What is it with neighbors lately..WWYD(sorry this long)

[Gamom3]

We have lived in our neighborhood for 3yrs and meet our neighbors a week after moving in and became good friends, our children play(ed) together.

 

We have had our ups and downs in those 3yrs due to the kids playing to rough...wrestling and pretend cartoon playing.

 

One time neighbor mom came over upset and wanted to speak to me, but my ds had ran in with a really bad cut on his foot, right before she came to the door. I could not go to the door at the time, my oldest ds told her that ds had a really bad cut and I was taking care of it. She went home and e-mailed me with some pretty harsh words and I know I shouldn't have but I e-mailed back with my defense and words of my own.

 

We did not speak for about 2 1/2 months. We finally got things worked out and started talking. (I have kept my shield up with her and have limited my friendship. My kids are not allowed in her house or to play in her yard.)

 

We spoke with our kids and told them absolutely no rough playing..which they have been obeying.

 

Last week, I was in the front yard with oldest ds and neighbors dh walked over to talk to us. His oldest ds(8) runs up to us, tells his dad that db(7) was not allowed to play with my ds(12). Neighbor looks at me funny and I just shrug my shoulders at him. He asked ds why not, ds says that db spit on my ds the day before and mom said that my ds was to old for him to play with. Neighbor looks at me and ask, "Did he spit on him?" I told him I wasn't told anything about it.

He tells ds that it would be okay for now, since he was out there with them.

 

Later I asked ds if this had happened and he said yes. He tells me that he spit on his shoe and he went and told friends mom.

I told him that he did the right thing.

 

Neighbor mom comes over on Friday while waiting on her 2 boys to get off the school bus. She just starts talking about everything else, but nothing about what had happened with the kids. I ask her about what her ds said and she tells me that the kids were playing King and Knights and my son was the King. My son told hers that he had to obey the King and do what he said. Her son didn't like that idea and spit on his shoe. Ds went and told her and that was that. She then tells me that she told her kids that my son is to old for them to play with and unless she is outside with them, they can not play with ds(12) or dd(10).

I do not say anything to her. I did not think what she told her kids was right, but they are her kids.

 

About an hour later, her ds..the one that spit..shows up asking to play with my kids! I tell him, his mom said he is not allowed to play with them.

 

Here is the thing, since Friday they have come a number of times asking to play..mom is NO where in sight.

 

So in my mind she is sending them outside when she has had enough..her words..and really doesn't care who they are playing with. She does this quite a lot, especially on holidays and summer break.

 

I spoke with dh about it and he says to just let them play, they are kids.

I say no! I do not think it is right for her to say,"Ok, you can play with them today." and the next day, "I told you that he is to old for you to play with." If my kids have an issue with them, they can not go and speak to her about it, if they do she is going to say something to them and we will have our rounds again.

 

I think she is allowing them to play when it is convenient to her and I don't want my kids treated like that.

 

I told dh that he will have to speak to the neighbors about it, if that is how he feels, but until then they can't play.

 

What would you do?

[JFSinIL]

I'd find other kids for them to play with. OK - wish it were that simple. i ahe a similar situation - neighbor kids are a couple years younger than my youngest, and the other day she was in her room, angry. I asked why - she said that (again) she was tired of being teased (I have forbidden my kids to go on a trampoline down the street - the other kids teased her for not disobeying me!) She also had been spat on by a 5-yr-old. His mom had said repeatedly that he was NOT to spit, and for the other kids to tell her if he did. He spat on my dd, and she told the mom. Kid got 30-minute time-out and cried about it. The other neighbor kids then wrote a note to my dd telling her how mean she was for :"making K. be in time out and cry" and "don't go tell your mom - she can not solve all your problems for you." Sigh. I am glad I ahve a dd that WILL come and talk to me about things - last thing she needs is peer pressure to clam up!!!!

 

Grrrrr -= neighbor kids.

[lori in tx]

First of all I am so sorry this is happening to you, we have had neighbor woes big time about 3 years ago. The kid kept picking on my ds (who was 4 years younger than the kid) he kicked him and hit him (this kid was 14yo way to old to know better0 and finally kept getting bad and bad. I talked with the parents and they never did a thing, the worse came when one day the 14yo punched my kid in the stomach, I went over to the kids house and no parent is home. Just the brat, I told him to come to the door and he refused he hid behind a chair in the living room. I told him to come out or I will call the police and tell them what he did since his parents were not going to do anything and he would not come and talk to me. About that time i was headed back to the house to do it and the dad gets home and tells me that I went overboard, which maybe I did but my son had been punched about 10 times and they were not doing a thing. I asked him how he was going to handle this, and he said my son was fine he was not hurt (he was running around with other kids) and was not going to do anything. My dh wondered up and after dd told him that a guy was yelling at me, and told the guy to keep the kid away for our property if he stepped foot on our property for anything he was trespassing and we would call the cops.

 

My point is this parent would not handle his kid action, my son was fine 20 min after when the dad wondered up. I asked the dad what would happen if I rear ended him one day, he said I would pay and I said well you car still runs so following his logic I should not have to pay. He did not like it because he got it. Kids in ps today are given very fuzzy boundaries, if the get in trouble their parents can complain and through a fit and get them out of it.

 

In my opnion she is getting rid of her kids, I would not reinforce this I would set clear boundaries. I would keep telling the kid, that their mom said they could not play over there and close the door. if you let your kids play with them they will learn that sometimes a parents word (hers not yours) is not always the final word.

 

Do your kids want to play with them? My youngest got to the point he really didn't want to go out some days, the kid was moody and unpreditable something my youngest did not like. This will also teach the mom to watch what she says, yes she overreacted but sometimes when you say things people will hold you to what you say.

 

Wouldn't it be great if we could all live in a house surrended by a moat? I know I have looked but alas can't find one.

don't know if that helps or not but I am sorry this is happening to you

blessings

lori

[Only me]

We've always had tons of problems with our neighbor kids. For awhile my dh just told my kids to stay away from the troublemakers. The problem is that we have such a large amount of kids on our street and it was pretty hard for my kids to avoid the troublemakers if they wanted to play outside at all. What my kids do now is play with the kids unless they are causing a lot of trouble and then they will avoid them.

 

My dh and I (and some former neighbors of ours that were like minded) sometimes joke that we are actually the ones with the problems. We have such an unbelievable mix on our block so it is hard to avoid.

 

One family is very religious and strict. I think the parents have a false sense that their kids behave perfectly. When the parents are around they always have a big, innocent smile on their face. The problem is that once the parents aren't around they can be some of the meanest kids. You wouldn't believe some of the things their oldest son has said to my oldest dd. They also tend to shelter the kids so they really have a hard time playing without problems. For instance their 8 year old son sometimes plays with my just turned 10 ds. The minute the 8 year old is losing a game, gets an out in baseball, etc. he starts crying. His older siblings baby him and tell my son to give him another chance, etc. It's really hard for ds to deal with sometimes, especially since the older kids in that family have never given my son a break.

 

Another family on the block has two sons 8 and 10. The oldest son constantly swears and hits. The problem is that he also makes up lies and tells on other kids. Then his mom comes running over to my house screaming at my son for doing something that he didn't even do. When I've mentioned the hitting and swearing the mom denies that her son swears and says that he has a hard time controlling his temper. Of course my ds is never allowed in their house (he wouldn't want to anyway). My son tries to avoid these kids if at all possible.

 

Then of course we have the kids who never follow the rules when playing games. They will make up their own rules and expect my kids to follow them but don't follow the rules themselves. It can be quite frustrating.

 

My dh can't understand why my kids want to play with any kids on the block. My kids love playing outside and it can be a lot of fun when the kids all play something like kickball and are actually getting along. Besides that, it's hard for my kids to just sit their watching the other kids play since there are about 25 kids on the block and many times there are 10 kids playing out at one time or another.

 

I guess you just have to follow your best judgement. My kids have been told that they aren't to play with the other kids when they are being mean but still can if they are acting properly. If the other kids are really being bad we've told them that they have to stay out of our yard. My kids are older though so it may be easier for them.

[Aubrey]

Wouldn't it be great if we could all live in a house surrended by a moat? I know I have looked but alas can't find one.

 

I've got a shovel!

[Danestress]

I would just send the children home when they come to the door. The parents have made it clear that they don't want the relationship to continue, and they may not know that their kids are coming to your house.

 

I would meet them at the door and say, "Your parents made it clear you can't play here anymore. Please don't come back again. I have to honor their wishes."

[bkpan]

If it were me, I would not be involved with the other mom's parenting. I mean, I try to keep some distance in becoming involved in children's arguments. IME, usually most of the children are involved when there are disagreements and few children are always "innocent". It amazes me how much grief it can cause neighbors that get involved in children's stuff.

 

So, I would let her decide if she needs to enforce her boundaries with her dc. I would be concerned if when I gave my dc a direction, I couldn't trust them to follow it if I wasn't watching, but that is between her and her dc. I might discuss privately with my dc what they were seeing, and try to help them process and learn from their play, helping them also to see their "fault" in disagreements. HTH

 

Kim in TN (used to be in NV)

[Jean in Newcastle]

Do you have a fenced backyard?

[Gamom3]

Do you have a fenced backyard?

 

No child(other than ours) is allowed in our backyard. We don't have anything for children to play with back there.

 

My dc have other kids to play with, but they are not around as often as these boys are. There is one dc beside us that plays with both my dc and the boys and he is torn in the middle...but he likes all the separate attention.

[unsinkable]

Things have really changed since I was a child. In our neighborhoods, we played with the kids we wanted to play with, who we liked. We stayed away from the "mean kids." We fought, we made up. We didn't involve our parents. If we got hurt, we cleaned it and put a bandaid on it. The times I was hurt so badly that a bandaid wouldn't work, I had to go to the hospital.

 

This is not said as a judgment or proclamation of how things should be. It's just that I had a childhood w/playmates that is very different from what parents do/deal with today. (I'm not saying that gamom's son should have taken care of his own foot :) )

 

Gamom, it sounds like you realize that the mom's inconsistent parenting is part of the root of this. Maybe you 2 show go out to lunch or for coffee and try to find some middle ground. Share what you want for your children. ("I want the boys to play games that burn up their energy without hurting each other.") Just a thought.

[Gamom3]

Things have really changed since I was a child. In our neighborhoods, we played with the kids we wanted to play with, who we liked. We stayed away from the "mean kids." We fought, we made up. We didn't involve our parents. If we got hurt, we cleaned it and put a bandaid on it. The times I was hurt so badly that a bandaid wouldn't work, I had to go to the hospital.

 

This is not said as a judgment or proclamation of how things should be. It's just that I had a childhood w/playmates that is very different from what parents do/deal with today. (I'm not saying that gamom's son should have taken care of his own foot :) )

 

Gamom, it sounds like you realize that the mom's inconsistent parenting is part of the root of this. Maybe you 2 show go out to lunch or for coffee and try to find some middle ground. Share what you want for your children. ("I want the boys to play games that burn up their energy without hurting each other.") Just a thought.

 

 

Actually she has spoke to me on how she thinks the kids should act and how she wanted mine and hers to react..if possible.

I told her that was fine, if something happened then come tell one of us.

Well this went well for about a week, until she was tired of hearing that one of the boys did this or that to mine, she even got to where she wouldn't answer the door!

She also would end up saying something to my kids..like they did something to provoke hers.

 

Her boys got to the point where they knew mom was not going to do anything so they would continue to hit mine or do mean things. I told her that mine were not going to be a punching bag or take the cr*p from them and that they were told to defend themselves.

(I know that her kids are younger than mine...but they are bigger than mine and do hit hard!)

 

Also, She is the type of person that does not discipline very well, one day it might be sitting in time out, next spanking, next yelling, next doing nothing(this happens more than anything). She is not consistent with them.

 

The other thing is she will believe them in a heart beat...which is somewhat understandable. But her kids LIE and she knows it. She will confront an adult with her child standing right beside her..the child knows what is going to happen..mom is going to get very upset and regardless of the truth, she is going to defend her child. The child stands there with this smile on his face(like ha ha my mom is going to get you now look) and when told about this she claims its because they are nervous...Ask me how I know this!

 

 

I hate that this is happening because my dh and her dh are good friends and love to grill out and fish with the family. She is a sweet person, I really enjoy her company. But my kids come before her!