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?

It sounds like you want an apology from brother. You deserve one. Their child’s behaviour and worse, their own as completely useless parents, is entirely unreasonable and rude.
I would make very clear that unless brother can assure you that the child will behave appropriately you will not be joining family meals or holidays etc and/or plan some strategies for those occasions… who sits next to who, rooms to escape to, but ultimately saying firmly and clearly ‘are you looking after dn now’ on rinse and repeat til his parents get the message….

Yes I've read the thread. I agree the nephews parents and the nephews behaviour are the problem but OPs daughter was screaming when she was in a communal area and he was present and she spent most of her week indoors with her mum. OP's attempts to mitigate the nephews behaviour were unsuccessful because she wasn't firm enough. Trying to wedge her children between her and her husband and then letting the nephew pull up a chair and try to squeeze in seems a bit pointless.

I would add that whether it was normal or not doesn't alter the fact it was unacceptable and caused her daughter a great deal of distress.

This thread was quite upsetting to read even as an outsider.

It’s bound to become the point of the thread whether you acted to protect her because you don’t really mention it at all in your OP. And it’s seems baffling that he could have managed so many incidents if he was being physically stopped as he should have been.

But to answer your specific question - no it’s not normal at all

Just ignore the posts about your disciplining on holiday as that’s in the past anyway

what was the point of your thread?

if it was just to check if your nephews behaviour is normal then obviously neither his or his parents behaved in a normal way

i wouldn’t sever ties but would tell him he failed miserably as a parent on that holiday and it’s best to keep the kids apart u til his son has learnt that the behaviour he showed is unacceptable.

I feel so sad for your baby girl reading this. The spitting and holding her nostrils closed is disturbing.

I would have told the boy off myself, asked my brother if he was going to do something and if he thought it was acceptable behaviour, and if he'd laughed I would probably have exploded. Then I would have booked to stay somewhere else or flights home.

A thoroughly spanked backside would have nipped this in the bud once upon a time but thats not legal anymore so everyone else has to suffer brattish behaviour 🤨 if this child behaved like that towards my child he would be lucky to not get his head knocked off

What a little horror.
I wonder if his parents will discuss it between themselves? Or if your parents have said anything to them?

Good grief, how on earth is violence towards a child going to teach a child that violence is wrong? It’s modelling the very behaviour you’re trying to stop. Barbaric.

OP you say that you tried to protect your DD. But you need to accept that you failed abysmally. I feel so sad for that poor little girl. Bullied and her own parents let it happen.

Going forward you need to be much more firm, and tell your brother straight that you won’t be seeing them for the foreseeable future while your nephew’s behaviour remains so bad.

"OP you say that you tried to protect your DD. But you need to accept that you failed abysmally. I feel so sad for that poor little girl. Bullied and her own parents let it happen."

It's like you were there yourself. 🙄

Well it didn’t stop after one incident did it?

So someone didn’t stop it from happening to a tiny child again. and again. and again. over several days.

If there was a massive aggressive dog around your child, you’d not rely on the dog owner would you? You’d rely on yourself to protect your child.

You can lift the badly behaved child away to protect the younger child - every time

no talk of “kind hands” just take stuff off him then lift him away - into the arms of his parents saying “he’s misbehaving “

I'm not usually one to mention additional needs, too many use it as an excuse for poor behaviour, but the licking and spitting are setting alarm bells ringing. Either your nephew is very badly behaved or he is ND and your DB needs to get to the bottom of it. ND is not an excuse for this behaviour, it may be a reason but it's not an excuse.

In the meanwhile, protect yourselves, you have done nothing wrong and I agree with taking the sorrow not anger route with your brother whilst avoiding meetings until your DPs can see an improvement.

It's legal in England.