Our new Neighbours and my loud children

Yeah I’m gonna call BS on OP. I don’t believe the neighbour said that. It’s just not something people say, even if they genuinely don’t like kids for some reason.
Neighbour should have spoken to OP before blasting music at 430am though …
But also sounds that OP is not being considerate of neighbour and now wants to run a nursery from her garden. ..
I do feel sorry for her neighbour who has a right to enjoy their home in peace

The fact that most people have instantly jumped on the bandwagon that ops children are too loud amazes me, just because one person said they were loud doesn’t I fact mean they are loud. Perception is different to everyone. What are kids supposed to do? Stay quiet outside. As long as it’s not late at night or early hours and constant I don’t see the problem. Given ops son has ansd, this should be taken into consideration aswell. Our neighbours dog barks the minute we walk out the back door, can’t do anything with out it knowing. It’s bloody annoying as hell but that’s our perception. My daughters friends come around for the pool and hot tub but we make them keep it down by a certain time and the rule is no screeching. We had 15 girls last summer, was a bit lively but they were good as gold. Neighbours knew beforehand and actually said it was no more noise than usual. I live predominantly near elderly neighbours.

We’ve had noisy kids in neighbouring gardens on and off for years. As much as it can irritate the hell out of me, I never say a thing as the parents use the gardens as a safe space for the kids to play as they are entitled to. My parents did it with us. The children eventually grow up and leave home. One of the boys who used to drive me mad is now an adult with his own family. Having said that, I wish the parents of the family in the adjoining garden would take their kids in earlier.Last summer they were out up to 11/12 at night which meant we rarely had a quite moment outside.

OP, I see where you're coming from but speaking from experience the last thing I would do is speak to her and have her in any way think she has power to tell you what you can and can't do, it will be hell. By all means give her a heads up you're starting a childminding service but state it as fact, I'm not even sure I would be doing that to be honest. The idea you weren't going to make a dream come true is ludicrous to me. March on with your plans, do not give her any power.

I honestly can't believe the level of vitriol OP has received on here. So many things she said have been twisted her loud kids in the garden for an hour or so in the afternoon became screaming kids all day long.

Kids are loud and they are allowed to be loud during the day. I live next to a nursery and we do hear screaming and lots of it from 8:15 to 5:45 every weekday. One of which is an autistic child whom literally high pitch screams every day from around 5 until his parents pick him up. I would never dream of making a noise complaint. I know the exact reaction, or complete lack of a reaction we would get of we did. We have two extremely noisy kids next to us. I can literally tell the moment they get home as the thumbs and screams start and last all evening, there are times we have felt our walls shake. Two neighbors reported them separately and the council basically said they are kids in their own homes during and it was expected noise during the day.

Also as OP has pointed out one of her children is autistic. The ability to just control their nosie is a much steeper and longer learning curve than neurotypical children. So all those with nasty comments on OPs parenting can do one.

The fucking irony is if this went anywhere near a council OP would have more grounds for a complaint as her neighbor blasting the radio at 4:39 was unreasonable and by her own admission intentionally antisocial, which I think reveals a lot about her character.

Parents are also annoyed by other children, so your 'point' about non parents is patronising.

OP something that sometimes works for us, and I do really mean sometimes because it's been a work in progress for years, is a wall clock, just a bog standard cheap one, and we have blocked out hours in colours, when it's red it's quiet time and when it's green it's OK to make noise.

Some children especially with autism need visual prompts but it doesn't work overnight and it always needs to be clear.

Now my son is 6, doesn't have additional learning disabilities but was incredibly speech delayed and can not for the life of him delay gratification so pointing to this clock and reiterating when the little hand is here it is quiet time just caused confusion and upset until recently where he has started developing more of an understanding of language and what words really mean and not just how they're said in sentences but I can recommend this as a starting block as visual aids. You can put one in every room of the house if you must.

I disagree with negative consequences like warnings because warnings create anxiety like the removal of a resource and that might work for children with a social understanding outside of themselves but it can just cause more dysregulation in children who can't follow complex adult led tasks, can't communicate properly, and can't delay gratification.

Another thing I would recommend is headphones for listening to music. For my son, if he's listening to music loud enough that he can't quite hear himself clearly but not so loud to damage his hearing he doesn't verbally stim quite so much so doesn't make loud shrieks, or talk too loudly, or shout. It's a good tool to have when you're pointing to the clock to say it is quiet time now, would you like to read a book or listen to music.

Our toniebox has also been a godsend as you can use them with or without headphones and kids can pull the figures off and put them back on as and when they want and restart the stories or continue or rewind or toss it about a bit and they're just really really hardy and well worth the purchase, another good option for quiet times and good for children that like to collect things even if they're still in their chaotic phase.

Please don't do this unless he's screaming constantly. Children need to be allowed to play and making him scared to make a noise isn't conducive to that.

You know whether he's genuinely being excessively loud, if he's not just let him be.

Obviously we need to be mindful of other people, but if it comes down to appeasing a fussy neighbour or doing what's right for your young children, your priority has to be them...the days of seen and not heard are over thankfully (except on mumsnet apparently, in real life the only person I know that would object to children playing in their garden is my extremely pompous great aunt. She also thinks I'm spoiling my children by hugging them too often).

And she told me she doesn’t like children

That was quite a bitchy thing to say to a woman who actually has children, she could have kept that to herself….she sounds like trouble, don’t let her rule your life, if you never want to hear your neighbours then you should live out in the countryside, in towns and cities you will always hear some noise, especially from young children

Her turning on the radio so early in the morning was petty cruel nonsense, it says a lot about what she is like

You did. You said -

"They do not scream in an angry way or malicious. It is purely when they get over excited"

Your neighbours bought their house to enjoy it too

If I was your neighbour I’d be selling up asap, sounds horrendous.

Children playing during reasonable hours (so not very early or very late) is to be expected, unless you can afford to live somewhere without neighbours.

Noise during the day/early evening is just something you have to put up with, like people cutting their grass, babies crying, bbqs, and the odd bit of DIY. It's just part of living near other people.

Honestly, if she'd come over in a friendly way and tried to find a compromise, I'd be inclined to work with her. But the second she tried to teach your young children a lesson by waking them up, I'd have no interest in meeting her half way. Tell her if she plays her radio again at 4:30am you'll let them eat breakfast in the garden as soon as they wake up.

Aw I really think you need to be a conscious neighbour and give consequences to the children for loud nuisance noise! Your neighbour was giving you a taste of your own medicine and you didn't like it so please take the hint if you value good relations xx

I live in a cul de sac and the boy diagonally opposite has special needs. He is incredibly loud.
We obviously comment to each other occasionally as neighbours along the lines of ‘ Gosh, did you hear Tom yesterday?’
However, every single neighbour in all 9 houses only show tolerance and kindness to that family. The parents are good people and they deal as best as possible with their dc and as decent neighbours we would sooner support than undermine them.
@Marley11 don’t let the ndn bully you. Your dc have every right to play in their own garden within sociable times. Some people are miseries.

This.

You've more chance of herding cats than stopping autistic kids screaming if that is their stim. Coupled with the poor impulse control of adhd, it's like trying to stop someone with tourettes from ticking.

All you can do is redirect the behaviour. You can't exactly shove a cork in their gobs.

It doesn't sound like it's enough for her for you to bring the kids inside anyway seen as her performance was to demonstrate how thin the walls are.

I think the neighbour is being petty and unreasonable to retaliate to normal behaviour with unsociable behaviour.

The OP doesn't need to sew their mouths up. She just needs to try some basic parenting techniques e.g. given them a warning when they are too loud and then taking them inside if they continue. The OP seemed surprised this was even an option when an earlier poster suggested it which suggests she hasn't really done much to try to stop the kids loud behaviour.