My nephew is awful to be around.

Hi,

My 7 year old nephew is like some kind of criminal and is nasty to be around. What I mean by that is that everytime he comes over to my house, he......:

1) Tears up my belongings on purpose and gloats about it. With the way he acts about it, it appears to give him feelings of being powerful and big by damaging my stuff. Yet he denies tearing up anything of mine to his parents to get away with what he did.

2) Whenever someone gives him a gift, say for his birthday or for Christmas, he always says he does not like the gift, when in fact, it is a relatively nice and generous present. He seems to relish telling relatives the gifts aren't any good.

3) Never says anything nice to anyone, and calls me and others hopeless, losers, asks if we are stupid, says we are "funny" people, and generally talks to us as if we are peons. In addition, he talks about how fun it is to "take people down." I'm not entirely sure what he might mean by that.

4) Does not listen to anyone. If you tell him to do something, he will do the exact opposite and will give you a malicious grin.

5) Steals from my house. Many small items like change and money go missing everytime he comes, but he always denies taking anything.

6) Sometimes grabs things out of your hand suddenly without asking if he could use it or not. Then brags about how he was able to grab it from you so quickly.

7) Last time I was around him at my grandparent's home, he actively ignored me. Going to the other room when I showed up and then coming out of that room when I was ready to leave.

My brother-in-law, who is the father of my nephew can be very rude as well, but I haven't known him to have ever directly stolen anything of mine. But I suspect he has vandalized property. The stove handle was strangely pulled off and thrown on to floor when that has never happened after he showed up at my place. In addition, my Xbox 360 stopped working when my nephew used it months ago, then it worked again when he showed up to play it again. In my nephew's hand was a rubber Xbox 360 key chain with a pin stuck through it. He said his father got it for him, and then my nephew preceded to call me a sucker. I suspect that my nephew had been coached on how to disable my Xbox 360. I am sure my brother-in-law taught him how to do it as symbolized by the rubber toy. My nephew managed to find my password for my online gaming account without my knowledge, and him and my brother-in-law had unauthorized access to the account using it for free while I was paying for it without me knowing it. I had to call the company and change the security parameters months after they started using it, as I didn't find out it was being used by them for months. So I believe my brother-in-law uses my nephew as some kind of pawn to do malicious acts against me. Why? I have no idea. What's even more startling is even the games and T-shirts my brother-in-law purchases for my nephew to bring over to my house convey offensive messages to my opinions and beliefs.

He has been on the sex offender registry for years for a felony against his stepdaughter. Now his bio child acts like some kind of delinqient. Could someone offer me some insights on why someone would do all of this and use their child as some kind of pawn? I posted on another forum, and they told me my brother-in-law and nephew are possibly sociopaths. Do you think this is the case?

From what I remember, a 7 year old can't be diagnosed as a sociopath. Don't get me wrong, he might be and he is at the VERY least, troubled.

But bad kids are simply bad kids, My cousin was quite a little terror when he was younger. He had ADHD, he'd lie on me, cussed at me once (when he was like 5) one time he flat out sucker punched me as hard as we could when me and my other cousins were playing mtv music generator on playstation.

He even taunted me on a car accident once, saying how funny it was I almost died. He also taunted my other cousin about him losing his house and having to live with me (His parents lost it as part of their drug addiction) HOWEVER, I believe the latter was because of medication, talk to him now and you couldn't tell he's the nicest 17 year old you could meet. His mother wasn't the problem either, she was nice. Just he was really hyperactive.

Don't get me wrong, your nephew needs therapy in my opinion, such acts aren't to be tolerated. But it brings up the questions, where's his mom at? Why do you keep him over your house often enough for this to be a chronic problem? Have you tried convincing the mom to leave this guy? I know sometimes its hard to get our loved ones to leave a person like this if not impossible, but getting on the sex offender registry for a felony against your step daughter is never signs of a happy relationship..

For all you know, he might not be putting his son up to this but might be abusing him (Which if he was teaching him this behavior its abuse anyway.) As far as the why? I don't think you should bother finding a reason, the father behavior bothers you and its wrong. Without knowing what a person goes through, you'll never know the reason--Just know the justification-- that there is none.

That sounds like my nephew, precisely. He is now 8.

Not sure where he picked this type of bragging and egocentric personality, as my mom says neither I nor my brother were like this. My sister-in-law, his mother, is also a very arrogant and egoistic individual. Perhaps he read from her behavior that it is " right" to constantly put other people down. My sister in law will pass by me, in my parent's court yard, without saying hi or acknowledging my presence, while I never did or say anything wrong to her. My parents still pay her much more respects than they do to me, for some mysterious reason. She actually displays and demonstrates aggression, dictatorship and control.

I'll give you a few examples of my nephews' behavior ( I have 2 nephews, 6 and 8 ) :

- he tells me I am a witch and hence still single
- he tells me something is wrong with me cause im unmarried and without kids
- he asks me how many bf i had ? i get stunned at the question, after which he replies " my mom says she had 10 before she married my dad"
- will come to my place : toss, break things, jump around like a monkey on ecstasy, will jump around my moms house and will always ignore when we tell him to stop and behave decently
- they never greet adults and don't have any manners

etc etc

what i find totally crazy is that their parents will not approve when you criticize their kids' behavior, while it is OK when they criticize them ( no one can criticize my kids but me)

Girl you got to put your foot down, I wouldn't let that brat pull that $#%^ in my house. I'd send him flying out the window head first.

I wouldn't let him in your house thats for sure. Don't be afraid to speak bluntly to that monster, he doesn't.