cat mean to kid

Question
My cat Luv , is usually a very nice loving cat.  My live-in boyfriend and I have had her for a little over a year and she is around a year and a half.  We recently began getting weekend visits with my bf's 6 year old son.  She uses his room kind of like her own and we think she is jealous of him.  She blocks doorways and hisses at him the entire visit.  I'm not sure if he did something to make her mad or if it is because he was originally afraid of her and didn't pay any attention to her.  She listens when we tell her no and runs away when we do, stopping what ever she is doing.  We tell Brendan to tell her no, which he does (she in turn runs) and I've tried having him give her treats...she quickly eats them and if he gets too close she hisses at him and I take the treat away.  We've tried spraying her with water and putting her in time out for doing it (which has worked with other things but not with this). She has even pooped in front of all of us on the living room floor 3 times.  Brendan only comes every other weekend and the behavior is only shown when he is around.  Please help me! How do I help them get along and have her accept him.

Answer
Amber,

My bet is that Brendan, the 6 year old, tried to pick up Luv at some point or had her cornered and, of course, would never admit that! What you may be doing by trying to discipline Luv when Brendan is around, is to reinforce her wariness of him.  When Brendan is around, Luv gets disciplined.  So, what you need to try to do is to break the cycle.

So, what I might suggest is to have Brendan make pretend Luv does not exist.  Also, when he is coming over ply Luv with extra affection, special treats and the like so she associates Brendan's visits with good things not bad things.  It is most important that Brendan stay away from Luv, unless Luv approaches Brendan.  Let Luv make the next move and try to impress upon him to stay away from Luv as much as possible.

This is not going to be remedied overnight, but can be turned around with patience and persistence.  Cats really do not respond all that well to negative reinforcement, but tend to respond more to positive reinforcement.

Please let me know how things go.

Best regards... Norm.