On mobile, so sorry for any spelling or formatting errors.A little background: my brother has been dating a woman for the past six months and is crazy about her and her son (who I'll call D). Yesterday was my third time meeting them and D (4 years old) has some interesting behaviors that neither my brother or his mom addressed.So yesterday, I took my son (18 months) to visit my grandparents. We live out of state so they haven't seen him in six months. My brother, his girlfriend, and D also went to my grandparents house. My brother was excited to introduce my grandparents to his girlfriend and her son. As soon as they got there, D was asked to put his Gameboy away by his mom. He gave it to her and came to me and told me about the games he has for it. He told me one game belonged to a boy from his preschool and that the teacher took it away and put it in a drawer. At some point, D got it out of the drawer and took it home with him. I asked if he planned on giving it back to the boy it belonged to, and he said no. When I asked if he thought the boy would like to have his game back, he rolled his eyes and walked away from me.I had some toys on the floor set out for my son to play with. I left them there when we sat down for lunch. D refused to eat the food and went to go play with my son's toys. Mostly, I saw him playing with a ball my son got in his stocking for Christmas. No big deal. Well, my son began to get fussy and I went to get some of his toys for him. When I went to pick up some toys, my son's ball was gone. D walked by and I asked him if he'd seen it. He pulled it out of his pocket and handed it to me. I sat down with my son and gave the ball to him to keep him entertained. At some point, the ball went missing again. Again, I asked D if he saw the ball and he took it out of his pocket again. This time, everyone saw he had my son's toy hiding in his pocket. Nobody said anything.Not too long after, my son was unable to calm down, so I began packing up to leave. My cell phone was sitting on a side table in the living room and I went to change my son's diaper. When I went back, my phone was missing. I asked my brother to call it. I keep my phone on vibrate, and I could hear it, but the sound was muffled. It was somewhere near where D was sitting (no longer in the living room) but I couldn't tell where it was. I was looking under pillows on a nearby chair, still able to hear it vibrating. I had to walk out of the room to ask my brother to call it again. When I went back in, I could hear it vibrating again. This time, my brother came to help me look. My brother found my phone under my sweater I had been wearing, not two feet away from where D was sitting. I did not put my phone there.Some other concerns I had was, when my brother got there with D and D's mom, she asked him to put his Gameboy away. At some point, he went into her purse and got it out. I reminded him that he had been asked to put it away, so he asked my brother if he could play it. My brother and I were standing with each other and my brother said he could. I looked at my brother and shook my head and said his girlfriend did not want her son playing with it, and that he should be asking his mom, not my brother, if he is allowed to play with it. My brother still said it was ok, and let D go play with the Gameboy, against his mom's earlier wishes.Later on, they came back to my brother's house (where I am staying while I visit). D and my brother were playing with Legos and D asked to go to the bathroom. My brother went and turned the lights on for him, and came back to the living room. D came back in shortly after saying "I peed on your toilet seat!" And was laughing about it. My brother told him he was silly, while his mom said nothing at all. Nobody went to clean it, nobody told him he shouldn't purposely do that. Nobody cared at all. I was shocked. I used to work at a preschool with kids his age. I have had kids purposely go to the bathroom on the toilet seat and, after I cleaned their mess, I would have them reclean it and explain to them that it is their responsibility to aim for the water and that I should not have to clean up their urine. But with D, his mom and my brother just let it happen. Nobody said anything about it. When they left later on, I went and checked and the toilet seat was still a mess.Also, before they left for the night, my brother and D's mom were picking up the Legos D had been playing with. I told D that he should help because he made the mess. D just stood there and watched his mess get cleaned up by my brother and his mom, without so much as putting one piece away. Again, they did not say anything to him.On one hand, I want to step in and talk to him when he does something wrong like what I mentioned above. But on the other hand, I don't really know D or his mom very well, so I don't feel it is my place. It is something D's parents and my brother should be working on him with. I don't know if I'm just upset because he tried to take my son's ball (and possibly my phone; I never actually saw him with it) so I'm being oversensitive. That and the fact that I used to be a preschool teacher, I feel like I could just notice this type of behavior more, but I'm not sure. Is it my place to try to say something to him when he does something he likely knows he shouldn't do, or should I let it go because I won't be staying in the state for very long? I will be staying with my brother until the beginning of summer, so I know I will be seeing D and his mom quite a bit until then. What would you do?Thank you for reading. via /r/Parenting https://ift.tt/2TqdEjL
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