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

[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.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

You're the one who needs to work on your reading comprehension.

OP: my son has complained to me about a little boy in the neighborhood who pulls his pants down and shows his genitals or hits other kids. My son is no longer allowed to play with him, nor does he want to, due to the hitting.

I've bolded the parts you missed in your rush to be sanctimonious.

[Anonymous]

So this seems fine to me (except that four is very young), and I said that I would tell mom that I would call CPS in the other thread.

Your neighborhood, OP, sounds like kids being sent out to play with each other, and they might be at one of a few houses. Yes, there could be an issue, but overall parents generally know where the kids are.

The other thread really sounded to me like that child’s parents had no idea where she was all day every day. She was coming over to play at a time that there weren’t other kids playing, the OP of that thread had told the child’s mom not to send her over, and it was happening every day, multiple times a day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

You're the one who needs to work on your reading comprehension.

OP: my son has complained to me about a little boy in the neighborhood who pulls his pants down and shows his genitals or hits other kids. My son is no longer allowed to play with him, nor does he want to, due to the hitting.

I've bolded the parts you missed in your rush to be sanctimonious.

You literally wrote “not allowed to” in your response. Most kids don’t want to play with autistic kids. The op (and you, apparently) would rather take these moments to reinforce exclusion and ick principles than take the opportunity to say “Larlo, he’s FOUR and has a disability. Let’s talk about why his disability might cause him to act this way. Ignore the behavior and be kind to him”
Doesn’t mean he has to be his best friend. But such justified unkindness will show itself eventually.

[Anonymous]

Ok I'm the one who originally mentioned food. The reason it annoyed me is because I would be in the middle of weeding the garden or something and two neighbor kids come over to me "We want peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. The same kind you made yesterday." I'm supposed to stop what I'm doing and go prepare food. And this happened all the time. "I want a cup of milk." Of course I don't mind handing out popsicles or something but this got very old.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

You're the one who needs to work on your reading comprehension.

OP: my son has complained to me about a little boy in the neighborhood who pulls his pants down and shows his genitals or hits other kids. My son is no longer allowed to play with him, nor does he want to, due to the hitting.

I've bolded the parts you missed in your rush to be sanctimonious.

You literally wrote “not allowed to” in your response. Most kids don’t want to play with autistic kids. The op (and you, apparently) would rather take these moments to reinforce exclusion and ick principles than take the opportunity to say “Larlo, he’s FOUR and has a disability. Let’s talk about why his disability might cause him to act this way. Ignore the behavior and be kind to him”
Doesn’t mean he has to be his best friend. But such justified unkindness will show itself eventually.

If you think that forcing your kid to play with someone with inappropriate sexual behaviors is a good idea you are free to do so. I don't force my kid to be friends with anyone. Hope your choice doesn't come back to bite you.