I don’t know if you guys are Christian or not, but when I had my daughter I was a single mother. I just got knocked drugs, and wanted a better life for my child. The church that I was going to have the time had a class called growing kids gods way. It was the best class I’ve ever taken in regards to raising children. One of the things that they had and there were choices and consequences. He would set up boundaries and choices in advance, at the right age you can even ask your children what the consequences should be for their actions. Generally children will choose how much harsher consequence than a parent will, and you can work with them through that. Once we had this system in place, I rarely had to hold my daughter accountable for her actions, or apply a consequence. She was very smart and she understood how the system worked. It was a joy and a pleasure raising my daughter, because using this system there were no punishments. There is no such thing as punishment. It was basically a consequence for choice that was being made. Being a mother was my biggest pleasure, and I hope that your brother and wife can come up with something like this. At the very least, you can, with your nephew, when he’s in your presence or visiting or having sleepovers. I can’t explain to you that having the burden lifted of disciplining, and punishment, off of our shoulders, how different parenting can be. It also teaches the valuable lesson of doing the right thing, because it’s the right thing to do. More people in the world should hold true to that that virtue, and if they did we wouldn’t be going through what we are right now in America. God bless you and have a great day!