To think boys should be able to kick a ball in the street

[scruffybird]

We live in a new build close with no park or green area. There are a couple of boys who like to kick the football around by their back gate, the prolem is they keep getting told to stop doing it by this old couple, who live in the house right near them. They even phoned the police, who came round and told the parents that the boys needed to play it in their very small garden.
I find it really sad that children can't play buy their back gates without being shouted at. No wonder you don't see many children playing out side.
The mum was telling me she is considering moving because of this.
Is she being unreasonable to let her boys play football near someones house?

As long as they keep it off walls, window and cars and out of the old people's garden YANBU.

Don't get me started on bloody miserable neighbours and PCSOs and children having the temerity to be in the street

We've moved now but out street became a really miserable place because of a few arsey neighbours who didn't like to see children play.

"As long as they keep it off walls, window and cars and out of the old people's garden YANBU."
They won't though will they? It would be unreasonable to ask them to do that, the nature of kicking a football around means that sometimes it goes off in an unpredicted direction.

OTheHugeManatee - Oh ha ha! . You'd get complaints about them too. And bikes. And children sitting on their garden wall chatting.

This is what confuses me. Ask people if they think it's a good idea to get children outside in the fresh air, running around and they all say 'Yes, of course, vitally important!' but suggest they do it in the street where they live as children always have done, and everyone gets all NIMBYish. Not everywhere has a park or any open space.

Yes in theory they should be able to play by thier back gate.

In reality it's a much different story. We live in a small cul-de-sac, and last summer was a bloody nightmare with two young lads and thier football.

They were on the road kicking the ball back and forth but really booting it.
They hit endless windows, were tramping all over everyones gardens to retrieve the ball without any regard for plants and flowers. Also hitting just about every car on the close. One boy smashed the rear light on one neighbours car. Everyone was out complaining.

There is some green open space just over the road next to one of the lads houses and they were told to go there to play but never did.

Also the lad next door was out in the garden with his ball, Do you know what it's like the hear that THUD..THUD...THUD, when its on your bloody fence.

lucy - but if they make an effort surely it's ok? I'd be cross if the ball was always coming over the fence, but once in an afternoon is surely not the end of the world!

aw that is so miserable to not let kids play outside. We can't know the exact circumstances, except that there is nowhere else for them to play nearby. I'm quite happy with the thump thump of a football, and let them go into my garden to get their ball as long as they don't trample on the flowers - I'd be more annoyed at the doorbell constantly going.

My kids used to play cricket across the road with all the kids on the street - using a tennis ball! It's quite a posh neighbourhood but no-one minded, it was lovely seeing them all out there playing, all ages.

Cars and property. I guess in the time when kids played in the street people were less protectionist because they didn't have dhalias and shiny cars.

The middle class obsession with property over the benefits of playing outside for children are more irritaing than the odd ball on my car bonnet.

Tennis would perhaps be more worrying, although when I was 6 I learnt to hit a ball by pounding the ball against the wall at the end of the terrace. No one minded in fact it was actively encouraged. Paid dividends too I was best tennis player in the school!

For old people to be so anti children playing outside is just plain selfish, unless these two old crones were blessed with endless achres of private garden I suspect they played in the street along with most other children of their generation.

Hypocrisy.

It's not a case of "not letting kids play outside". I'm fine with kids riding their bikes about in the street, or sitting on the garden wall, or playing anything other than bloody ball games.

In most cases, it's the ball that people have problems with. Because more often than not, that ball is going to hit a car, or go through a window, or hit a passer-by. That's just the way it is.

"I am sure there must be a park somewhere - I am sure it would be annoying for the parent to have to go there and watch the boys play, but that is what it's like when you have children, no? And when they are old enough, they can go by themselves."

Well, according to some like the NSPCC: You can't let them go on their own until they're 16. At which point they won't be so bothered about the ball any more, will they? It feels like parents get it in the neck from all sides: don't let them risk bothering anybody, don't let them play out alone, don't smother them in cotton wool. You can't do anything right :(.

Just to add i have no objection to kids playing out in the street...as long as they are considerate.
All the children here play out and it is lovely to see.

But like someone said with regards to football they have no control over where the ball goes once it's been kicked. Especially in such a small cul-de-sac

My DD got shouted at for playing with her pram on the pathway outside someones house and the woman basically banned her from playing there ever again!! Now that is miserable.

I used to live on a very small cul de sac, there weren't many places for the children to play,so they'd play in the street, including football. I never had a problem with it. YANBU.

Let the little ones play but make sure they stay a bit sensible and respectful, if someone asks them to keep the noise down, not swear and not damage and they do hey what the Hell.

Children sitting on somebody else's garden wall? I can see how that would cause annoyance. Why aren't they sitting on their own wall?

The upshot is that small children doing something like sitting on a wall cause less of an uproar than older children doing that same thing. It can be quite intimidating when older children make use of other people's personal space. If your garden is too small then that's something for you to work with or around - without encouraging games on a public road. If you think that your new development doesn't have the requisite amount of green space, visit your local planning office, they'll show you that the green space allocated is legal; applications can't be signed off unless the developer complies.

I think some parents forget that not everyone wants to be around children - and they have that right. Footballs and the like encroach others property quite easily and it's up to parents to take their children off to a park or do something with them, not leave them to make their own entertainment, which invariably involves other people who don't necessarily consent.

Some parents are sensitive to their neighbours, they know exactly which ones don't mind and the ones that do mind and they take pains to ensure that their children don't overstep boundaries. There are other parents who just don't care, their view that children have the right to be children (with whatever encroachment that entails), takes precedence over the right of their neighbours to have peace and not to have to put up with neighbours' children on their property.

It's really commonsense but it's something that has the potential to blow up out of all proportion and escalate into a serious neighbour battle.

witch - they were sitting on their own garden wall!

Nobody is stopping children playing outside. They are saying that it seems reasonable to stop them playing a game that is causing disturbance and distress to others. I was a child in the "old days" when children roamed free around the estate on bikes and roller skates. People were much mores strict then if our games got anti-social. Of course children have their needs, but they don't over-ride those of all other age groups.
Bottom line is, if there isn't room for your children to play football etc where you live, then you're going to have to take them somewhere where there is room aren't you? Which is something else my parents did. During the holidays we would get the occasional trip to the park with a picnic. There we could play rounders, cricket and football to our hearts content.

We were recently forced to move at crushing expense because next door and right outside my window the neighbour's kid WOULD kick a football for hours against a wall. His mother was positively abusive when I asked her if he could keep it to a designated time, and more-or-less told me I was lucky he wasn't taking vengeance on my car. I'd say if the police take action you are LUCKY. And OP, YABU.

I have no problems with children playing football on the street.

However I have been recently getting pissed off with the number of times it lands in my flower bed then the kids either try and sneak past my window to get it, or get brave and ring on the doorbell - sometimes 3-4 times in one session. I love my garden - I do not like it getting squashed by balls. I also did not like it when they were kicking it up onto their roof and it was rolling down into my garden.

I would think how nice to see kids out playing rather than sat in infront of a computer. People should always remember they were kids once.

I played football in the street for years growing up. It was brilliant. I'll bet those old folk did too.

I'm in the "as long as there is no damage to other people's cars/fences/gardens" camp. I live right next to a small kids playpark - with toddler swings etc.

I have no problem at all with the kids playing in there, but I DO have a problem with older kids getting in and hammering their football off the boundary fence. The boundary fence runs along my driveway and I am responsible for paying for any damage to it!!!

So when I see kids in there with a ball, I politely point out the No Ball Games (yes there is one!) sign and exlain that I have to pay for the fence when it gets broken. Mostly the kids accept that and stop kicking a ball around in the swingpark.
It is s newish development and there is a flat green space for kicking a ball around about 50 yards around the corner.mei

Depends on the road, time of day and how noisy the kids are. If the ball in bouncing against the house that would be out or order too.

On our road, it wouldn't be possible to play football as there are parked cars so the kids tend to skateboard/scooter, sit on their garden wall and chat or skip. Ball games happen at the park or in the garden.

I can hear children on our street and other gardens right now (including mine!) and think it's great. We are in the London suburbs and half term is a great opportunity for the kids on our street to catch up. They are different ages and go to different schools and I think my kids have become a lot more streetwise and an active member of the community as a result.

I used to have this problem- a gang of children from the estate used to insist on sitting on my fences and kicking their footballs against the metal shutters of the garage next door. This would go on for hours after school every day. They damaged my car, they broke my neighbour's front window. They ALL had gardens- but the parents of course preferred them to be terrorising me and my neighbour. We were sworn at when we complained. I have children, I love to see them play. I don't allow them to play near other people's houses. That is why we bought a house with a garden.

I eventually had to move. Even now, the noise of a football being kicked against anything makes me edgy- and that includes my own ds kicking a ball in the garden. If that makes me a miserable neighbour, I can live with that.

Ragged- are you seriously saying the NSPCC say children shouldn't go to parks alone until 16?! Where did you hear that?!

I think it depends. If the kids kick balls against walls etc. then yes I can see that would be annoying. But if they usually kick it to each other, and the ball goes astray occasionally, then the old people are being totally unreasonable. I bet they played out when they were that age. Maybe they're just grumpy because they had an inflated pigs bladder as their onl ball at that age! :P