When a child needs to be taken away from their parents, they will usually be placed with family if possible, to maintain important family bonds and ensure that the child is loved and cared for in a familiar situation.

Sometimes this can be a little awkward at first, but it usually works out for the best.

And the couple in this story were more than happy to take custody of their niece, as other family members took on her siblings.

But what they hadn’t anticipated was a constant battle around rules and boundaries – not just with their niece, but with other family members too.

Read on to find out how all this extra tension caused problems in the wider family.

AITA when temporary custody of my niece turned into a family fight?

My partner’s sister has been on and off substances (we were not aware of the severity of her use) and recently, the family came together and asked if we could take temporary care of the kids.

The grandmother felt that each adult family should take one of the kids to help spread the weight – the kids were okay with this.

The grandmother specifically asked my partner and I take the 13 year old girl (I’ll call her Josie).

That was fine with us.

Let’s see how this arrangement was working out.

Around three months in, Josie was doing okay at our house. However my partner and I were struggling with what kind of rules or boundaries we needed to set.

One of those was her time to be home.

We were playing this by ear, but had run into her coming home past curfew on school nights, and not telling us about staying somewhere.

We had a conversation with Josie and set the rules, which we agreed we would work on as needed. Her curfew was set as 7pm.

But all did not go so well with this curfew.

We ended up with her missing curfew and bringing home bad grades, which resulted in her being grounded with no phone, an being home all day after school for a week.

This just so happened to land over the county fair.

Two days into her grounding we went soft and let her go with her aunt and uncle to the county fair (I’ll call them Beth and Jason).

Beth and Jason have custody of Josie’s older sister, so they are a part of this child sharing arrangement too.

Read on to find out why this day out became problematic.

They took her to the fair and spent all night out, not even hanging out with her. Instead, they let her run around with her boyfriend.

Two days later they wanted to take her back to the fair, and we let her go. It’s hard to say no to her visiting family.

At the end of the week she officially got ungrounded. About two weeks went by and then she was late again. She waited around thirty minutes past curfew to get in touch with with us, after turning her location off.

Her excuse was that her ride back to us bailed, so it took longer walking back.

And this became a pattern of behavior.

The next day she was late again. I (her aunt) called her five minutes after curfew – she hung up on me and sent a text saying she was with Jason and Beth.

I let her know that I didn’t care where she was, I was coming to get her because she was late again.

She understood and I was on my way to pick her up, and Jason text me to say that she was at their house and they would bring her home after a movie.

I let him know that it was the second day in a row she was late so I was coming to get her.

But Jason wouldn’t take no for an answer.

He said that they had it planned for a while, and he would bring her home after.

Again I said no, she broke the rules – we were nice twice when she was grounded last time and let you guys have her, but now she isn’t taking her rules seriously.

I drove to Jason’s his house and called Josie to let her know I was there. But Jason took her phone and hung up on me, then sent a text saying she wasn’t coming out.

So I went and knocked on the door. They did not let me in and told me to leave, to which I eventually did. This caused a big family fight and I am being accused of going on a power trip. Was that a power trip?

AITA?

If each child is going to a different family to get a good upbringing, this means that each child will have to follow a different set of rules, as deemed appropriate by that family.

For Josie, this meant that she had to be home by 7pm – and as another adult in this arrangement, Jason should have been upholding this.

His immature behavior has not only undermined Josie’s caregiver, it has also created a rift on the family, which he has deflected elsewhere.

Let’s see what the Reddit community thought about this.

This person agreed that Jason and Beth were being totally inappropriate.

While others questioned whether Josie should just go and live with them.

Meanwhile, this Redditor warned that Josie’s behavior needed to be reined in immediately.

It’s hard to blame this aunt and uncle, who are doing their best in a bad situation. They didn’t expect to become the caregivers of a teen at the drop of a hat, and are trying to figure it out.

But it would be a lot easier to figure things out if Beth and Jason weren’t undermining them at every turn.

If they are going to take care of Josie, their rules need to be respected – by the other adults, as much as by the teen.

They’re doing their best here.

If you thought that was an interesting story, check out what happened when a family gave their in-laws a free place to stay in exchange for babysitting, but things changed when they don’t hold up their end of the bargain.