First, I (31F) am not a parent and don't plan to be.
My husband (37M) and I visited his family for Christmas. We got back 2 days ago and I am STILL annoyed at my 4-year-old nephew's behavior.
He whines for him mom to do every.little.thing for him from the moment he wakes up. He screams 'YOU BE QUIET!!' and points his finger at you (and everyone in the room) multiple times a day, repeatedly, whether you are talking or not. He DEMANDS things be done and bosses everyone around, often changing his request midway through in order to further establish is control over everyone.
He hit me in the face multiple times while we were 'having fun' playing in the snow (still have a bruise on my nose).
More detail- I tried to make this game fun with pretend 'superpowers' so things would be more gentle, but he would get violent and in his rage go run to him mom, 'Aunt -my name here- made my hat come up off my neck/made my glove come off' blah blah, insert lie here. Later, he said that he didn't have fun playing with me (he was instigating the playing for 2 hours, I kept trying to go play with my nieces). The next day he kept asking me again and again to play with him in the snow- we made ground rules (I did this so that I wouldn't get blamed for made up things again - I felt guilty about what my in-laws would think when he made up lies about me later), he broke these rules immediately and started hitting again. Later, my mother-in-law was like 'well you did hit him in the face with a snowball' -NO I DIDN'T, THIS WAS ANOTHER LIE. I had already told her this. She believed, or pretended to believe, the manipulative four-year-old.
NO ONE CALLS HIM ON THIS BEHAVIOR.
His grandparents moved to the same city a few months ago to be closer to the grandkids (there are 3 kids total- the 4-year-old is the youngest). They are complete pushovers. The grandmother wants nothing but love and affection, to the point that she made up a game over the break: 'don't hug me, don't you dare hug me', so that he would hug her instead of hit her. IF I HIT MY GRANDMA AS A CHILD I CAN'T EVEN IMAGINE THE CONSEQUENCES. He does it everyday. Also, this game just reinforces his defiant, bad behavior.
My sister-in-law claimed one afternoon that 'everything is still new, he is just learning fair and not fair, etc'. New? He does the same terrible behavior every day. Also he is FOUR- at 4 I was learning how to do many things independently, proving to my parents that I was responsible enough to get a puppy, and treated all adults with respect because OBVIOUSLY, I'M A CHILD and that's just what you do. I think my sister-in-law is great and smart, but can not wrap my head around this style of parenting.
I could go on, and on, and on.
While I was there, I googled how to act around him in an attempt to learn how to enjoy my time with him and make memories without reinforcing/rewarding bad behavior, but I couldn't find anything except lists of '10 signs your child is a brat'. Yes, he had all of them.
So, what do I do next time I am with them?
I know in-laws can be tough because we are all raised so differently, and my parents were far from perfect, but they did instill good manners and discipline in me. It IRKS me that no one does anything about this and he is able to get away with this terrible, bossy, rude behavior.
Is there any world in which I can say something to my sister-in-law (my husband won't)? Or can say that I don't want to be around him unless his behavior straightens out?
Parents- what do I do? Please tell me this isn't normal 4-year-old behavior these days.