TL/DR: my father has custody of his step-grandchild. This child is an undisciplined terror. He has also been diagnosed ADHD. The child’s actions (trying to steal toys, damaging my children’s toys and being an all around jerk) are getting to be too much. How do I tell my dad he isn’t allowed to bring the child to my home anymore?My dad remarried when I was in college to a woman with 3 children. There is some weird family history there that I’m not familiar with, but she raised her two daughters while her in-laws raised her son. Well, her son turned out well while her daughters are less successful as people. One of these daughters has reduced mental capacity and got pregnant young by a man who quickly ended up in prison. My dad and his wife eventually ended up with custody of the child and has raised him pretty well his whole life. This child was doomed from the start. They had it in their minds that he was going to have “mental challenges” from his birth. There weren’t any specific signs that early and I’m not sure if it is even possible to have signs at 0, 3, 6 months, but they had already decided.Well, between their age and their more permissive parenting styles (thank god my mom had a different parenting belief even if she was hyper strict with me) this kid has turned out to be the biggest shit I have ever met. For the first few years I helped out a lot with the child. I had him for days at a time. By the age of three he was pretty much exclusively spending his time watching YouTube videos of Spider-Man. With me he had some structure and seemed to thrive from it, but I had him less and less and when I eventually moved out of the state he had zero boundaries or structure given to him. I was admonished for counting with him or promoting him on the alphabet when I visited for holidays because “he doesn’t like to talk about that stuff”He is now in his later elementary school ages. I’ve lost track at his exact age. Im thinking 10-11. We have moved back to the area and when my father comes t visit his grandchildren (4mo, 2 and 4) this child often tags along. My patience with this child is gone. It used to be me just being annoyed at his behavior as he was loud and obnoxious and ignored my requests. He of course energizes my 4 year old to be rough as well, but we are working on that and my 4 year old;s behavior is very age appropriate. He’s actually learned so much and I’m proud at him for dealing with some of this in a really mature way.2 visits ago, however, I really had a hard time with this child. My dad buys him toys constantly. They go out to yard sales and fleas markets and they always leave with toys. The kids room is a nightmare. It’s very different from my “quality over quantity” philosophy with toys for my children. Well for this visit I had laid out legos and was encouraging them to play. The kid built something and asked me if he could take it home. I said no. (This kid has boxes and boxes of them while my children have one bin of them) He tried to steal them as a result. I later found his jacket pocket stuffed full of legos and so I removed them and didn’t say anything. Additionally, the child found a drawer on my kitchen (because he will go through my house and rummage through things if I’m not watching) that had some jolly ranchers in it. He asked for them and I said that no, they are there because I am making my husband a cake and plan to use them for that. Instead he waited until he was alone and stuffed them all in his pocket. Later he showed them to me in his pocket giggling to show me he had stolen them. I asked that he out them back and again explained I had a plan for them. So he goes back to the kitchen as though to put them back and he quickly stuffed a few in his mouth and put the rest back. My dad witnessed this and said nothing about it. I don’t want to go so far as to call him a thief since he is just a child, but it really bothered me that he was doing these things. This is on top of his general annoying behavior like falling to the ground and kicking and screaming like a 2 year old having a tantrum. He “tells on” my children to me to try to get them in trouble but they are lies. He will try to say my child hit him or something when I’ve had my eyes on them the whole time.They just left my house again and I’m fuming after this visit. They arrived this afternoon about 5 minutes after I had gotten all three down for naps. My 4 month old was sleeping in the living room and so I asked him to please try to be quiet as she was asleep d my husband was upstairs on a business call. I went ahead and walked upstairs to get the other children from nap time so they could visit with grandpa and they had t fallen asleep yet. I got downstairs to the child shouting at my 4 month old and rolling around on the floor next to wear she was laying - while my father witnessed this by the way. So now she is up from nap. Whatever, grandpa gets to hold the baby. Now the child is at the same drawer in the kitchen trying to find candy. I tell him he needs to stay in the living room and play. I gave them hotwheel tracks to play with and he is throwing a fit because he wants to go upstairs to my children;s room and playlegos. I tell him no and that he is to stay downstairs in the living room and he has the choice between playing with the hot wheels tracks, reading books, playing with the reusable sticker books the kids had had out right before nap or sitting in the couch and being bored. He just keeps throwing a fit and whining about not wanting to play with those things. The moment I walk to the kitchen he runs upstairs to my children’s room. I had to tell him to go back downstairs a number of times before he eventually does. St that point he is telling my son he is going to hurt him so my sweet 4 year old comes in scared he is going to be hurt. My dad asks him why my son thinks he was going to hurt him and the kid tells him that my son was saying he was going to hit him. So he lies and is trying to say my child was the one saying it. Then tries to say my 2 year old is telling him he is going to die. Obviously not something my 2 year old would even know to say. All my dad does is tell him Togo play and remember my kids are younger than he is.This entire visit is one thing after another and I didn’t let anything slide this time. I’m over it. I don’t like to discipline other children, but I spoke directly to the kid this time. I simply told him things like “you are making your choice to be bored, I have given you then option of 4 activities, I’m sorry if none of those interest you, but it is your choice to make the best of it and play or to sit here and be upset. I know my child is very excited to plat]y with you, would you like to play with him or would you like to sit here and pout” and his response to that sort of thing was to run and tell my dad I was being rude to him. My dad just ignores it all. At some point the kids were running around the room and their sticker books were still on the floor and I was watching them run over them. So I told my 4 year old “why don’t you pick those up off the floor so that no one tears them when they run on them and so no one slips.” This kids response was to pick one of the pages up and rip it. It wasn’t a big rip, but OMG what a jerk.I’m having a hard time with this. My wishes are to say “kid is never allowed over again” but my dad is the one who installed all my buttons and as far as I have grown as a person, Ihave no spine and I’m terrified to be honest with him. I’m trying to gather my confidence, but I don’t know what to say, how to say it or if I’m being reasonable. They have diagnosed the kid with ADHD and he is medicated. It’s hard for me because I see it as they made this problem and now it is becoming everyone’s problem. I really want to be sympathetic and understanding, but at the same time my personal experience with my child has been that when we face issues we discipline and work through them. I have never seen this child receive a consequence or discipline for his actions besides some remarks that are never followed through on or for a while they were recording his tantrums on their phones and making him watch it.Sorry this is so long and thank you to anyone who has read it all. I need some perspective and advice on how to handle it. via /r/Parenting https://ift.tt/2S4uEHW
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