Anonymous wrote:These neighborhoods sound like a zoo.

A glorious zoo, where kids are learning social skills, not on a device all the time and parenting is much, much easier rather than having to be a cruise ship director at all times.

Anonymous wrote:Some of you are talking about going inside homes. We live on a kid culdesac basically and NO ONE is going inside homes. These are kids playing outside in front and back yards with each other. I don't consider any of it free childcare and my older 2 don't need anyone to watch them. I provide enough toys to play with to help entertain and my neighbors do too (chalk, stomp rockets, scooters, water guns, basketballs, soccer balls, tag games).

I often do host playdates where kids come inside, but those are arranged in advance. I don't mind kids coming inside, but these kids are really dirty, sweaty and stinky from playing outside. They need to stay outside. lol

Just keeping them outside makes it much easier! The girls my girls ran around with the most moved in across the street in May 2020. No one was going into each other’s houses or eating snacks together. The girls were all about 6 to 8 at the time. Both that summer and the summer after there were not a lot of organized camps, so having friends to play with was great. I did not feel like their girls were imposing on us when they rang the doorbell. It got my girls out of the house. I wished my son (then 10), had a neighborhood friend.

Summer 2021 and 2022, there was a pack of about 8 girls running around together. By that point, they’d play (with permission) as a group in each other’s backyards, but front yard, sidewalk and bikes were more common. They still weren’t going in each others houses.

Just establish with your kid that when someone knocks on the door, they’re expected to play outside. Send them home if it’s not a good time for your kids.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Some of you are talking about going inside homes. We live on a kid culdesac basically and NO ONE is going inside homes. These are kids playing outside in front and back yards with each other. I don't consider any of it free childcare and my older 2 don't need anyone to watch them. I provide enough toys to play with to help entertain and my neighbors do too (chalk, stomp rockets, scooters, water guns, basketballs, soccer balls, tag games).

I often do host playdates where kids come inside, but those are arranged in advance. I don't mind kids coming inside, but these kids are really dirty, sweaty and stinky from playing outside. They need to stay outside. lol

Our neighborhood has a mix of kids coming inside and staying outside, and nothing is arranged in advance with neighborhood kids. The kids just migrate. One kid will need to use the bathroom or it starts to rain and the whole lot just move inside for a while.

We are one of the only houses that allows kids to play unscheduled inside, so on rainy or super hot days it’s a little bit of pressure to have people over but I still feel free to say “not today” or “not right now”. I am a believer that being willing to say “no” sometimes makes it possible to say yes a lot more often than having these big blanket policies that must work all the time.

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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.

I don't feed other kids without knowing their specific allergies. I am not taking that risk. I follow the "Ok, go home for lunch/dinner etc." model.

You don't know if the kids in your neighborhood have allergies? That seems weird to me. We also have people in this very thread talking about "user" parents and "free childcare" so it seems like I'm right about what's driving this, even if you have a particular concern with allergies.

If you send your kids to play at the neighbor's home vs. inviting the kids to your home its free child care.

We have a neighbor who is too shy to knock on our door but is thrilled when my kids knock on his. My kids also know they should always offer to bring their friend back to our house (they are coming over to give an invitation is to play, not inviting themselves over to play at the neighbors house). These are often an hour or so spur of the moment get togethers, not formal playdates that I have set aside specific time for.

Anonymous wrote:Some of you are talking about going inside homes. We live on a kid culdesac basically and NO ONE is going inside homes. These are kids playing outside in front and back yards with each other. I don't consider any of it free childcare and my older 2 don't need anyone to watch them. I provide enough toys to play with to help entertain and my neighbors do too (chalk, stomp rockets, scooters, water guns, basketballs, soccer balls, tag games).

I often do host playdates where kids come inside, but those are arranged in advance. I don't mind kids coming inside, but these kids are really dirty, sweaty and stinky from playing outside. They need to stay outside. lol

Our neighborhood has a mix of kids coming inside and staying outside, and nothing is arranged in advance with neighborhood kids. The kids just migrate. One kid will need to use the bathroom or it starts to rain and the whole lot just move inside for a while.

Anonymous wrote:

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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.

I don't feed other kids without knowing their specific allergies. I am not taking that risk. I follow the "Ok, go home for lunch/dinner etc." model.

You don't know if the kids in your neighborhood have allergies? That seems weird to me. We also have people in this very thread talking about "user" parents and "free childcare" so it seems like I'm right about what's driving this, even if you have a particular concern with allergies.

No, I don't know the allergies of all the kids in my neighborhood. Do I know the allergies of my kids' closest friends? Yes, of course. But some kid they are running with outside from a few streets over, not necessarily, so ergo I will not take the risk of giving food to a kid I don't know.

Some of you are talking about going inside homes. We live on a kid culdesac basically and NO ONE is going inside homes. These are kids playing outside in front and back yards with each other. I don't consider any of it free childcare and my older 2 don't need anyone to watch them. I provide enough toys to play with to help entertain and my neighbors do too (chalk, stomp rockets, scooters, water guns, basketballs, soccer balls, tag games).

I often do host playdates where kids come inside, but those are arranged in advance. I don't mind kids coming inside, but these kids are really dirty, sweaty and stinky from playing outside. They need to stay outside. lol

Anonymous wrote:

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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.

I don't feed other kids without knowing their specific allergies. I am not taking that risk. I follow the "Ok, go home for lunch/dinner etc." model.

You don't know if the kids in your neighborhood have allergies? That seems weird to me. We also have people in this very thread talking about "user" parents and "free childcare" so it seems like I'm right about what's driving this, even if you have a particular concern with allergies.

If you send your kids to play at the neighbor's home vs. inviting the kids to your home its free child care.

This is so strange. Im sorry for your kids that you have this mentality about their friends being a burden.

I have a 6-year old. There are plenty of kids in our suburban neighborhood but the lots are really large and there aren’t many sidewalks, so you don’t see kids roaming around unsupervised. Everyone hangs out at the playground or the parents text if the kids want to get together. In any case I wouldn’t let my child out alone at this age and I certainly wouldn’t want them ringing neighbor’s doorbells. I grew up in an unsafe country and still have paranoia.

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.

I don't feed other kids without knowing their specific allergies. I am not taking that risk. I follow the "Ok, go home for lunch/dinner etc." model.

You don't know if the kids in your neighborhood have allergies? That seems weird to me. We also have people in this very thread talking about "user" parents and "free childcare" so it seems like I'm right about what's driving this, even if you have a particular concern with allergies.

If you send your kids to play at the neighbor's home vs. inviting the kids to your home its free child care.

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.

I don't feed other kids without knowing their specific allergies. I am not taking that risk. I follow the "Ok, go home for lunch/dinner etc." model.

You don't know if the kids in your neighborhood have allergies? That seems weird to me. We also have people in this very thread talking about "user" parents and "free childcare" so it seems like I'm right about what's driving this, even if you have a particular concern with allergies.

Anonymous wrote: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.

"Then run home and ask your parents for a snadwich."

This is not hard.

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.

I don't feed other kids without knowing their specific allergies. I am not taking that risk. I follow the "Ok, go home for lunch/dinner etc." model.

Anonymous wrote:

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.

If kids are roaming around unsupervised it’s not your fault the kid took a snack. If not eating all day was such an important religious event he should have been home with his family.

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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.

Agree.

Bit I would do this too. He is being inappropriate. If it was just awkwardness, that would be different. This kid is exposing himself.

Talk to the mother and let her know. She might be able to work on it with him.