Major Family Related Dilemma

[BabyKittenCandy]

So its my lil boys 2nd birthday on Saturday, which of course, should be a wonderfully happy time. But all its doing is stressing me out.  My husband is one of 3, the youngest in fact.  Both of the other brothers are married, both with kiddies. The middle brothers little girl is the oldest, a year and a week older than my boy and the oldest brothers boy is the youngest, 6 months younger than my boy.

Confusing yes?

Basically, the oldest grandchild is the Little girl, the only girl. She has been spoilt rotten and tbh, the parents have never really disciplined her, they seem to be afraid to.  She doesnt share, she tends to grab things while saying 'mine!' She also answers them back shouting through gritted teeth and I think they tend to back down. In a nutshell, i would be embarassed if she were my child. Last time for the birthdays we went to the party they had for her. Her parents gave my boy a present but before he could look at it, she walked off with it. No-one told her no. No-one asked her to give it back. By the time we got it back, it looked like it was 2nd hand and I guess it effectively was, even though she had about 10 other gifts there all hers that she could play with.

My lad and the other couples little boy get on swimmingly! They play and laugh and share together wonderfully and I would like to be able to invite them to the party tea we are gonna have for my boy on sunday, along with both sets of grandparents. The question is, how can I do this without inviting the other couple and thier little girl?

If I dont invite them and they find out, it will no doubt cause a huge family feud. The husbands all recently had a talk as the girls parents are taking the micky in a big way with thier parents. They have borrowed large sums of money with no signs of it being paid back, often guilt trip them into baby sitting purely cos they havent been organised enough to swap shifts about even though they get thier schedual 2 weeks in advance and lately had them helping them move, even though both are well into thier 60's and thier dad has a twisted spine and was told years ago that if not careful he would be in a wheelchair.

I could go on and on and this frustrates me no end but basically, I dont wanna feel that I will spend my sons birthday watching another child to make sure she isnt breaking things and having to tell her off constantly, for which you get looked daggers at.

My husband is an eternal peace keeper and says I should just inv them and put up with it and tell her off when needed but I just know if I inv them she will have to be the centre of attention and I know i am also extremely annoyed about thier seeming lack of care about the lads parents wellbeing.

I just dont know what to do for the best.. any ideas?

(wow, sry for the length of the post, im just so frustrated!)

[PonyMama]

Unfortunately the only way to go about this is to maybe explain that in your home stealing of any kind will not be tolerated, and that this is his day and as of this point you don't feel their reactions to their daughter can be tolerated in a closed little setting.

I had to stop inviting a friends kid to things because of the same thing, and had to tell her parents, I am sorry but she can't behave I can't have her here.  Maybe try the when she is in my home if I say no it goes.  I have had my friend come over for a couple day trip and her kids who have called me auntie since they could talk know that Auntie makes the rules in aunties house and if they break them not mommy or daddy will deal but auntie will

you may find that even with telling her no, taking it back and explaining it is rude to do that a couple times, they either don't want to bring her anymore or she just won't when she is at your house.

I am also a firm believer that if there are more then one mommy int eh room and one mommy sees a kid doing something wrong they either need to stop the kid and bring them to their mommy or deal with them and then deal with a time out themselves, also explaining why that is wrong.  Usually the bringing the child to their mommy works best unless you know they are fine with how you woudl deal with the situation

[BabyKittenCandy]

The problem is PM, they dont see a problem. She was at my other sister in laws house jumping on the sofa and when the sister-in-law who's house it was said something, her mums response was 'Oh, she does it at home' like that makes everything ok.

She was colouring on thier tv with crayons the other day and they didnt tell her off, imo if they have that little respect for thier own things, they certainly have no respect for other peoples

And again, If I confront them and tell them how I feel, it is most likely going to cause a family feud. Im in a loose loose situation I feel.....

[Silvanon]

Mm, that is a sticky situation.  I think perhaps what I'd do in that case is invite just the grandparents to the party, and arrange a time to visit the younger boy cousin for a "play date" either earlier or later in the day.  Or alternatively don't invite any of your husband's family and just go visit the ones you want your boy to have time with on his birthday.  If you think even that way it'll cause a blow-up that you didn't visit the girl's family, you could arrange time on some non-birthday day to go visit them for a little bit, in their own home where you don't have to worry about her breaking your things.

[PonyMama]

but again if she was jumping on your couch you shoudl tell her to stop.  If they pull the "well she does it at home' say well this is not your home, I prefer my things not be jumped on, now if she wants to jump outside is wonderful for that.

Sometimes you have to put your foot down, in your own home.  Cause where does the line get drawn? 

If she can act like a cow she will (I woudl harsher words but obvious reason I will use cow)  What if she hauls off and smacks your kid with something resulting in stitches?  Are you going to let them say, well she hits everyone like that?  No, you are going to say something.  Unfortunately when kids are involved where do you draw the line? 

Eventually something has to be said.
I just recently had to say something to my grandmother considering she was 1 comparing my children, two putting down my oldest and three giving me parenting advice when she is blind and couldn't even see what was going on.

the decision was made that we do not need to be in the same room anymore, I still love her she still loves me, but our opinions differ.

And I understand you talk about the in-laws, ok

I had the in-law issue when I had my first. 
it resulted in my mother in-law and I speaking words and her being cut out for a while.  Now after some time we came to a common agreement and have no issues anymore.  Sometimes with family the results are not pretty to begin with but can help bring things out that maybe need to be said.

But again just my feelings.  I think if she is in your home maybe you need to say if she does something I do not allow my children to do then either she gets the time out or I can't invite you over anymore

[Neocridders]

I'm not a parent, in fact I'm really unexperienced in this subject. I'm 16 and I'm not really familiar with kids, or inlaws.

I do, however, understand your predicament. I like what PM and Silvanon have said.

You know, if the child is a spoild brat, and she came to my house, if she were just a child of someone that was over,  I probably would just roll my eyes and hold my breath until I got home. I'm not one to confront things like that.

But if I knew that I'd have to be stuck with this child forever (or a while. Since she's family and you know... this situation probably will occur again) and I saw her doing something wrong (like coloring on the television) I'd take whatever she was doing away from her and ask her what she was doing. If she saids 'I don't know' just tell her that she was ruining your TV. Tell her that coloring only ever goes on paper.
If she was taking your son's toy, ask her what she was doing. If she says she was playing, tell her that if she wants to play, she should ask your son to play too, since it's his toy.

Or, if she's just going to be stubborn little brat, as we know all children can be, you either do the bribe/reward system, or the punishment system.

The bribing (or telling her that if she's good, maybe she'll get a little sometihng like a cookie) is not always the best, but it can be good in a pinch for stubborn kids. It really just spoils them if it's always used, because then she'll expect something out of doing something that ought to be done with out reward.

The punishment is no fun for her, and no fun for you, because she'll probably dislike you for it. It embarasses her, and she is mad both that you embarassed her and that you punished her in the first place. But it teaches, which is good longer term

Best of luck this weekend!
Let us know how it goes. I really hope that if you do end up inviting them, that she'll be ok.

ETA: Oh yes. If she does pull crap at your son's birthday, I'd immediately go to the parents. And don't take the 'She does it at home' or the 'Oh it's ok!' response. You demand they do something about her, or she won't be invited in the future.
--But the parents may find that an attack on themselves, since you know... they raised her. Even if it is badly and we know it, they have a right to find it offensive. And that may be how they take it if you do.
But you need to do something. Don't appease a 3 year old. She'll be doomed to be a spoiled brat forever. Put your foot down or she'll always be like that.

[BabyKittenCandy]

Yeah... I would in a way just love to tell them how I feel (I dont really want my son around her picking things up!) But my hubby would prolly go nuts at me for shattering the peace. Plus, I bet after the recent talk the husbands had they would be sobbing victimisation to the parents ..../sigh.

The prob with going to visit the lil boy cousin is they(the little girls family) now live bang next door! LOL. So nothing is private anymore...

I did think about just inviting the Grandparents but my boy loves playing with the other lad so much, we figured it would be nice for his birthday.

The other things is we will be having the party tea at my parents house cos with uni my boy stays with his grandparents on a sun nite to be babysat monday, so its not even my house that she would potentially be wrecking.

I did wonder about just pulling the ' we called the grandparents to come down and the boy cousin and his folks were there too, so we invited them.' Or there is the fact the girls birthday party will prolly be the following weekend and the lil boy and his parents are away then, so we inv them cos we wouldnt see them next week at the girls party(which i will be doing my best to get outta going to!)

Its just so annoying, i feel like im in a loose/loose situation and I feel like i should be able to invite who I wish without issues.

[Silvanon]

Hum, well, a couple thoughts.  First, if your husband doesn't support you in this, if he's taking sides with his family against you, then that's a problem in and of itself that needs to be tackled.  Especially if his family is as volatile as they sound (a family feud because a cousin who had no right to expect an invitation anyways didn't get invited?!?) situations like this will likely continue to crop up.

Second, yeah, if it's not even your home then you definitely can't invite a guest who you reasonably expect will misbehave and be destructive.  Are there going to be other little kids invited?  Or is it a family party?  If it's the later, you could invite just the boy cousin and say you were keeping the party small and only inviting one little friend.  Perhaps your little boy could be persuaded to say that the boy cousin is the friend he wants to invite?  Or, alternatively, perhaps your parents might be persuaded to be the "bad guys" who put a limit on who you can bring over?  "Hey Mom, would you be ok with me inviting over a guest who will jump all over half your furniture and draw all over the other half?  No?  Great!"

If you really think none of those will work, then I'd say it really is time to address the hubby problem.

[PonyMama]

agree with Sil on the if hubby sides with them that is an issue in itself. 
I have had that issue too, and my answer was that if he wants to support them go live with them, if he wants to support you live with you.  he may not agree at the time but he needs to back you up and speak in private with you if he disagrees.

[Spixy]

I'm sorry to hear about the little girl and her horrible parents :/

We have two children in our family, that are quite like the little girl. They can't sit still - they're spoiled rotten and the parents have no problem with them going bonkers all over the house. It's usually my mother who has to discipline their kids - and even then the mother & father just goes 'They're just playing' or 'I didn't know she/he was doing that'.

My best example with their tyranny is probably them going in my parents bedroom after my father's surgery (he has a disc collapse in his spine) and just standing there throwing raisins at each other. The raisins were seriously everywhere - the bed, the floor, the cupboards. My father was desperately trying to stop them from the bed, but since he couldn't stand up they were just laughing and continueing.

My mom exploded and since that episode, the children has actually been sort of okay to have around.

I'd say invite them - they're still family. But it's your house and your stuff and therefore they'll have to follow your rules. Make sure they understand that *snugs* It'll be okay!

[BabyKittenCandy]

I did have words with my hubby and he will support me, he just doesnt think me inviting one set and not the other is going to be a good plan and will end badly. He objected a lot but when he saw how strongly I felt he did back down a bit and said he justs wants to know what to say cos they will approach him with an issue rather than me. He just thinks that we should invite them and if she has to be told off all day grinned and said he would be more than happy to do it. He knows what a nightmare she is but he does feel I think that I overexagerate it, cos I hear a lot of stuff from the brother and sister in law who have the little boy (they both live in the same town and the girls family have in the last month, moved right next door to them, so they see them a lot lot more)

I can see my hubby's point, he doesnt wanna cause a family rift over a birthday party and I dont either, I just also dont like feeling that I have to invite the girl.

There will be no other children invited, it will purely be me, hubby and our boy and both sets of Grandparents and hopefully, if I can work it out, the boy cousin and his parents. I did wonder about saying my parents feel they cant have the little girl over cos she doesnt respect things, but then her parents will wonder where that thought has come from no doubt. My parents house isnt big and a lot of my husbands family (mum, brothersand thier wives) are big people, I do truely doubt we would fit everyone in!

Like I say I wonder about just explaining it as the boy cousins parents are away the following weekend so we wanted to see them this weekend instead, cos we can see the girl the weekend after.

I do just wonder if I shouldnt just have a chat with the girls mother and explain how I feel but I think it would fall on deaf ears (no-one I guess would wanna be told thier lil one is a horror) and would I worry, cause a fight.

[Sunchaser]

Lovey you have to stand up for what you believe even if it causes a family rift. I just stood up to my sister who i havnt stood up to for 21 years and i got tired of her crap and got tired of being put down by her and my mom. I finally stood up to them and it started a small... well okay a big fight but it ended up with us all sitting and talking about it. Once i told them what was going on and why i felt that way they agreed that they need to work on things and so do i.  Perhaps you can have a sit down with them all and say this is where your coming from and if they cant handle it then thats their problem not yours. That your willing to have her there but if she cant respect you and your things then she isnt welcome in the house.

[Goddesss]

Is there another day you could do the party.  When you know they wont be able to make it.  Like they have to work or something.  That way you can invite them but know there isnt a chance they could actually come.

[BabyKittenCandy]

Hehe! I wish there was Goddesss!!

After having a chat with the other brother in law (the little boys dad, who is also non too fond of the girls behaviour!) I have decided to invite them, warning them that she will have to be on her best behaviour. We figure maybe if we make a big fuss over having to tell her off lots (if she is naughty) it might rub thier faces in it a little. Im hoping she will be naughty enough that I can ask them to leave. We are thinking this might shock them into realising what a little horror they really have!

Of course, Im not going to invite them until tomorrow, so im hoping they are either gonna be working or already have other plans