How can I (29F) support my brother (36M) who has a horrible child (10M) that’s ruining his life?

A Reddit user is struggling with how to support her brother, whose 10-year-old son exhibits disturbingly cruel and dangerous behavior. From harming his younger sister to poisoning food, setting fires, and manipulating child welfare services, the boy has made life unbearable for his parents. His teachers see a well-behaved student, while his family lives in fear.

The Redditor has banned him from seeing her infant daughter for safety reasons, further isolating her brother and sister-in-law. Now, she’s left wondering—how do you help parents trapped in a nightmare with no way out? Read the original story below…

‘ How can I (29F) support my brother (36M) who has a horrible child (10M) that’s ruining his life?’

Me, 29F. My husband, 29M. Our daughter is 5 months old. My brother 36M. His wife 34F. Their kids, 10M in the title, and 6F. A few months ago my brother and his family came to visit us. It had been a very busy and exhausting few weeks since I’d had my daughter like anyone with a newborn will know. I was feeling well enough to see them and let them properly meet her.

We were in the backyard eating lunch. My niece found a f**ry brown caterpillar in the bushes. The kids were told not to touch it because it could be poisonous. Around 20-30 mins later, my daughter starts screaming. Right as I looked and started going over to her I see my nephew stepping away from her bounce seat. I instantly knew he’d done something.

There were red blotches all over her neck and cheek. When I picked her up, the caterpillar was there on the seat where her head had been. In total panic my husband and I rushed to the ER. My brother and his family stayed at the house. By the time we got there the whole side of her face had swelled up and she was shrieking nonstop.

Doctor diagnosed pretty quickly, there were caterpillar spines lodged under her skin like we’d assumed. My nephew must have broken off the twig with the caterpillar (he hadn’t been stung) then as soon as no one was looking while my daughter was asleep, he rubbed it on her face.

I called my brother from the hospital, he confronted my nephew who eventually claimed he just “accidentally dropped it”. He had no remorse as usual. My husband and I had to be interviewed by a child welfare worker. She talked to my brother who drove over to explain what had happened.

It was a very long ordeal, I didn’t blame her or the hospital people for doing their job at all and in the end my husband and I weren’t at fault for doing anything wrong, but it was very exhausting to deal with. This was the absolute last straw for us. I was furious with this child. Enraged doesn’t even begin to describe it. I was/am also frankly terrified for my brother’s family even though I know how stupid that must sound.

That weekend my husband and I had a long conversation with my brother and his wife on videochat after they’d gotten home. They are well aware something is very wrong with their son. They don’t downplay his behavior at all. He scares them. When they punish him, he doesn’t care. He doesn’t react to any criticism, yelling, or logical argument, but he’ll find a way to get revenge even if it’s weeks later.

He also doesn’t care about rewards for good behavior. There’s very little he openly cares about that they can use as leverage, and he seems to outright prefer doing destructive things more than anything they might take away or try to bribe him with. He’s arranged tacks sitting upright on the floor outside their door that my brother’s wife stepped on.

He’s pooped on their bed and once left poop and urine in every drawer of their clothes. He floods the bathroom by letting the tub overflow and leaves the gas stove on. He’ll use the stove to play with fire when no one’s around, and several times has set off the smoke detector in the middle of the night.

They were all getting sick except him at one point and my SIL caught him mixing cleaner fluid into some leftover soup. He has done countless things to hurt and scare his younger sister like cutting off her hair while sleeping, putting chili pepper powder in her underwear, telling her someone is coming to kidnap her or kill their parents, and once caught a garden snake that he dropped in the tub while she was having a bubble bath.

Those are just the ones that first jump to mind. He also is cruel to animals. Pulls wings off insects, cuts up worms, thinks it’s funny to scare cats and dogs. They had a couple hamsters, one mysteriously died and the other they thought had escaped until it was found in a box under his bed with no legs.

He tries to blame things he does on his sister including the caterpillar but my brother knows what’s going on. Doesn’t stop him from constantly lying to anyone and everyone. They do not know what to do. He’s apparently very well-behaved at school, so his teachers have never seen any of this.

There have been a couple times when he injured himself on purpose and then told a teacher he was being hit at home. Resulted in a CPS investigation both times. It was also conveniently right before parent-teacher conference week. My brother and his wife were never able to bring up their concerns or have a good rapport with those teachers then because they clearly believed they were child abusers.

They’ve brought him to several child psychologists but he lies to them, either acting perfectly normal or telling them the same stories about how his parents are crazy or abusive, so they can’t take him to anyone now in case they get investigated again. They’re terrified that one day an accusation is going to stick and they’ll lose their daughter, not to mention the legal consequences.

I told them that as long as their son is hurting people, lying, and incapable of behaving, he cannot be in my daughter’s presence. They have abided by this since then.
The problem is, we miss seeing each other! They live a couple hours away and we used to visit a few times a year. They’re already socially isolated because trying to manage their son takes so much of their time and energy.

My SIL’s family has also banned him from being around their children. He’s been banned from other kids’ houses and between that and the rumors that my brother and SIL are abusive, they’ve been slowly frozen out of their school community. They have a few childless friends still, but like I said they hardly have any ability to see them.

They can’t leave the kids with a babysitter because of things their son has done while being babysat in the past. It’s beyond any stranger’s ability to deal with especially the teenage girls they used to hire. So now my husband and I have essentially cut them off too. I feel so guilty about this knowing how little social support they’ve already got.

They both understood we have to protect our daughter, but it was clear they’re near a breaking point. He’s destroying their lives and they often don’t feel safe in their own home. I’ve seen them once since this went down while my husband stayed home with our baby, this was a couple nights ago.

We ate dinner where their son was remarkably well behaved the whole time, then when we were saying goodbye he whispered “I wish you’d brought (Baby), her screams are adorable.” I was too stunned to say anything and he just stood there with a s**t eating smirk.

My brother sounded totally defeated later when I mentioned it. They were just relieved he hadn’t acted out during dinner. What on earth can we do to help? Has anyone ever known a kid like this and did you ever find any way to deal with them? This seems far beyond normal behavior problems, and nothing works.

Check out how the community responded:

[Reddit User] −  They need a psychologist that specializes in juvenile psychopathy. The next time the boy torments his sister, the parents should call CPS themselves and ask for help. This is a case where they need to be proactive and establish a track record of looking out for the little girl. This is extremely serious.

These parents could lose their daughter if the boy becomes a convincing enough liar or if they can’t protect the girl from him. The kind of person who dismembers a hamster and keeps it under the bed is the kind of person who will s**ually abuse his sister just to see what happens.

This boy is the reason that residential care exists. He sounds like some of the kids I worked with. If the threat of being sent away isn’t enough incentive to behave, the parents need to lay the groundwork to send him to care or send their daughter to live with OP.

Meows_Attack −  If this were me, I would consider making police reports, look into psychiatric hospitalization and therapeutic boarding schools. This kid needs to be very very intensely monitored. His parents also need a paper trail of their actions seeking out appropriate supports to avoid their other child being removed from their care if (or when) the next horrible thing happens.

They should consider contacting CPS/social services to ask for support — once the OTHER child is established in therapy to have a neutral therapist hearing about the sister’s stories and witnessing the sister getting appropriate support from mom and dad.

[Reddit User] −  Your brother needs to have active **hidden** cameras in the house. He cant tell the kid about them and he needs at least 3-5 incidents on camera **without confronting the kid with evidence**. After each incident he needs to document it in a journal or online file and call CPS.

CPS should then be informed that video proof exists but should not be revealed to the kid or else he will change his behavior and the sister will be in more danger. The kid should never know those cameras exist until after he has fucked up enough times for CPS to take him away as a danger to his sister and parents.

Barnabas-of-Norwood −  Ask them to keep interviewing child psychologists until something sticks. This is known behavior. Eventually they will diagnose and treat him properly.

bexallday −  I’m was a social worker in the mental health field, and honestly, if I were the parents, I’d very seriously consider inpatient psychiatric treatment.

shellshell21 −  I taught emotionally disturbed children for just over 10 years. I have seen my fair share of disturbing behavior. The behavior that concerns me most but also gives me some hope that he can be helped is that he doesn’t display those behaviors everywhere. He is able to control when and where he acts up and with whom he acts up.

He knows perfectly well the behavior that is expected but chooses not to behave as he should with his family. This is extremely manipulative behavior for a 10 year old, because these behaviors are so extreme most adults will think you brother and his wife are exaggerating what is going on.

He acts normally in school and with other adults in authority, typically children cannot separate their behaviors and the maladaptive behaviors will leak into the areas where they hadn’t been previously. Your brother and his wife need to video document everything they can.

Two reasons for this is to show professionals and to protect themselves from false accusations. They need to show that they are doing everything they can to protect their daughter. The worst part of all of it is that there aren’t a lot of places that offer the services he needs.

They can be very expensive, not covered by insurance, have age minimums or wait lists. Your brother and his wife also recognize that there is a problem, many parents prefer to think there is nothing wrong. Do the best you can to support them, they really need all they can get.

jeepsandairplanes −  I have a family member (my mom) who has a major in child development and this is definitely not normal for a child this age. Have they tried getting video of what he is doing. If not set up some hidden cameras so they have proof of what he’s doing and that they aren’t abusing him.

Get pictures and dates and record everything he’s done. If they haven’t done this yet maybe approach a child specialist and CPS and tell them this without their child being there to influence them and ask for some advice on what to do or how to get evidence and protect other children.

[Reddit User] −  I apologize if someone else has already suggested this, but you should ask your brother and wife if they’re comfortable with YOU calling CPS for them. Every call that comes in will be meticulously recorded and saved in a file associated with that family, so if ANYTHING happens down the road, the social workers will have your call on file.

It could help to corroborate their future version of events if their son ever tries to accuse them of abuse again; they’ll have it on file that a concerned family member has already reached out about the child’s behaviour and the family’s inability to cope. Understandable if you or your brother don’t want to go this route, since I know not everyone is super trusting of the CPS system.

Megz2k −  They need to start calling the police when he pulls this crazy s**t. That way there’s an official documented paper trail that it’s not the parents who are doing bad s**t to him. This could hopefully give some leverage to force him to get help in inpatient treatment.

When a child’s behavior goes beyond mischief into something truly dangerous, what can parents do? Is there a way to save both the child and the family, or are some situations beyond repair? Share your thoughts.