Reply to How to handle situation with niece

Forum Index » Family Relationships

Reply to "How to handle situation with niece"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My brother and SIL have one daughter who is 8, and my girls are 7 and 10. They wanted more children but couldn’t have another for health reasons, and because of that feel strongly that their DD needs to spend as much time as possible with her cousins. Last summer they moved closer to us (now live about 30 mins apart) and push for the girls to hang out/see one another as much as possible.

Every second the kids are not in school/camp SIL asks me if they can hang out, but the problem is that my niece is a very difficult child and my kids have started complaining about spending time with her and can only handle her in small doses. She is very bossy and rigid/inflexible, and it’s her way or the highway or she gets mad. My kids have trouble playing with her because she doesn’t like to do the same things as them (ex. she is obsessed with American Girl dolls and only wants to play with them but my kids aren’t into them). She is also very whiny and complains non-stop.

My kids can deal when she comes over for just a couple hours, but SIL is always trying to arrange sleepovers so they have more time together - she will often ask if her DD can spend the weekend with us, or will invite my kids to stay with them, but they beg me to say no.

It’s a really tough situation because we love them and all used to be really close (when we saw each other less), and this comes from a good place. I know my niece hasn’t made many friends since they moved and feel badly about that. She is a good-hearted but difficult/ awkward kid.

How would you handle? I try saying we are busy but they don’t want to take no for an answer and then my brother calls and gives me a guilt trip. If I say we aren’t available on X day or weekend they will just ask me to confirm the next time we are.[/quote]

I would gently suggest they consider having her evaluated for autism.  Sounds like DD[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics