5 year old nephew

[Lkg4dmcrc]

We spent last weekend with our 5 year old nephew and family and I am concerned about some of his behaviors. He was a complete bully to our son (3 months younger than him). He would take his toys aggressively and then when my son would cry - he would say things like "why are you such a cry baby?" He would hit our son or push him. He even pushed me when I tried to play piano with the two kids. He was nice to our younger son though.

Our nephew has some "quirks". He says weird words. He said to our son in a somewhat aggressive tone "answer me, goshbaluvadunamit." And several other times he used long strung out words that made no sense. He has very bizarre body movements. His parents say he is dancing but it is over the top aggressive dancing with jerky body movements.

He would hug his mom but would not hug our son.

His parents seem clueless about his bully behavior (would hug and kiss him after he hit our son). He is very active and would put himself in very dangerous situations yet his parents often did not notice (or did nothing to stop him).

I am not sure if he has something going on or he is just really inappropriate all the time. I really don't want to be around him or let my kids around him.

Any thoughts?

[RiverTam]

If you're not comfortable having your kids around him, keep your kids away from him.

If you think something is going on with him, and it's a family member's child, please suggest in a very gentle way to his parents that he have an evaluation.

When my son was having a speech problem, I saw the problem, but thought I was crazy and worried too much, because my husband said "no way," and no one else in my family was willing to say anything. My brother later said "I was getting worried about that." I wish he'd said something, because I thought I was nuts.

[fairejour]

Sounds like he is just a rude kid. It happens. Nothing seems "off" about what you said.

[cchrissyy]

I agree, he sounds rude but not delayed

[elmh23]

I agree with the pp's. He sounds like a "normal" but rude and un-parented child.

[ericswifey27]

Maybe it is just parenting, I suppose that's always a possibility. I however, am very sensitive to challenging behaviors automatically being explained away by faulty parenting. Honestly I would caution against deeming a child "rude" after hearing just a 50 word snippet about him... I am sure there is more to the story. To me red flags were his hyperactivity, his need to be "moving agressively"- that could be sensory issues. the made up words... you may be on to something. And this may be a stretch but is it possible that your nephew didn't actually understand why your child was crying or upset when he took the toy? Maybe he has impaired social skills? (This reminds me of my son when he was 5 1/2 (who has mild autism) flinging sand up in the air in to his nephew's face, and the look of surprise he had when his cousin started crying and was upset/hurt. To us it was obvious flinging sand in someone's face would not be a happy event, to him it really was not.)

OP since you obviously have concerns about his behavior I would urge you to say something. Like a pp said, we WANT to know. I had suspicions very early on, and everyone around us was saying, oh, boys will be boys, my kid didn't do that too, maybe he's overtired, maybe you need to discipline him more (we tried it all) etc... until he was being evaluated for Autism... then they all came out of the woodworks with things they thought were "off" in the past. Seriously, if you have any worries at all, share- as long as you can do it without judgement and from a place of concern and support. Then you can say you did your part and what mom decides to do with your assessment of the situation is up to her, ykwim?