I have 2 active boys age 6 & 4. We live in a Victorian terrace with a smallish garden. Both boys love a kick about. Recently our neighbours complained about too many balls ending up in their garden. I completely understand this. However, they said the kids should be forbidden from playing with balls in the garden entirely, which I avoided agreeing to. Instead we instituted a rule where the boys have to request a ball from us so they’re only playing with one ball at a time and it’s supervised.
The boys also apologised. The neighbours didn’t exactly accept the apology but were civil.
This was about a month ago. Since then there’s been one incident of a ball accidentally going over, which the boys apologised for. But now another has gone over. That’s 2 balls in month. Is this an unreasonable amount? Can they now reasonably insist on no playing with balls on the garden ever? My eldest became very tearful at the prospect as he loves football and is very active but the gardens are so small it seems impossible to prevent balls ever going over entirely.