Ok so some context first, my niece who is my sister in laws daughter has been quite a rough child since she was about 1 years old and tends to take her frustration out on my daughter who is 6 months younger than her. My niece when frustrated will bite, push, scratch and pull my daughters hair which as a parent is never easy to witness but we aren’t allowed to reprimand her due to her mom’s gentle parenting style… anyway I’ve always stayed out of it, never getting involved even when my niece hurts my daughter I will just comfort my daughter and let my SIL deal with her daughter and someone always has to watch the girls to prevent any issues…fast forward to today, my niece came to my MIL house (she lives on the same property as my SIL) while we were visiting, my husband had gone inside, my MIL went to the store and my SIL and BIL were at their house…the girls started fighting over something silly so I went to intervene and my niece started pulling on my daughters hair and tried to pull her off the chair she was on so my motherly instinct came out and I just shouted “NO “her name”!!!” And she immediately let my daughters hair go…but then my SIL and BIL came running up and started shouting at me saying I can’t control myself and they can tell I don’t like their child and of course my husband came to my rescue and a full blown argument started between him and his sister and it got really ugly, we packed our stuff and left…I messaged my SIL and apologized for my outburst but she just threw it back in my face…so I want to know AITA? My niece didn’t even cry or anything I was just at my wits end with how my child is the one that always gets hurt!
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Ok so some context first, my niece who is my sister in laws daughter has been quite a rough child since she was about 1 years old and tends to take her frustration out on my daughter who is 6 months younger than her. My niece when frustrated will bite, push, scratch and pull my daughters hair which as a parent is never easy to witness but we aren’t allowed to reprimand her due to her mom’s gentle parenting style… anyway I’ve always stayed out of it, never getting involved even when my niece hurts my daughter I will just comfort my daughter and let my SIL deal with her daughter and someone always has to watch the girls to prevent any issues…fast forward to today, my niece came to my MIL house (she lives on the same property as my SIL) while we were visiting, my husband had gone inside, my MIL went to the store and my SIL and BIL were at their house…the girls started fighting over something silly so I went to intervene and my niece started pulling on my daughters hair and tried to pull her off the chair she was on so my motherly instinct came out and I just shouted “NO “her name”!!!” And she immediately let my daughters hair go…but then my SIL and BIL came running up and started shouting at me saying I can’t control myself and they can tell I don’t like their child and of course my husband came to my rescue and a full blown argument started between him and his sister and it got really ugly, we packed our stuff and left…I messaged my SIL and apologized for my outburst but she just threw it back in my face…so I want to know AITA? My niece didn’t even cry or anything I was just at my wits end with how my child is the one that always gets hurt!
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> I shouted at my 4 year old niece and my sister in law treated me like I’m an asshole so I want to know what others think about it
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Contest mode is 1.5 hours long on this post.
Hell no. You’re not wrong. They are soft.
NTA
Never telling a kid off leads to bad kids.
And 99% of mums would have probably reacted the sane way you did.
However YTA for still bringing your daughter around someone who will always physically hurt her.
NTA. The funny part about this is you yelling no and setting a boundary with the child is actual gentle parenting
NTA
Sounds like it was the first time someone said NO! in a louder voice. Probably what she needed!
NTA. They are clearly not teaching their daughter how to treat other people. I would take a break from the girls seeing each other until your niece stops injuring other kids.
NTA as a former preschool teacher, Your niece’s behaviors are so severe, she would be banned from many preschools or referred to special education. I would encourage her parents to consider seeing a therapist, or asking pediatrician for advice or special education eval.
they are truly setting her up for failure if they will be sending her to school. transitioning into starting school is a big milestone for any kid, but being constantly told you’re bad/wrong/misbehaving in front of the class can deeply impact confidence. Them finding an effective strategy to ensure she has the guidance she needs to not be considered a dangerous or “bad” kid by having behavior expectations clearly communicated, and strategies for coping emotionally, is so needed.
Your child not being physically harmed or traumatized is more important than their child hearing a firm No when behaving dangerously.
your child not developing the belief mom thinks it’s okay for people to hurt me. mom doesn’t care if people hurt me. mom would never help me if people hurt me. it more important than your brother or sister in laws anger or nieces woah aunt was loud that was surprising!
Why yell, you pick it up and hand it back, explain either she’s punished or you will punished the parent who allows your child to be hurt
I would set the boundary that your daughter is not safe around her and you don’t want her around your daughter. Your daughter will have lasting self esteem issues if her cousin is always getting by with hurting her
NTA I’d tell your SIL and BIL that their right to parent their child as they please doesn’t mean that their daughter can pull your daughter’s hair, and pull her off a chair, or otherwise act violently with you just sitting there letting her do it. You will intervene if they don’t parent their child in such a way that prevents their daughter from hurting your child. That’s not you trying to raise their daughter, it’s you doing what you have to to prevent your daughter being hurt. If they don’t like you saying “no” to their daughter, even to stop her violence to yours, then they need to be parenting properly so you never need to.
You did the right thing. So much « gentle parenting » is interpreted as letting the child run wild. Does nothing help integrate the child into the real world.
NTA
Your niece needs to learn she can’t be pulling some ones hair
Personally I wouldn’t of apologised at all, you simply raised your voice a bit to make neice stop hurting your child
I’m sorry but I can’t take the rest of your story seriously after you claimed your niece has been causing problems since she was only a year old.
NTA, definitely not. I wouldn’t have apologised either I’d have said “I’m protecting my child from being injured, if you’ve a problem with that then parent your own child so others don’t have to”. My son (who is close in age to your daughter) spends a lot of time with one of his cousins the same age and neither boy is given any special treatment by my MIL who helps us out with childcare one day a week. Whoever is acting up, is told so directly and has to make it right, even if that involves a time out
Yelling at a toddler is going on induce fear and freezing and not communicate anything else. Not helpful, could be harmful. Were you right to intervene? Sure, obviously, a child was at risk.
“anyway I’ve always stayed out of it, never getting involved even when my niece hurts my daughter I will just comfort my daughter and let my SIL deal with her daughter”
YTA for allowing this to continue. You stay out of it even when your little daughter gets hurt??
NTA. Their parenting style clearly isn’t working. You raised your voice and it worked.
NTA and you shouldn’t have apologised. You should make it clear that your niece is a bully and you will not stand by and watch you child be abused by her.
NTA
And she’s not doing “gentle parenting”, she’s doing permissive parenting. Real gentle parenting still sets boundaries and teaches respect. It doesn’t allow the kid to run around causing excessive noise, messes, damage, and injury.
NTA. Your job is to protect your daughter! Screw your SIL!
Absolutely nta! Your brother a sil need to control their child!! It is not ok for her to be attacking others. I hate parents who allow this type of shit
NTA but seriously, stop letting your kid around your niece. You are constantly putting your kid in harms away because your inlaws refuse to actually parent their kid.
I’ve actually had to do something similar. My nephew is 2yrs older than my daughter. He used to have outbursts. He would yell and swear and throw things around the house. We eventually stopped visiting for a while. He improved and we started visiting again. He scared my kid when he had his outbursts, my main job as a parent was to protect her.
If your SIL doesn’t want you to shout at her kid, she needs t supervise her kid and prevent her from hurting your daughter 100 per cent of the time when they’re together. This means no going off to do errands and no leaving the room. Period. When a child has behavioral issues that result in her hurting others, this is what the responsible parent does.
I think you should let SIL know that you expect her to watch her child and prevent harm to your daughter every single second the children are together, and that if she doesn’t, you will, and that includes shouting and pulling her aggressive, badly parented child off yours.
But you might want to consider greatly reducing the children’s contact. Your daughter shouldn’t have to contend with an older, bigger kid (or any kid) who is routinely physically violent with her. As in, “I’m sorry, but Daughter is not going to be playing with cousin until cousin has learned not to hit, kick, and pull hair. Which, sadly, with no consequences for her hitting, kicking, and pulling hair, might not happen for a while.”
But as long as the kids are seeing each other, shouting at a child who’s attacking your child is appropriate parental behavior.
NTA
Soft NTA for not protecting your daughter. You are actively allowing your daughter to be abused and bullied.
STOP ALLOWING your daughter to play with her‼️
Inform her parents that until she can play with your daughter without hurting her for now, they can’t play together.
Step up and protect your kid from her.
Updateme
NTA – gentle passerby does not mean you let your child have no consequences. You did not strike her, you dimly said the word no and her name. Guess what she did the right thing and let go. Her parents are ridiculous and she will become a problem child later.
Nta. Your sil has taken the “gentle” in gentle parenting too far. Gentle parenting doesn’t mean you stop reprimanding your kid. It means when they are doing something wrong, you get down on their level and give a stern “No. We don’t do that”. And still punish them. If your niece keeps up this behavior, she’ll be kicked out of school. Schools won’t tolerate frequent biting or hair pulling. Whether sil likes it or not, she’s doing a terrible job parenting and this behavior needs to be corrected yesterday.
NTA – they are creating a monster who will have issues at school where her behaviour will unacceptable.
I feel sorry for both you and the poor kid who won’t have any friends because she doesn’t understand right and wrong
my niece (now 25) is an only child and sadly was an oops. My sister use to call me all the time when she was little because she wouldn’t listen to her. currently ATA because I refuse to let her boyfriend be disrespectful to me in my own home. He also got drunk on a family vacation and that bit was yelling in her face at the pool and then it continued when he got back to the hotel on the balcony at 11;30pm. At the pool his fists were clenched and up like he was gonna knock her out. I treated her the same her whole life even now and suddenly her parents gave her an out by supporting her bf and his rudeness. Both her and my sister and her husband too have no friends other than family. My niece came home from college a few weeks into her first semester and her ”friends” dropped the bomb that they were done with her and her shit: it was always about her, for her, because she wanted to etc. She also had a really hard time in college and went through a lot of roommates. she knows better than to talk back to me because I have always set boundaries and expectation. Its not like you called the kid an F’n B you said no and her name. Not all kids are meant to be gentle parented.
You hollered No Niece because the situation was urgent and dangerous. You’d have done the same thing if Niece was about to run out into traffic or was about to cut herself or whatever harmful thing you can think of. The irony is Niece’s parents reacted by yelling at you; they certainly didn’t model gentle conflict resolution for their daughter. Their idea of gentle parenting is somewhat skewed if they’re not setting boundaries or establishing rules for acceptable behaviour and accountability. NTA
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YTA for being a shitty, useless parent.
“anyway I’ve always stayed out of it, never getting involved even when my niece hurts my daughter “
Wtf? You let your child be abused and you “stay out of it”? And you keep putting your child in situations where she gets hurt? You have until now just sat there and watched as your child gets hurt? What is wrong with you?
I would have cut contact with these people a long time ago. The least you could do is pick up your child and keep her separate from the niece the moment you see them, I assume the niece doesn’t try to hurt her when she is sitting in your lap or playing right in front of you. And after that it’s time to leave, always.
Your child literally doesn’t have anyone else to protect her and you have been failing her.
You might have raised your voice but all you said was no. Does the brat even knows what that means? You did nothing wrong, you should not have apologised. She has bullied your daughter before, has she ever got time out, a toy taken away or something (anything)? She’s a child, she just needs better parenting.
Why do you even still allow your daughter to play with the niece knowing she’s violent and will hurt your child? You’re NTA for yelling but you are for putting your child in situations knowing she will be hurt. Your whole family is TA. There’s literally zero reason for your child to be around her child in any capacity knowing she’s violent and will hurt her.
NTA. You protected your child and her cousin stopped. Boundaries actually make children feel safe. They are not doing her any favors by letting her think she can act this way. They are setting her up to be unpopular at school.
ESH
Your SIL is the AH for raising an undisciplined bully.
And Y T A for persistently subjecting your daughter to an environment where she is regularly bullied. I would simply not allow her to be there in the first place.
For your own daughter’s sake, please grow a spine and start protecting her.
wow so just let her kid be a chew toy?? nah that’s wild
NTA
That kid needs to hear NO! more often.
jesus christ, not getting involved in their parenting style doesn’t mean you have to just sit and watch your kid getting hurt and bullied, what the fuck??
NTA if you only yelled the “no” to stop your niece. That was a situation where you needed to react urgently.
Would be YTA if you kept yelling. There are other ways to deal with the issue and it needs to be age-appropriate. A harsh reaction and punishment will only make your niece resent and hate your daughter, she’s not old enough to reflect on her behaviour in the heat of the moment. Part of the solution will be environment management to make sure both children are safe and set up for success.
Don’t let this child near yours if she can’t behave safely and definitely don’t leave her unsupervised, even for a second.
Somebody is violent toward your daughter, nobody is willing to stop it from happening. Stop allowing that person near your daughter. NTA for yelling at your SIL.
Becoming the AH toward your daughter for continuing to have her around her cousin.
You need to protect your daughter from anyone who hurts her, to the best of your ability, regardless of who that person is.
Also I personally have always operated under the premise “my house my rules” this applies to every person who comes into my house. These rules include no physical violence, no screaming at one another. I will “parent” anyone who breaks these rules in my house, no matter how old they are, or who they belong to. If they don’t like it, they are welcome to leave and never come back.
YTA don’t put your daughter in this position
Yta for letting your child be physically abused by an older kid and trying to stay out of it. Do your job as a mother and protect her. Don’t try to get brownie points from your sil
> anyway I’ve always stayed out of it, never getting involved even when my niece hurts my daughter I will just comfort my daughter and let my SIL deal with her daughter
You need to stop that immediately. Keep your daughter away from them if you feel like you can’t intervene. You’re obviously not an asshole for yelling at your niece to stop hurting your daugher but it’s beyond fucked up that you’ve stood by and just let it happen several times before. Figuring out if you’re an asshole here isn’t relevant, you’re failing as a parent. Step up ffs.
You are 100 percent TA. not for the situation but for allowing you child to be continually bit hit scratched hair pulled and done nothing to protect her. Your right there parenting isn’t up to you. But your reaction to it is. I don’t care how someone parents there kid but there kid hurts mine you better believe I’m getting involved and if there one of these wanker gentle parents my kid will not be around there’s anymore.
Why is everyone ok with your daughter getting hurt all the time? That’s literally the only question you and others need to ask.
NTA for finally protecting your child.
YTA for allowing this to continue. That child is an abusive terror to your baby. Cut those inconsiderate serial killer raisers off! Your niece is in for a hard life & that’s sad, but your responsibility is YOUR child.
NTA – you did what any parent should do if another child is hurting theirs. They’re going to end up with an absolute nightmare if that gentle parenting bullshit continues.