So yeah. Like the title says, I locked my 6-year-old nephew in my bathroom for an hour, and my sister is furious and says I traumatized him.

Last weekend my (28M) sister (26F) asked me to watch her son, Ryan, for a few hours while she ran errands. I agreed, even though I’m not super comfortable around kids. But it was just a few hours, and I figured we’d survive.

At first, everything was fine. We watched a movie, he had some juice, and I thought we were in the clear. But after about 30 or 40 minutes, he started getting more and more… wild.

Like, full-on chaos mode. He ran around my living room knocking things over, dumped a bowl of popcorn on the floor, started throwing couch pillows. I told him to stop, tried offering him different things to do, but he ignored me.

He then snuck into my bedroom, went through drawers, found a Sharpie, and started drawing on the walls. When I tried to take it away, he tried to kick me. I called my sister but she didn’t pick up.

It escalated fast. He chased my old dog into a corner and yanked her tail. She snapped at him, not hard but enough to scare him. He screamed like she mauled him and then threw a mug at her. That was it for me. I couldn’t handle it anymore and I didn’t feel safe leaving him loose in the house.

So I put him in the bathroom. I told him to sit in there and take a break until he could calm down. Then I locked the door from the outside.

I sat outside the door for a while, talking to him every few minutes. At first he screamed, then started crying, then got quiet. After a while I went to go clean up the mess in my bedroom and check on the dog. I figured it’d be fine he wasn’t in danger, just contained. I guess that’s where I might be the asshole. I ended up leaving him in there for closer to an hour.

When my sister finally came to pick him up, he ran out crying and told her I locked him in the bathroom. She lost it. Said I was abusive, said I traumatized him, and now she won’t speak to me. She’s telling everyone in the family I “locked up her child” like I shoved him in a closet or something. A few relatives are on my side, others say I went too far.

I didn’t scream at him. I didn’t hit him. I didn’t scare him. I just didn’t know what else to do in that moment, and I wasn’t about to let him break more of my stuff or hurt my dog.

So… AITA?