Spin off - Kids ringing doorbell in neighborhood/free roaming kids. What are your rules?

[Anonymous]

I live on a street in Capitol Hill like this and I love it. There's one kid who rings a bit too often and is a bit too clueless about social cues (parents are very uninvolved), but the pluses outweigh the minuses by far. We rarely feed kids meals, but do give snacks. Once kids are 6, I figure they know their own family's snack rules.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People wonder why they have no village. Neighborhood friends are your child’s village.

100%, I love neighborhoods like this for kids/teens. So valuable, yet so underrated

+100 I live in a neighborhood like this and count it among the top maybe 5 blessings in my life. The younger kids knock on doors and ask to play, and the older sibling crew makes plans via group chat. It takes some communication with the other families, but the benefits far outweigh the slight inconveniences of having to order a pizza if they are all having fun and I don't want to break it up by sending folks home to eat.

I could talk about the benefits for paragraphs, but the short version is that neighborhood friends can let kids really be themselves without the pressures of which social group they fit into that day in school. They offer kids a "safety net" of caring adults, and if the adults also manage to build community then we can help each other out as well. It actually gives me enormous peace of mind to know that my kid has 7 different houses they could go to if they got locked out, or that I have multiple places I could have one of my kids go if the other one needed to go to the ER.

Maybe some of the folks on this chain have nearby family who fills that role, but a lot of us don't and so we are building those relationships to take the place.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This thread makes me sad. We lived in a neighborhood where kids ran freely, rang doorbells, and played hours after school and on the weekends. I didn’t have to schedule play dates, my kids got life lessons in following different household rules, and we saw value in playing with a variety of different ages.

We kept a pantry full of snacks or would send home when it was dinnertime. Sometimes my kids would go find friends and they weren’t available or mom said no - it was no biggie, and they’d meet up the next day. Sometimes they’d have a friend over for lunch, sometimes the child didn’t care for what we were serving so I’d send him home to eat. It was all so low-key and I never felt taken advantage of. It was a village.

This.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My rules are you can play on sidewalks and in front yards but do not go into anyone's house or fenced back yard. Some people have questionable dogs and some parents I just don't trust. But I want my kids to get exercise and have unstructured play.
Some kids get very pushy asking for food and you have to learn to just say no. I wanted to have the hang-out house and now I'm realizing no, I don't want that because user parents will have no problem sending their kids over every day and even having you feed them lunch (and no, none of these people are poor.)

I find it strange adults who can afford to feed kids, will not. Give them a grilled cheese or something cheap.

Half of DCUM is terrified of being "taken advantage of" by having kids in their house or giving them food. It's weird.

Yes! We live in Silver Spring near "the poors." These folks would not hesitate to feed my child a snack. There is A LOT of weirdness around food/snacks in this area, and it is mostly a white people thing in my experience.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You can just clap your glands together briskly and announce “okay, time for everyone to go home to get lunch, see you later/tomorrow!” And then just usher them out of your house or if in your yard say “Ashlyn, you’re going that way, Jaylin, you live this way…”

Pretty sure the kids know where they live.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So you say no to the drop ins, send kids back to their own house for lunch/dinner, tell your kid each family has different ways of doing things. This really isn’t so hard.

I do feel bad for the child with autism who is already being isolated by other families.

This stood out to me too. Yikes. Poor kid/family.

+100 the kid is also in … PRESCHOOL. Those behaviors are normal for preschoolers who don’t have a social disability.

Our neighborhood is exactly the same. Some parents prioritize order and control and others like the care-free socializing and don’t mind chaos. And the families set their own rules accordingly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So you say no to the drop ins, send kids back to their own house for lunch/dinner, tell your kid each family has different ways of doing things. This really isn’t so hard.

I do feel bad for the child with autism who is already being isolated by other families.

This stood out to me too. Yikes. Poor kid/family.

+100 the kid is also in … PRESCHOOL. Those behaviors are normal for preschoolers who don’t have a social disability.

Our neighborhood is exactly the same. Some parents prioritize order and control and others like the care-free socializing and don’t mind chaos. And the families set their own rules accordingly.

DP. I think a kid is allowed to decide he doesn't want to hang out with a kid who hits and exposes himself, even if those behaviors are not uncommon in preschoolers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My 9 year old has a few different friend's houses he can walk to, and does so often, or they walk here. Sometimes I will text the parent to ask "are you free this afternoon" but more often the kids just initiate on their own. I'm very happy to have kids ring the doorbell. If it's not a good time I say "thanks for coming over, Larlo can't play right now" and they say OK and come back the next day.

We have 2 neighbors who I'm not super close with but they have similar age kids, and my son will often join in their outdoor play, but almost never approaches their home, just sees them if they are already outside.

After age 8 I think play dates should be child led when possible. The parents demanding an advance warning text are odd to me. Im thankful I dont have to be in the middle of my sons entire social life. Its good for kids to figure this stuff out.

Why is it odd to want communication if you are dumping your child on someone else. It’s odd to me you have your kids knock on others doors and demand to be let in. You should call, invite the kids over and supervise. You want free childcare. Sometimes if a parent is out with their kid to spend time with them, they don’t want to be babysitting yours.

Who is supervising a nine year old playing with friends?

This. How is it free childcare if the kids are entertaining eachother in the yard?? I actually love it because then I can relax

[Anonymous]

We have the free roaming kid neighborhood. I have a love/hate relationship with it. I'm soooo grateful that my kids (esp my son) are playing outside, practicing basketball, riding bikes and not playing video games inside. I provide endless snacks.

I have a 3 year old though and she wants to be outside nonstop too. Except she's too little and I need to watch her still. She basically wants to spend 8 hours outside on weekend days and about 3 hours on weekdays. It all sounds okay, but then my whole life is falling apart because I can't cook dinner, can't get my laundry done, can't pick up the house. I'm only sort of exaggerating- I work full time too. And then the kids come inside hot, ragged and starving, but there's no food because I had to sit out there watching my 3 year old try to run in the streets for 3 hours. I feel like I'm losing my mind over it and have started bribing her to stay indoors with me. It works sometimes, but then she tries to sneak out a lot.

OP- you don't need to feed the kids unless you want to. I don't expect anyone to feed my kids but if another mom kept passing them out snacks, I'd just figure she's generous. Just say no to them! Cover your doorbell with paper that says "no ringing".

[Anonymous]

OP, you are not a good fit for your neighborhood. You should move out and go to one better suited for your particular child rearing style. As you can see, there are plenty of people who would love to live in this type of neighborhood so I’m sure the house would sell quickly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My rules are you can play on sidewalks and in front yards but do not go into anyone's house or fenced back yard. Some people have questionable dogs and some parents I just don't trust. But I want my kids to get exercise and have unstructured play.
Some kids get very pushy asking for food and you have to learn to just say no. I wanted to have the hang-out house and now I'm realizing no, I don't want that because user parents will have no problem sending their kids over every day and even having you feed them lunch (and no, none of these people are poor.)

I find it strange adults who can afford to feed kids, will not. Give them a grilled cheese or something cheap.

Half of DCUM is terrified of being "taken advantage of" by having kids in their house or giving them food. It's weird.

Yes! We live in Silver Spring near "the poors." These folks would not hesitate to feed my child a snack. There is A LOT of weirdness around food/snacks in this area, and it is mostly a white people thing in my experience.

So I am one of the white people who has some food weirdness. I think a lot of white people were raised by almond moms and we didn't get snacks. Some of it was to keep us thin, some to be healthy and some so we didn't spoil our dinner. I feel weird feeding other kids snacks because my mom didn't like me getting snacks from others. And then there's allergies nonstop with everyone these days. My non white friends told me that they got a lot more snacks as kids.

My kids have an almond dad who is a health freak and he can't stand kids eating snacks. Sigh. I make sure to have boxes of ice pops on standby for all the kids. They're universally loved, cheap and store easily in the freezer.

[Anonymous]

I used to live in a neighborhood like that before my kids were in school and I would see the elementary school kids all huddled up behind some bushes watching something on a phone. I didn't want my kids doing that so we moved.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I live on a street in Capitol Hill like this and I love it. There's one kid who rings a bit too often and is a bit too clueless about social cues (parents are very uninvolved), but the pluses outweigh the minuses by far. We rarely feed kids meals, but do give snacks. Once kids are 6, I figure they know their own family's snack rules.

You think that but I got in trouble for handing out snacks during Ramadan. I was handing out snacks to everyone and didn't even think about it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My rules are you can play on sidewalks and in front yards but do not go into anyone's house or fenced back yard. Some people have questionable dogs and some parents I just don't trust. But I want my kids to get exercise and have unstructured play.
Some kids get very pushy asking for food and you have to learn to just say no. I wanted to have the hang-out house and now I'm realizing no, I don't want that because user parents will have no problem sending their kids over every day and even having you feed them lunch (and no, none of these people are poor.)

I find it strange adults who can afford to feed kids, will not. Give them a grilled cheese or something cheap.

Half of DCUM is terrified of being "taken advantage of" by having kids in their house or giving them food. It's weird.

Yes! We live in Silver Spring near "the poors." These folks would not hesitate to feed my child a snack. There is A LOT of weirdness around food/snacks in this area, and it is mostly a white people thing in my experience.

So I am one of the white people who has some food weirdness. I think a lot of white people were raised by almond moms and we didn't get snacks. Some of it was to keep us thin, some to be healthy and some so we didn't spoil our dinner. I feel weird feeding other kids snacks because my mom didn't like me getting snacks from others. And then there's allergies nonstop with everyone these days. My non white friends told me that they got a lot more snacks as kids.

My kids have an almond dad who is a health freak and he can't stand kids eating snacks. Sigh. I make sure to have boxes of ice pops on standby for all the kids. They're universally loved, cheap and store easily in the freezer.

We definitely have some families like this that come over (not all white FWIW, but our neighborhood has a lot of mixed race families, so usually with one white parent). I know there's a couple kids who come over and ask for snacks in our house because they know they'll get some junk food rather than what they get at home. I don't keep snacks on hand especially, but we usually have something anyway.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So you say no to the drop ins, send kids back to their own house for lunch/dinner, tell your kid each family has different ways of doing things. This really isn’t so hard.

I do feel bad for the child with autism who is already being isolated by other families.

This stood out to me too. Yikes. Poor kid/family.

+100 the kid is also in … PRESCHOOL. Those behaviors are normal for preschoolers who don’t have a social disability.

Our neighborhood is exactly the same. Some parents prioritize order and control and others like the care-free socializing and don’t mind chaos. And the families set their own rules accordingly.

DP. I think a kid is allowed to decide he doesn't want to hang out with a kid who hits and exposes himself, even if those behaviors are not uncommon in preschoolers.

Reading Comprehension. The op is quite clear that her kid is NOT ALLOWED to play with him. Most older kids aren’t bothered by naked little kids. I actually find it weird that it bothers her so much.