Rubbish holiday guest

[Purtyburty]

I would like some perspective on a holiday I had in France a couple of weeks ago. DH and I are really upset and disappointed with how this holiday went down and I am struggling moving forward with some family relationships. A family group spent a week in a holiday home and my brother’s family were a part of it. He has two children. An 8 year old girl and 4 year old boy. We have a 5 year old DS and a 2 year old DD. From the first day the 4 year old boy targeted my DD. We bought a her a couple of new toys for the holiday including pool toys. Everything she touched or held was immediately snatched from her. She would cry about this but we asked politely to give it back. It’s too hard to explain the whole week so I will just list the behaviour that happened - he hit her several times a day, spat at her, spat in her food, pulled faces at her, pressed his forehead against hers while pulling faces several times a day, he would give her toys then quickly snatch them away, run off with them and then dangle them in front of her and say she can’t have them, threw all her toys in the pool, held her nostrils together tightly and I had to pull his fingers off her nose, push to sit next to her at every meal and shout in her face constantly as she was eating, take her food off her and throw it on the floor etc etc etc. One time he took her toy off her and just licked it constantly in front of her while she cried and just kept smiling and licking it which i just thought was plain weird. We were increasingly frustrated as her parents and I mentioned it to my brother a couple of times and he would laugh about as though oh boys are a lot. My brother and his wife never reprimanded any behaviour of this at all and kept saying it’s because he wants to play and he is only four so he doesn’t understand. But to be honest I felt like she was bullied for a week. By day 3 she would scream in any communal area and wouldn’t go around the pool or anywhere he was so we spent a lot of time indoors on our own or in our room separated. DH still took our eldest in the pool and spent time with him so that his holiday wasn’t ruined so that’s what he was doing most of the time, whilst also trying to help with us. I ended up snapping a couple of times because it all got so overwhelming when we were trying to have a lunch together and after that they told him to stop doing some of the things he was doing but he never listened to them and they never took it further and would just walk away. I wish this was all an exaggeration but it wasn’t - and I supppse i am wondering if this is sometimes normal 4 year old behaviour despite the lack of parenting. I just still feel very upset about how aful the holiday was and very sorry for my child who had to endure it. My brother has sent a few messages since the holiday and I am just finding it really hard to move forward with the relationship. What does anyone think? AiBU?

Id have bollocked the kid then bollocked the parents tbh.Your poor daughter.

Sounds like your reaction was nearly as ineffectual as the parents'. Kind hands my arse.

He sounds like a right little shit. Your brother and his wife need to actually parent their child and be less lazy / indulgent / pathetic in their parenting. Their “boys will be boys” comment says it all. I would have a blunt conversation with your brother specifying his sons horrendous behaviour and the lack of parenting. He probably won’t like it but oh well. At least you and your daughter won’t need to see them anymore

You allowed this to happen continuously. Why didn't you lose your shit? Are you planning on addressing it with them now you're home?

yes a good kick up the arse

Sad thing is, your brother is somewhere telling someone about the awful holiday he's just had because his sister doesn't like his son.
I'm not siding with him at all, I'm with you...but this situation is open to interpretation because of the opposing perspectives.

Fwiw, your nephew sounds aggravating as hell. It's a shame they allow him to carry on that way with no acknowledgement. It's not doing him any favours.

I think you and your husband both sucked as your daughter's parents. You didn't have her back. Why on Earth did you not move to a hotel or go home when it was clear that the boy's behaviour wasn't going to be corrected by his parents? No way I'd put up with my child being abused and harrassed like this. It was your responsibility to solve this with your brother, but both you and your husband sound like the wettest, most passive blankets. When your brother laughed, that was ANOTHER cue to move to a hotel or go home.

@Purtyburty I completely understand what this is like. We used to have occasional use of a big house in France and would invite different families to come along with us mainly so that DD who is an only child would have other kids to hang out with. The range of parenting approaches was, um, extremely wide.

There was one kid one year of a similar age to your problem boy who kept doing something likely to damage some of the equipment at the property and his parents just did nothing. I spoke to them and asked them to stop him from doing this but they were just like 'oh, what can I do?'. It wasn't even my stuff so I was really concerned about him continuing to damage it. The next time he did it, I physically lifted him away from the thing he was trying to damage. He started to go back to it and I said very calmly but firmly 'you can try, but I am here all day and you are not allowed to do that. I will just keep removing you'. He stopped after that. I didn't even have to shout at him. I don't understand why some parents turn a blind eye to behaviour like that and don't at least try to stop it.

We just didn't invite that family again. There were several other families over the years whose parenting approach just didn't fit with ours and we did not invite them a second time.

None of the badly behaved kids who we didn't invite again had behaviour even approaching what you have described. I would give holidays with your brother and family a very wide berth for a few years and reassess when their children have been at school for a bit and hopefully learnt some boundaries. It must have been very upsetting for you and for your daughter.

His parents were pretty miffed about that as though we didn’t want home to be friends with our children

So? This was the point you should have intervened and said your DD was getting bullied and hurt, it was your job to protect her Who cares how "miffed" his parents were.

OP didn’t let it just happen!

As for you...with respect, do one.

Always someone to offer an unnecessary kicking on here eh?

I don’t care. I am stating their reaction.

Honestly - I hate that a few mealy mouthed posters are telling you that you didn’t do enough. Horrible, unsupportive responses. Twas ever thus on mumsnet sadly.

it sounds like you kept her as safe as possible without creating a world war on the holiday. It also sounds like others in the group realise that your brother and his wife are very extremely lazy with their hands off parenting.

Hopefully the dynamic will change in a few years with the children but I’d avoid family holidays which include this child for the foreseeable. And I’d also make it clear to my brother why I was doing so.

Of course he didn't listen to you + your words were ineffective, because this isn't how you respond to someone who's harrassing your child! You don't ASK them "if" they can do something, and say please to them. You TELL them with authority that they HAVE to stop!

We're staying in a holiday cottage at the moment with our 5 year old. We were playing in the garden and the kids staying next door (who are terribly behaved and not parented) launched a stick over the wall, followed by an apple - thrown hard, from a height. It would have really hurt anyone it hit, let alone my 5 year old@.

I properly told them off immediately (obviously their parents were nowhere to be seen) and told them in no uncertain terms to stop throwing anything over the wall at us. They stopped straightaway and seemed quite shocked that an adult had told them off.

I'm not blaming you for what sounds like a horrible and stressful holiday but honestly, I wouldn't have let it get past the first hour of this behaviour before firmly stepping in, setting a strong boundary and sticking to it.

I would have stopped all interaction with the other family if need be, sibling or not. Not a chance I'd let my child be treated in that way.

A previous posters comment saying to list every single thing the boy did to your child in a group text message, and say this will absolutely not be happening ever again- this was a good idea. All down in black and white.

I would have slapped his hands away if they didn't like it tough shit.

Those of you who are advocating a bollocking etc may not have been in this type of situation. It can be quite hard to speak up as strongly as you'd like and it can lead to ructions which are particularly tricky if it's actual family members. It does not sound at all like OP did nothing and she clearly did protect her daughter. She's not the problem. She's just trying to understand if her expectations were too high.

Please ignore the idiots, @Purtyburty .

Sorry but you and DH should have gone your own way on the holiday. You should never have put up with that behaviour. You should never have sat with them. Sorry to say but you and your DH facilitated this.

Thank you. That is kind of you to say.

I was on the holiday. I know how I advocated for my child and I don’t have to repeat verbatim every single incident to a load of people who are desperate to berate and explain how they would have been such a better parent. I know I advocated and I know how I will move forward.

What an absolute nightmare. Your brother and his wife are absolute muppets for not taking control of the situation and actually being a parent to their son. The boy’s behaviour is not acceptable, full stop. I’m afraid that the very fact that your brother made excuses for him means this is only going to continue and possibly escalate. It is unlikely that anything you say will change the fact that your brother is quite content for his son to behave like a feral animal.

A lot of posters have criticised you for not doing more to intervene, but speaking for experience, it can be very difficult to deal with the poor behaviour of a close relative’s child whilst also maintaining good family relations and being a parent to your own children. Family holidays can be tough anyway.

It’s easy to think about the should have, would have, could have - you should have done x, I would have done x, you could have done x. Not so easy to do in the moment.
I would focus on what you want going forward. What are the boundaries you need for spending time with your brother and his kids? What are your exit strategies for leaving the situation? Can you and DH have a “safe word” that you can use when you want to leave the company of your family? (You are going to have to work as a team on this.) And please try and avoid spending time with them where you don’t have the option to leave.

I’m sorry that you have had to deal with this appalling behaviour from both your nephew and brother.

No we didn’t facilitate it come on 😂

Bollocking the child can lead to massive family drama.

been there done that got the t shirt

Definitely not normal behaviour and he would have got a very firm tone every time he came near, even directing him away if he didn't listen.

If your brother could be bothered to actually parent his child, he should have been watching him and noticing things, explaining why he shouldn't be tormenting other children and what will happen if he does it again, etc. Being on holiday doesn't mean you forget your child still needs parenting.
I'd be brutally honest with him and say how shit it was because he/they didn't parent their child.

I feel sorry for you and DD, but I also feel sorry for the 4yr old , who is going to turn up at school and be ostracised for his terrible behaviour, bet those party invites peeter out after year R. And your Brother and his wife will be the ones wailing about bullying without a flicker of insight !