An hour???? Sure maybe for 10 or 15 minutes for a time out and stay in there with the kid to make sure they don’t get into anything dangerous. But an hour alone??? You cared more about your own peace than your nephews safety in that moment. I’m absolutely appalled at the amount of people in these comments that think this was okay or not extreme enough. I think you just truly don’t know enough about kids to be left responsible with them, and that’s okay. But it really feels like common sense to not lock a tantrum throwing 6 year old alone in the bathroom for an hour… At the end of the day you are not the parent. The mom should have come back to get the kid, no exceptions. But I would not expect to have much of a relationship with your nephew going forward. That absolutely was abandonment trauma and I wouldn’t expect him to ever like you or trust you. The child is a child. Unfortunately without proper discipline and boundaries from the parents kids will become monsters. You and your sister are the adults in this situation responsible for the child’s well being and you both failed him.

Sounds like your sister is more of an AH for not properly raising their child. Definitely should be at least a few years before you offer to help with them again because this is the classic case of a parent letting their kid run wild hoping they can run down the clock until “school will teach them to behave better” but then whenever the school tries to punish the kid that parent gets mad because even they aren’t used to their child being punished and it all just “seems so extreme”. I can confidently say that I dont think I would use a bathroom but I would lock a kid away in a bedroom or something if they were genuinely in danger of hurting my dog and not listening to anything I say. I am not a parent though haha. But I remember the “go to this room and you’re not allowed to come out until I say so” from my parents as a kid. It was called a time out. It wasn’t traumatizing. You didnt hit or harm them in any way. Parents these days just don’t discipline their kid in any way most of the time. Its how this particular child became such a little shit

NTA but definitely not safe locking him in the bathroom. I am a mother and no way would I lock up my kid or any kid in the bathroom. There are a million things that could go wrong and you would have been arrested.

I read duct tape in the comments. LOL that does seem like a good idea. At least he would be sitting quietly and you can watch him.

1. Did your sister ever give you a heads up about his behavior?

2. Is this your first time watching him?

3. Did you try saying No if you are not comfortable with ANY kids?

4. I hope you took a picture/ video of the kid as proof to show it to everyone.

Also, I would reach out to your sister after a few days and tell her exactly what happened. Apologize to her for locking up her kid in the bathroom but tell her that his behavior was intolerable and maybe he needs a disciplined upbringing. But definitely apologize so she doesn’t report you or file a complaint against you.

You made a mistake, even good people can do that, so I’m going to go with NTA.

Never lock a kid in the bathroom. The kitchen and bathroom are where most serious accidents in the home occur, so, not good. That was a mistake. Learn and grow.

Your sister is totally an AH. Who doesn’t keep an eye out for messages/calls from the sitter when they leave them somewhere? What is he got seriously hurt acting like that and had to go get stitches or something?

It’s pretty clear why the kid was acting out: he has parents that don’t care about him. He acts out when he wants something to get attention, because that’s probably the only time the parents pay him any mind at all, and even then only long enough to placate him, so that they can continue doing what they want and continue pretending they’re the perfect parent. I hate people that have “trophy kids/pets.”

Next time use duct tape to secure him to the wall or a chair. That way you can keep an eye on him to make sure he doesn’t get hurt. You can use a dirty sock for a gag to keep down the screaming, but be sure to hydrate the child once in a while. Not too much, you don’t want to have to turn him loose for bathroom breaks, but he does need a little hydration.

/s

ESH. Seriously. You locked a chaos gremlin in a room with glass and razor blades and thought that was a good idea? Your sister needs to never allow you to babysit again, you need to learn to deal with kids or have a vasectomy.

I think the kid doesn’t respond well to sugar. Everything went off the rails after the juice. 

Honestly, I think you made a better choice than taking him outside. If he had some kind of a reaction to something in the juice – like the way kids used to go all ADHD because of red food dye – you could’ve been dealing with a kid running away on you and into traffic. 

It might not have been the optimal way to deal with a child, but containing him in a room where he couldn’t cause more damage or hurt your dog or get bitten or hurt himself was probably the way to go.

The kid is definitely an asshole kid. There’s probably a long explanation why he behaved so poorly. It’s also interesting that the mom didn’t answer her phone. If my mom left me with someone, she’d be watching her phone like a hawk.

That said, you made a really bad decision. The kid could have done something really dumb while locked in the bathroom alone. Imagine if he found some pills? Or something sharp? Or some cleaning supplies under the sink? Or whatever … it would have been much smarter to put him in the bathroom and sit in there with him.

You have him a time out. If your sister had ever even one time in this child’s life attempted to say no or discipline him in any way, maybe he would not have terrorized you and your dog and he wouldn’t have trashed your house. You did not harm this child. You gave him a consequence. He has zero experience with consequences. That’s in your sister.
Send her a bill for your services and the damage he caused and never allow her or her demon spawn into your home again.

YTA and I can’t believe it’s even a question in your mind. Regardless of his behavior, regardless of her parenting, the child was in your care. You can’t lock a child up anywhere for an hour. You are incredibly lucky nothing bad happened.

This is the type of caregiving that would earn you a visit by CPS if you were regularly in charge of him. Abusive people do generally tend to blame their victims’ behavior for their actions.

Brilliant. Now you don’t have to watch the little monster anymore!!

Seriously, what a terror. He wasn’t traumatized. He was in a bathroom. He’s just pissed that he couldn’t have his own way.

But this really is an excellent reason to claim you aren’t suitable to watch the brat ever again. Who cares what your family thinks? Now they won’t reach out to ask you to babysit either. SCORE!!

My DIL would take her out of control nephew and wrap him up using her arms and legs to restrain him. She sat on the floor with him rocking and speaking in a low, soothing voice while he raged and screamed, trying unsuccessfully to break free. Eventually, he would calm down. I always thought that worked great. Perhaps surprisingly, she was his favorite aunt.

The kid came to your house traumatized. You may have added to it by locking him in the bathroom. But to be fair, if I was in your place I might have done the same.

Next time your sister says you traumatized her son, tell her that he came to your house life that and you undid some of the trauma.

Then end the conversation with “you’re welcome!”

I wouldn’t go as far as to say you are an asshole… but probably made a poor decision. Your sister is also being extremely overdramatic… he isn’t traumatized. She needs to raise her children to be better behaved, especially at other people’s houses… she holds some responsibility for what happened because she raised this demon-child.

I mean it sounds like you did the best you could in the situation, you probably should have checked on them after like 20 mins but as long as you didn’t have anything dangerous in the bathroom I dont see the harm. Sure maybe the kid is a little shook up because of that time alone but surely they learned that you mean business.

Yeah, that can be traumatizing for a kid. I get that. But also, and I’m genuinely asking anyone who may be able to shed some light on this, what on Earth are you supposed to do in a situation like this? You have an out of control child who is destroying your belongings and an unreachable parent. What do you do?

YTA- separate the dog from him so he cant hurt the dog- put him in a supervised time out- not lock him in a bathroom for an hour. He is very young and could have been seriously injured and I wouldnt doubt if it was traumatizing. Why was he acting out so much? 

Well, yeah, you’re both in the wrong. But, the good news is that she’ll never ask you again. You were definitely not the adult in the situation. And I feel for the child, as clearly he needs better help learning to navigate the world. That’s not on you.

Assholes everywhere! Kid sounds like a little shit, and the mom shouldn’t be ignoring her phone… but jeeez, locking a six year old in a bathroom got an hour? You’re lucky you didn’t have an accidental death on your hands…

ESH

Locking a child in somewhere for an hour is never okay. But also, the real asshole are your sister and her child’s father because they need to raise him to be better. Simply decline any babysitting requests henceforth.

Nta, there is absolutely no way your sister didn’t know this is how her son acts. She failed to give you any information on what to do when if this happened and then blamed you when you used your only solution at the time

NAH, these people don’t teach their kid how to behave, and that’s YOUR problem?
6yo is big enough to watch tv/play games until that person picks them up. Throwing stuff at a dog? GTFO!

An hour is far too long. It probably felt like a week to him bc kids that little don’t have any concept of time. I’d be pretty furious too if I were your sister. YTA

Six is too old for that type of behaviour.

An hour shut in a bathroom isn’t going to traumatise anyone.

Your sister is enabling this horrific brat.

Was it really juice or a juice type drink you gave him? Sounds as though something triggered the wild actions. Sugar or artificial colour?

NTA. You wouldn’t have had to lock him in the bathroom if your sister had only answered your call. She knows the monster she is raising.

ESH that was a bad choice for you to put him in there and a bad choice for sister to leave you unprepared. You should have called sister.

NTA. What a little feral shitty kid. Your sister might never allow you to watch him again. Good. Problem solved.

If you needed to contain him in one room you should’ve been in there with him. Locking him in by himself was cruel.

NTA Sounds like the kid received a valuable lesson about their behaviour that their parents never taught them.

Says more about her parenting than your method of handling him when asked to babysit.

If this isn’t fake, then absolutely YTA. Don’t put kids in that position again.

NTA …. You have successfully made sure you are no longer on the babysitter list

Charge sister for the damage and the vet visit to make sure your dog is ok!

So you just happen to have a bathroom that locks from the outside? Right.

If this is real, yeah YTA and please don’t watch kids in the future.

Well if you will not discipline your child, others will.

Nta. Pretty clear she dosent handle him, so you had to.

I mean… well… that’s one way to do it.