Neighbours kid always in our garden

[curlytoes]

Sorry long post! Trying to give all the info.

My neighbours have a lovely boy aged 8. They don't seem to do much with him and most evenings, weekends and school holidays he climbs into our garden and hangs out with us. My DCs are 7, 5 and 3. Neighbour's DC was round for about 6 hours yesterday and has already been round for a few hours today. We ask him to go home when we're eating but as soon as my kids are playing he comes back.

He is a nice boy but having him over changes our family dynamic. My elder two seem to show off and push boundaries while my youngest gets left out much more. I feel like I have to work much harder supervising and sorting out disputes when he is round although his behaviour isn't at all bad.

I want to ask him to come round a lot less often but is this mean? His Mum once told me that he's never had a birthday party and doesnt have many friends. We are often in our garden and do lots out there with our kids, gardening, craft, sports etc. We have a sandpit, trampoline, swings etc. This boy always seems to be alone and bored. I think if we ask him not to come round he will be stood the other side of the fence watching us.

I feel cross with his parents for putting us in this situation. I hardly ever see his parents. We've never had any problems with them other than this but we're not matey at all.

By the way, I don't think we're annoying anyone with our garden high jinks! We're lucky to have a long, private garden. We have no 'real' neighbours in the traditional sense. There are three houses on another street that have long gardens too, which run at 90 degrees to ours and meet our garden in an L shape. It's hard to explain but basically our garden is at least 100 feet from anyone elses house and screened by trees and hedges so I don't think our fun is too bothersome for anyone. 'Neighbour' boy goes to the end of his long garden and jumps through at the end of our garden.

So any advice? Am I horrid not to want him round so much? Should I just send him back repeatedly or try to talk to his folks? Should I be more welcoming?

I think if the kids are playing on their own whilst you cook dinner do housework etc fine but if you are going something with him it's family time and you send him home. Take it from there and see how it goes.

to me it sounds like his mum either hasn't got the time or the inclination to play with or entertain her son so she's quite happy for him to spend the day/evening in your garden. she's probably enjoying 'me' time while your family play childminder.
If you can I'd tell the boy that he can't come over uninvited and it's rude to come into people's gardens without being asked. And put up a fence.

We are having this problem, and it's got worse this weekend. I've got one DD aged 7. She is quite happy playing out in the garden on her swing and doesn't need to be watched.

Next door have a girl 8 and a boy 5. Last week the boy had a high pressure hose he was pointing into our garden. DD ended up getting soaked and came in crying. Heard NDN telling him off.

Looked out of bathroom window today to see him in our garden. Not the first time. He goes round pulling the heads off my flowers (doesn't do that in his own garden). By the time I got downstairs he'd gone back across. Bit later he's spraying some sort of insecticide over the wall. Later still and he's got a pair of garden shears and he's hacking at our bushes . At that point I did tell him he shouldn't be doing that and he scurried off.

DD said he'd been pulling leaves off my cherry tree (planted to stop the children going through the gap.)

I don't want to have to be out there supervising somebody else's 5 yo, when my own child doesn't need supervising. And I can't understand why he is allowed access to dangerous equipment - unsupervised - either.

I've been out to B&Q this afternoon and bought some extending willow trellis and some battens, to fill the gap. I don't want to block off the sun but I need for him to not be able to lean across the wall. I'm particularly pissed off having been woken up by them in the garden at 7am today.

Slightly off topic OP but I can see how your situation is untenable. Can you fill the gap he is coming through?

Maybe a flag system?

Tell the kids that sometimes you don't want company and that other times it is fine.

Green flag means Come On Over.

Red flag means Just Us Today.

Arg Tallulah I think anyone would agree that sounds awful. At least the lad we have coming over is really good.

My thing is that while I like the sound of the Utopia that Derek and theusualsuspects describe I'm not sure I have the personality for it! I've been trying to go with the flow and it's driving me mad!

LOL at forcing my kids to play with each other though. They choose to play with each other, or to do their own thing and they do have friends. They get to play with their friends and I don't even run a strict rota for houses despite the poker up my arse!

I guess I just like things a bit quieter and more private sometimes.

You see I grew up playing with my sisters a lot and we're still very close. My parents live in the middle of nowhere and my Mum is very happy in her own company. I guess I've inherited some of that. I love the idea of a busy, friendly open house but actually it's not really me. It's more worrying that I might be raising another generation of grumpy sods though!

I think OP you clearly have to do something because you are not happy and family time seems like a nice way to do it.

The only other thing I can think of is to sort out the fence, and go and visit the neighbours to explain that he IS welcome and at these times. I mean do it in a positive way, but in that positive kind of way that makes clear that you welcome him at these times, which might perhaps make his parents think twice about taking the piss. Or go and say you're worried about him coming through the fence, could he come and knock in future?

Different people do have different ideas here. She might be thinking your kids would be welcome at hers, so what's the problem?