family, his children who he is responsible for protecting, are being let down. He'd rather let his own children feal fear and get hurt than have a slightly difficult conversation because other family members are letting you down by letting their child hurt yours. The children should not be forced to go somewhere they are rightly fearful of going.

Don’t go, he makes your children’s lives miserable, their safety is far more important than your in laws feeling put out.

I think the options you have are:

• no one goes (tell them why)
• DH goes only (tell them why)
• you and DH go if someone from your side of the your family can babysit and you don’t think they are missing out (tell them why)
• you all go but nephew is not allowed to play with your children or go near them (tell them why). At this one his parents will probably go ballistic but serves them right

The options you DONT have

• all go, try to supervise, so your children only suffer mild injury
• Any form of attending family events without confronting the matter of nephew’s behaviour so that DH can ‘not let down his family’

@KidPlantMum
Don't go
His parents know how horrible he is
And the reason he looks foward to seeing his cousins?
Because he can do WHATEVER he likes to them
Am going to say something else now too
If you have daughters
Never let him near them as one thing may lead to another
My DIL social works
And this is one of the ways things start....

Absolutely don’t go. Generally the point of a holiday is to be excited and look forward to having fun in a holiday type setting, so what’s the point of going if neither you or your children want to go? I’d also be pretty pissed off with DH if he isn’t taking things seriously. Your dn sounds like a sociopath in waiting, or at worst a psychopath. Not normal behaviour from a child.