Neighborhood kids destroying our house

[Anonymous]

1. Why not send your kids to their house?
2. With 6 year olds around, put up the big lego sets.
3. Tell the parents, that their kids destroyed your house and broke the legos. The parents can't address what they don't know happened.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How old are the kids?

Kids are 6-8 years old.

I should add that our kids just started the same school this year. I was very friendly to them since we were new to the school. I regret this very much! The parents seem to like us a lot because they are always wanting to hang out with us too. DH and I are just not interested.

I think this is a tough situation and it can be really hard to discipline other people's kids as well as turn down invites from neighbors. Nobody wants to get a rep as a a mean parent or a mean neighbor. Kids go home and tell their parents so and so's mom or dad yelled at us and that turns into you as the hosting parent being a mean, yelling, etc even when the reality is you may have just firmly said clean up and go home.

For starters, to turn down an invite politely, you can just say something like "the kids would love it but right now is not a good time for me as I am cleaning/working/whatever, etc. How about I send them over to your house today? would that work for you?" If she replies no, then you can just say that your sorry it won't work out for today and you will try for another day.

Any time the kids come over, set a definite time limit before they come in the door. Say they can stay until 2pm for example. Once it's close to 2pm, go to the area they are playing and start the clean up process and then them home if need be.

have ground rules you tell your kids before they come over - your kids have to ask their friends to clean up, your kids can not join in protesting when the time limit is up for playing and if they do then no more play dates.

give the all kids ground rules once they walk in the door - clean up one thing before moving on to the next, if toys get damaged or play is too rough there is one warning and then after that the playdate will end, food can only be eaten in the kitchen/basement, whatever, no tv, etc or whatever rules you want. I would say limit the rules to maybe 4 - so they are easy to remember.

[Anonymous]

Invite them over specifically to help rebuild the lego sets (if your kids want to).

[Anonymous]

OP, please, please, please tell the kids' parents that it's difficult to have the kids over as they tend to leave a big mess and/or break things. I'm a parent who was constantly texting a neighborhood mom over and over again about setting up a play date. She had a couple excuses but then texted me that my son hit hers a couple time when they got into a fight and her kid doesn't want to play with mine anymore. I was shocked since mine was the one that kept asking me to set up the playdate. But I was so thankful (and I told her so)

I asked her what exactly happened since my kid wasn't telling me and I appreciated her being upfront with me. It was a big teaching moment for my son (6 years old) about if you're going to smack someone around, they won't want to hang out with you anymore and that's what happened with little joey.

the other mother was actually really nice about it and ended up saying that if we wait a little bit, we could try again (after I told her I was going to talk to mine about hitting, etc.)

Some parents really want to know if their kids are acting up and might not have a clue (like I didn't know) - Tell the other parent what her kids are up to.



Oh, and if your kids like to play with hers, what about sending your kid to their house when they text about a playdate?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We had those neighbor kids. They broke so many toys-- with us watching in the same room. We had to start turning them away (also, parents were taking advantage of the free babysitting) and eventually, it stopped. We don't let them in our home- only outside play. You are the adult, you are in control.

I am going to decline 100% of the time and hopefully they will get the hint. They are everywhere though - school, our community pool, after school activities, school events, etc. etc. etc.

Don't just decline. Tell them WHY!! I would have no problem telling them they have been disrespectful in my home and broken my children's toys. Therefore we aren't doing playdates anymore. I would also tell there parents why. Believe it or not you can say this in a way that's not mean. Just be firm and honest. Stop the dance.

[Anonymous]

I'm clearly new to this because my kid is only 4, but when I read DESTROYING, SMASHING, BREAKING I thought things were actually being ruined -- not assembled legos being taken apart. I realize that they can take time to build, but are we actually at a point where playing with legos (other than setting them up in one particular way) is considered ruining them?

That's not to say these kids aren't brats. Perhaps they are. But the lego thing just shocked me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We had those neighbor kids. They broke so many toys-- with us watching in the same room. We had to start turning them away (also, parents were taking advantage of the free babysitting) and eventually, it stopped. We don't let them in our home- only outside play. You are the adult, you are in control.

I am going to decline 100% of the time and hopefully they will get the hint. They are everywhere though - school, our community pool, after school activities, school events, etc. etc. etc.

OP, I think a lot of posters are missing your follow-up posts that indicate this larger issue. This isn't just about these kids destroying your child's Lego creation this one time, or otherwise being destructive of property when in your house. That's just a part of a larger issue which is a family that wants more time and more attention from you than you want to give and that also sees whenever you come and go from your house and expects you to be OK with all the "are you home yet" texts etc. You said earlier that the adults seem to want to cultivate a friendship with you and your spouse. Plus you will run into them everywhere all the time so just blowing them off entirely isn't possible (unless you want cold-shoulder adult drama at every pool trip and every school play, and I'm sure you don't).

I feel for you. It's tough when a kid's friend's parents want to befriend you and you don't click but they don't see it.

If you haven't yet given the other adults a chance, or spent much time trying to see if they could actually be good friends to you and your spouse -- maybe give it a try since you might be missing out on a real friendship. If you have already tried that and truly feel you have a good basis for knowing you don't want these neighbors/fellow school parents as your own friends -- then you'll need to Be Too Busy: "Yes, I'm home, but we've got plans." "Thanks for the invitation but Johnny can't play right now. He's got a lot going on this week. Maybe next week?" And so on. I would not cut your son off from these other kids completely if they're OK kids when outside, but I'd use the "only outside" rule. And as for his going over to their house where they play endless video games, I'd simply tell the other parents that your child can only stay X amount of time, and tell your son that any screen time at other kids' houses counts toward his total screen time, period. And I wouldn't let him go over more than once a week, if he's going to do nothing there but play video games.

Tread with some care. I'd try to stay cordial with this family since you and they will see each other a lot and everywhere and it is good to have neighbors you know well enough to help each other out at times. We've had next door neighbors who were not truly friends of ours (different interests, different outlooks, etc.) but we were all cordial and helpful with each other as neighbors -- if a kid needed a ride to school but the parents' car wasn't working, they could ask us for a ride and knew it would be OK, and vice versa. I even borrowed their car twice when mine had issues, and my husband drove the wife to doctor's appointments a few times. But I admit, that family was not texting me eagerly to see if I was around for their kid to play with ours daily--that would have driven me a bit nuts. In your case, I'd show that I'm open to some outdoor play dates and occasional video gaming at their house, and I'd talk with the adults mostly about school and the pool etc. and nothing personal. I hope that they'd get the hint eventually about the level of relationship you're willing to have.

[Anonymous]

OP, you've learned the hard way - any precious lego creations need to be out of reach. I have 2 boys with a 5 year age gap so that's been our rule from the start. Otherwise, all legos are up for grabs, but leaving mountains of legos on the floor is not permitted.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Invite them over specifically to help rebuild the lego sets (if your kids want to).

Or, next time they show up, sit them down at the table and tell them, "you will now rebuild the lego set that you broke last time". And rebuilding the lego set is the ONLY thing they are allowed to do at your house until the lego set is fixed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I lay down the law to ALL of the kids (including mine) BEFORE they start playing in my strong, I am NOT messing with you voice:

No one is to touch anyone else.
No one is to break anything.
No one is to go into my room or ___________.
There are no snacks or drinks outside of the kitchen.
This is the ONLY thing that you may have for a snack. If you don't like it I DON"T want to hear it.
There is no _____________ in this house.
You will help picking up BEFORE you leave.

If anyone breaks these rules the fun stops and everyone goes home.

I find this works even with the most out of hand kids.

Also, tell your kid to put toys they don't want to share or break in your room.
THIS
THIS
THIS

[Anonymous]

Not everyone builds lego sets and then keeps them untouched for ever. I say this as someone who had a child who would flip out if anyone so much as breathed on his lego creations. Many of his friends whole build the set, dismantle it and build something else or just start all over--these kids may hail from the second camp and didn't know their actions were verboten. It is your son's responsibility, along with your assistance, to make sure that guests know there are things that they cannot play with. We ended up moving the lego creations to a room that other kids couldn't play in. It is all about expectations. It sounds like the bigger issue is that you just don't like this family at all.

[Anonymous]

I am one of the pp from page 2---- the last straw was when one of the neighbor kids took our pet gerbil out of the cage and we asked him not to- the kid said "you are not my dad!" to my husband. That, in addition to his wild behavior got him sent home. Ever since that time the parents acted coldly to us and our relationship tanked. I was hurt for a while but I realized how much they were using us for free babysitting and such. We just say hi now and our kids don't play. So, something like my experience can happen when you set firm boundaries.

[Anonymous]

Don't answer the door. We used to live near siblings like this. And whenever we went to their house they only played video games. I casually cut off the relationship with the parents which helped a lot.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am one of the pp from page 2---- the last straw was when one of the neighbor kids took our pet gerbil out of the cage and we asked him not to- the kid said "you are not my dad!" to my husband. That, in addition to his wild behavior got him sent home. Ever since that time the parents acted coldly to us and our relationship tanked. I was hurt for a while but I realized how much they were using us for free babysitting and such. We just say hi now and our kids don't play. So, something like my experience can happen when you set firm boundaries.

You are much better off without these losers and (especially) their awful children.

Personally I would not just have sent him home, I would have marched him home myself and explained to his parents why he was no longer welcome in my house, ever.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am one of the pp from page 2---- the last straw was when one of the neighbor kids took our pet gerbil out of the cage and we asked him not to- the kid said "you are not my dad!" to my husband. That, in addition to his wild behavior got him sent home. Ever since that time the parents acted coldly to us and our relationship tanked. I was hurt for a while but I realized how much they were using us for free babysitting and such. We just say hi now and our kids don't play. So, something like my experience can happen when you set firm boundaries.

Did you tell the parents what happened? Or did you do the fade?