The good news is, my across-the-street neighbors have two little girls visiting for the summer.
The bad news is, my across-the-street neighbors have two little girls visiting for the summer.
Since their arrival yesterday, they’ve attempted to spend every free moment at my house. I’m pretty sure it’s not my charm that draws them, but rather the fact that there are six kids here all day to play with.
Six! Kids! It’s like crack cocaine.
Plus, there’s a trampoline. And a playhouse. And a slide. And a swing. And sundry bicycles, tricycles and other ride-on toys.
And did I mention the six playmates?
In the various houses I’ve lived in since having babies, there have been a few different “neighborhood kids” scenarios. In one situation, two next door neighbor boys ended up being my kids’ school bus stop buddies. Their mom and I became friends. We had a yard sale together, and a margarita afterwards. She was also a work at home, single mom (a freelance writer – what are the odds?) so we had much in common. Her boys were little gentlemen, and I never had a bit of trouble with them or their behavior.
Unfortunately, other scenarios have been less ideal. Even though I’ve never had a really bad incident happen involving my kids, I’m not a fool. I’ve had enough childhood friends and relatives who have experienced violations of some sort or another, and I prefer to keep my distance until a level of trust has been built and plenty of time has passed.
Our across-the-street neighbors haven’t exactly given us the best impression of them since moving in last year. We’ve had minimal conversation, but it usually involved them coming over to ask for a favor. A jump, some gas, some food… all their requests have been met with good old fashioned Christian hospitality, but it does give us the feeling that they may not have their act together. Especially since there were 3 able bodied adults and no kids in the house, we couldn’t help but wonder why there wasn’t enough money coming into the household… of course, there was money for cigarettes and beer.
Now there are two perfectly sweet little girls staying the summer with their dad.
The trouble is, I don’t trust parents who trust ME too quickly. I also don’t trust parents who don’t have an appreciation for proper boundaries.
Although the idea of having neighborhood kids for my children to play with is charming, the reality rarely is. It’s a huge disruption to our routine, which we keep loosely, even in the summer.
I would never allow my children to run over to a neighbor’s home constantly. I would assume that my neighbor had a schedule of her own, and wouldn’t have time to babysit my kid for free.
But more importantly, the way I figure it, if you don’t know me from Adam’s housecat, and yet you are ok with your children spending lots of time in my company without your watchful eye, then you’re either a) very, very ignorant or b) negligent and uncaring. Both can mean trouble.
What happens if one of those girls falls off the trampoline in my yard and breaks an arm? I could be sued.
What happens if one of them decides to get my 3 year old alone to “play Doctor”?
I am not going to play babysitter all summer long to a couple of children whose (very pregnant in this humidity) stepmom might be just too eager to get out of her hair. I have enough kids to care for.
Today, I had to keep creating reasons to call my children inside the house to explain to them, once more, that they were IN NO UNCERTAIN TERMS to go inside the neighbor’s house. Even if their stepmom says it’s ok.
When we went for our walk today, they tagged along. Again – why was their stepmom ok with me taking them off without her? No way would I ever let my kids go off with someone I don’t know well, even if they do have a passel of kids with them.
I want to be as hospitable as the next person, but I don’t feel comfortable letting these kids in my home when I don’t know their parents and don’t know what standards they’re being raised with.
How have you handled boundary issues with neighborhood kids? How do you teach your children the fine art of the brush-off when kids just don’t understand subtlety? And how do YOU as an adult give kids the brush-off without being rude?
This is a hard one, and I feel for you. It’s so hot already here in GA, and you’re having to care for kids who, although they may not be physically neglected, seem from your post to be emotionally or spiritually neglected. I wouldn’t go into any solution without praying about the situation and people involved first.
I think it’s hard when you are already doing SO much, so well, to see how hard it may be for another mom to cope with less. I’ve been on both sides — from piece-of-cake pregnancy/easy kid to dire, horrible pregnancies, impossible baby/toddler situations, and terrible pre- and post-partum physical and emotional health, and it was humiliating and yet almost impossible to overcome at the time. Can you get to know the mom better? Not just to establish ground rules — but to know her and see what’s really going on?
One thing I do with my kids as they get older and have more friends over (or go to friends’ houses) is:
– Get to know the moms as much as possible. I’m a serious introvert, so this is excruciating.
– Explicitly state (usually via email) our house rules in a friendly manner. I usually say things like “we don’t have screen time during playdates, but just in case, our computers are protected and our Netflix is rated G only. Healthy snacks are typically fruit and veggies and maybe pretzels/popcorn. We don’t have pets. We keep bedroom and playroom doors open, and I’m always nearby.” I always, always end with “I know all moms worry about this stuff so I just decided to put it out there to ease everyone’s mind.” — SO many moms feel relieved when you put it that way, and are happy to list the same on their side when reciprocating.
– If a child visits that has, for lack of a better word, “issues” — I usually talk to my own kids about helping these kids to obey, not copying behavior they know or sense is wrong, etc. I mean, my kids KNOW this, but a pep talk just before playing sort of bolsters it up and puts it back in front of their head, you know? If there are some major rudeness issues, bullying, or other character issues, we talk about these in detail. One of my older daughter’s friends was bullying my younger daughter when they both went over to her house to play, partly because they weren’t being supervised at all, so now I only have her come here and I supervise more often, trying to help the child rather than cut off all play at this stage. (Although I’m not afraid to do the latter if warranted.)
Hope you can work through this satisfactorily, and soon! 🙂
My kids are a bit young for this, so I don’t have advice (hope we’re never in such a situation!) I can definitely understand why they’d want to be at your house though! I only have one brother, 5 years younger, so it was also so much more fun and exciting to go play with my friends who came from big families. 🙂
I just wrote a novel of a response and lost it. Here I go again:
We have a bunch of neighborhood kids who roam the neighborhood and drop in and stuff. My husband is a-okay announcing “Okay guys! We need to (eat dinner/have family time/have rest time) now. See you all later!”. Initially, I would cringe, thinking the kids would be offended or react the way I would if someone talked to me like that. But they never appear offended, and they certainly keep coming back (and back and back and back:). They’re all generally in the concrete thinking stage- the subtleties were not effective:)
You might feel less on your heels and reactionary about it if you have an up-front discussion with the kids about protocol for coming over. Something like “We love having you over (etc etc). Please stop at the gate and ask before you come over, so I can make sure it’s a good time for us to have visitors.” You’re communicating boundaries and, with that, comes security for your kids and the visiting kids.
My mom enforced a rule at a young age that I had to ask her in private if a friend could come over (not in front of the friend- that’s bad manners). If I didn’t ask the appropriate way, the answer was “no”. I’ve instituted the same rule with my daughter because she was constantly asking to have our neighbor over in front of the neighbor and I kept having to tell both of them no or yes. It dawned on me- I can change this system of asking! So yeah- I would institute something like that with your kids and the neighbors- we ask in an appropriate way, or the answer will be no. They’ll probably figure it out pretty quickly (after a couple of no’s because of poor asking) and you’ll feel more in control and less “oh crap let’s all hide because they’re here again!”.
I wouldn’t teach your kids the brush-off. And I wouldn’t practice it myself, either. I would teach them appropriate asking, instead, and be okay saying “no”. My kids are still in a very concrete learning stage, so this works best for them and for me.
Here from Modern Mrs. Darcy! I was intrigued by this post because we have a similar neighborhood vibe, for several years now!
Wow, thanks for typing that out! I rescued your comment from spam and really appreciate your mom’s rule… love that!
My mom had the same rule too… forgot about that!
Carrie, Thanks for writing this article! I was searching the internet for advice on neighborhood kids. We had one set of neighbors, that we all agreed it’s ok to knock on our front door to play. The kids go back and forth to each other’s houses. When there is a problem the parents talk about it. But now we have a new neighbor and they have five very young children. It appears the two oldest are locked out of house after school and can’t go home till seven. ( the boys are 5 and 9) Now it’s summer and they are knocking on my door at 10 AM. The kids play all day at my house, and when I send them out for the other parents to have a turn , no one is supervising the kids. It is really getting on my nerves. I feel like the neighborhood nanny. I blew up yesterday because the kids got large rocks, got hammers out of our garage, and then we’re busting rocks on our driveway without permission. Besides that quartz rock shattering like glass, the hammers made holes in our driveway! My only savior is my kids start summer camp next week for supervised fun in the sun! Mom2nine
Carrie, Thanks for writing this article! I was searching the internet for advice on neighborhood kids. We had one set of neighbors, that we all agreed it’s ok to knock on our front door to play. The kids go back and forth to each other’s houses. When there is a problem the parents talk about it. But now we have a new neighbor and they have five very young children. It appears the two oldest are locked out of house after school and can’t go home till seven. ( the boys are 5 and 9) Now it’s summer and they are knocking on my door at 10 AM. The kids play all day at my house, and when I send them out for the other parents to have a turn , no one is supervising the kids. It is really getting on my nerves. I feel like the neighborhood nanny. I blew up yesterday because the kids got large rocks, got hammers out of our garage, and then we’re busting rocks on our driveway without permission. Besides that quartz rock shattering like glass, the hammers made holes in our driveway! My only savior is my kids start summer camp next week for supervised fun in the sun!