in letting my children draw with chalk on the pavement outside our house?

[elegangle]

I've just had a mouthful of abuse form a couple of neighbours regarding our 2 children (7 & 5) drawing pictures with lumps of chalk found in the garden. We've let them draw on the driveway which leads up to the house but is not technically part of our property and a lady accross the road has asked them to come over and draw on the pavement that runs alongside her fence. Personally I don't understand the 'upset' that this is causing, they are pictures of animals, cars, planes etc. They have not written FUCK OFF or anything offensive but seemingly we are causing offense by allowing this. We live in a cul-de-sac of mixed council and ex-council houses.
So, AIBU in letting our kids have a bit of fun drawing pictures that'll be washed away in the next rainfall or should I stop them?

Lol at Calamity.....where has the white dog poo gone. You just can't get it anymore .

"And Mum came outside when it was time to go home, and almost had a fit when it became apparent that the "chalk" I'd been using was in fact a white dog poo."

Brilliant

midlandsmum I've had coloured chalks from Ikea and Sainsburys recently. I'd bet Wilko's sell them too.

Your neighbors are being old fuss pots. I would not allow them to draw on other neighbors drives, but no reason why they should not draw on yours.

Recently Jack Layton, a much loved Toronto politician passed away. Many people chalked messages at the Toronto City hall, check it out. It was very moving in person. His nick name was Happy Jack, he was always smiling.
photogallery.thestar.com/1044410
Guess your neighbors would be frowning at that too!

In North America, this is a very common summer past-time of all the local kids, you can buy packs of oversized sidewalk chalk in every colour and people even take them to the park.

Very strange that people would complain about such harmless summer fun.

Sorry, I wasn't trying to single them out personally, just making it easy to find the "objector" posts for those who insisted it wasn't possible MNers would object, feel free to report & ask MNHQ to delete that post with the specific names.

YANBU, have heard of this before though, think you must be unlucky to live near miserable moaners. As long as its not on someone elses property and not offensive, no problem.

Have also let DS & his friends paint on our path & fence, with water based paints which mostly wash off, they had great fun

If you do an Advanced Search using Chalk Pavement you will find a few threads showing just how tits up this can go

The chalk they are finding... is it kids chalk or the stuff that will stay there for months?

I would be happy with them doing it with kids chalk - but not the stuff that's there for months.

I let DD use chalk on our drive and our path up to the house and down the side of the house. It is children's chalk and it washes off with a bit of rain. She and her friends just draw pictures and DD has some special 3D glasses and instructions on how to draw 3D pictures using the chalk - they look pretty cool through the glasses.

IMo a bit of chalk is harmless and temporary anyway.

I don't let her chalk on other people's property though.

Aldi's have got buckets of giant coloured chalks at the moment. It's a great way to keep the kids (and Mum's ) amused for ages.

I really can't see why anyone would be offended unless the chalking was done on their private property without permission.

I also do chalk on pavement stufff with the Y1 children in my class too. We take chalk into the playground and do our work out there. e do missing ketters, phonics work, maths work, we do hopscotch, we make mini mazes and trails to follow, etc. I even made a fab snakes and ladders board once!

No, YANBU. I had the same problem, neighbour moaning that DS1 & 2 were drawing with chalk, but on our own driveway

I told her to piss off go away.