Dealing with a mischievous kid is never easy. This is especially true if it’s not your child and disciplining them may cause problems.

How would you react if someone else’s kid was not listening to your spouse?

In the following story, a man finds himself in this exact situation, and now he’s the one in trouble.

AITA for scolding my wife’s nephew in public?

We are on vacation, taking our kids to visit her nephews. The relevant parts are that there are 5 kids ranging in ages from 9 to 16.

The 12 year old (my wife’s nephew) is the one I “snapped at.”

I rented a large home so everyone could stay together. I had tried to redirect his negative behavior, but it kept getting worse and worse.

On the first day, he opened the car door while I was driving over 55mph. I laughed about it but joked that it shouldn’t happen and child locked the doors.

For some kids, bad attention is still attention.

On the second day, it was his constant complaining that we weren’t all doing the activities that he wanted to do – specifically that he wanted to play pickleball.

I tried to explain, as an adult and without anger, that we flew thousands of miles and planned this trip specifically to a national park to see this area.

We have a separate part of our vacation for games and hanging out like that.

He still pouted and complained, so I (and I think I’m about 80% the ****** for this) had all of us do an extra 1 mile hike for the day.

Side note: Everyone including him actually enjoyed that hike the most, but it was still wrong of me.

On the third day, we were all cleaning the house to leave. I heard him ask my son (9 y/o) if he wanted to go wait in the car.

My son told him, “Why? So you don’t have to help clean? That’s messed up.”

I did not say anything and just looked at the two.

A bit later, my wife asked him to help the other kids clean. He flat ignored her and stayed on his iPad.

Then, the boy really crossed the line.

Later that day, we all went to a lake. He was skipping stones. Eventually he ended up skipping them near people.

My wife told him to stop, that he needed to either stand on the other side of them or throw them in a different direction. He argued with her that he didn’t need to because he had good aim.

I interjected and told him “Your aunt asked you to. That should be good enough. Nobody wants rocks thrown near them.”

And he threw them in a different direction for about 10 minutes. Then he threw them right near the other people again.

So, I stopped him, and told him off in a loud voice.

Basically I told him “Your aunt told you not to do something and you did it anyways? Why is that? Do you think it’s funny? Do you like me yelling at you in front of everyone? Would you like me to force you to go up to that couple and apologize? Do you think people want random rocks thrown near them? Get it together.”

More or less.

Here’s where everyone stands now.

My wife thinks I’m way in the wrong because in her opinion, it’s not my place to discipline her cousin’s kid.

In my opinion, I’m the aggrieved because I informed my wife’s cousin (the child’s mother) of all these events after they happened and she did nothing to prevent the escalation.

I think this might be a cultural issue as well, as to me, it seems quite normal for any family member to discipline a child.

AITA?

Both sides have strong opinions.

Let’s see what the folks over at Reddit had to say about this story.

This person finds his behavior very concerning.

Very valid point!

This person lays it all out, and is not wrong.

Here’s someone who just sees him as a brat.

Someone needed to stop his behavior!

Not only could someone have gotten injured, but he’s setting a bad example for the smaller kids.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a daughter who invited herself to her parents’ 40th anniversary vacation for all the wrong reasons.