Parenting style clashes with in laws. Help?

I have a 4 year old daughter. I also have a 4 year old niece. I feel like my and my husband’s parenting style clashes with my niece’s parents parenting style and I’m at my ropes end.In my house, we have a zero tolerance policy for hitting, name calling, or being mean in general. If my daughter hits her younger brother, I pull her aside and, in my best stern mom voice, tell her hitting is not nice. We do not hit. How would you feel if your brother hit you? The answer is always, “I wouldn’t like that at all.” Therefore, we hammer in the “you treat others the way you want to be treated.” It works wonderfully at home. If a mistake happens, we pull her aside, have a talk, she apologizes, and is usually good the rest of the day.My in laws don’t apply this core principle. My niece often hits my daughter, calls her names, and generally is mean to her. The parents will yell at her to stop. When she doesn’t stop, they roll their eyes and have that defeated “I tried” expression.Therefore, since my niece gets away with such behavior, my daughter tries to get away with the behavior as well. She will hit back and call names. She gets in trouble while my niece will often say “nah nah nah nah nah” to my daughter as though mocking that only one of them got away with the behavior. What’s worse, is other in laws will often say to me, “they’re just 4, they don’t understand. Don’t be so strict.”I don’t think there’s anything wrong with teaching a 4 year old that hitting, teasing, name calling are unacceptable behaviors. I’ve had complete strangers compliment me at how polite my daughter is as we instill nice behavior and polite behavior. Therefore, I don’t think we are doing anything wrong. My husband agrees with this parenting approach. He too often gets annoyed with his niece’s parents lack of parenting in these situations. He doesn’t want to say anything to his family to cause problems or issues. I feel like I can’t either because they’re my in laws.What do I do? I can’t avoid family functions as we are a very close family with many family events. I don’t want to not punish my daughter for these behaviors but feel like I’m being unfairly strict when my niece gets away with these mean behaviors. Any advice would be very helpful. Thank you. via /r/Parenting https://ift.tt/2tIzbpJ