To rarely let my kids play out?

[FiveRingsForDinner]

I don't know how to handle the situation really. This is long to avoid drip-feeding.

We're lucky to live on a quiet estate with half a dozen kids similar age to my dc. These are (with one exception) only children. We are a family of 4 dc including a baby.

Playing out used to be a perk when they were toddlers & the mums chatted while they played on the grass. Now we're in the 6/7/8 age range - and a couple of things I'm struggling with.

1. Rules. I hate kids attacking trees/ playing in the planting beds/ going out of eye range to a back path/ touching cars - but I feel I can't force my dc to work to different rules than the other kids.

2. Dynamics. It always seems to end with my DS being a bit left out & getting either upset or stroppy (and I don't much like my DD being part of any meanness towards her sibs)

3. Baby. Due to all of the above - I end up forced to come out to sort problems - which interrupts me feeding / settling the baby

4. Neighbours. Over the holidays, we're getting kids out doors til 9.30pm, kids inviting 10 school chums round to race bikes, kids out for 6-7 hours at a stretch - as well as various slightly antisocial behaviour (see pt 1). It's annoying me - so I can only imagine how it feels to the childless.

5. Blame. As in "If anything goes wrong, we'll get the...blame" - as the most conspicuous family. We already had anonymous hate mail one year about dc playing in the back garden.

6. Boundaries. The doorbell can ring several times a day. Add to that kids yelling up to my DC bedrooms when I've asked them to sleep, pestering my DH as he comes in from work, yelling for Dd to 'run away' if we come home while they're out & I say 'no' to playing out, rifling in our front garden for stuff etc etc

I do feel like a meanie to be denying my kids all the time - and I know the other kids on the estate look at me askance. I've invited them all round for individual playdates to bridge-build and vary the script - but the guests end up just asking if they can play out front - which defeats the point.

How do I handle this appropriately?

How do I handle this appropriately?

You either let them out to play, or you don't!

If you do, you give them rules and tell them what the repercussions will be if they break them.

It's called parenting, it works outside of the house as well as inside

What kinkyfuckery said.

let them out,relax, dont understand your worry over 'touching cars'?

Of course you can make them stick to different rules to other childrens. You have rules for your children, who cares what anyone elses are?
Tell the children shouting up at windows to bugger off.

Agree. What kinkyfuckery said.

ll31 Don't you mind if your car gets scratched?

But its not that simple. My kids might be OK with it - but the neighbours kid looking sulky at being denied 'for no reason' creates an atmosphere.

My kids might understand 'balls only in the gated area' - but if (as happened) dd is outside when a ball is kicked against someone's door - then she's involved by implication - more so as the member of the 'big' family.

The cars - they are parked directly in front of kitchen windows (touching distance) - so when they play around the cars they are very, very close to people's houses.

I think you need to get over the paranioa that your DC will get the blame as being the big family.

Other than that, YANBU, your children, your rules. Thing is, only you can enforce that!

Why is it an issue that the cars are very very close to people's houses? What are you really afraid of?

would you like a neighbours kid eyeball to eyeball with you through your kitchen window as you were bleary eyed fixing yourself a cup of tea in your PJs?

Well, this is why I have nets and curtains and things. So I don't have to be eyeball to eyeball with anyone outside my house.

Surely, if the cars are parked there, it's public access anyway so I would imagine people are walking by all the time.

I think you have a chip on your shoulder about being 'the large family' and are therefore restricting your children in anyway you can think of, despite logic or anything else.

I don't think yabu. All those points would really get to me too.

I think it all sounds hideous and I thank the lord I don't live on an estate

My 2 play out, they know the rules and I'm much stricter than other neighbours. Sometimes it works well other times it's a pita. I think you need to relax a bit and stop trying to micro manage, you are overvthinking it. If I came eye to eye with a child looking in my window I'd tell them to bugger off and that would be the end of it. I think it's good for kids to sort out their own battles sometimes too, not do one is getting bullied but just sorting out their own spats without parents wading in.
I think you should let them play out but if you're not going to say to the other kids, they won't be playing out stop calling for them and that's the end of it.

It sounds like a nightmare to me. I would let them out though, they will soon realise that there will often be different rules to their friends in life.
Stick to your guns on the rules if you believe them to be right.

Well i would let them out, they cant sit around the house all the time.
For your points :

1. Rules - of COURSE you can expect your children to work to different rules to others, thats how life is. They wont always do it but thats when you step in to enforce it although i would pick a few rather than having a

1. Dynamics - they will argue, you tell your dd tp include her brother and again you have to step in wjen they dont.

1. Baby - thats just how it is when you have a number of children, i have 5 and dc5 is normally in my arms attached to my boob rushing around the house for her feeds!

4.neighbours -again you need to seperate your children from everyone elses, they might let the children do that you dont. As for the childless - perhaps they dont like it you deal with your children and let other families dea with theirs. Your children come it at bedtime you cause no problem.

5.blame - i dont think people are more likely to blame and if they do you say - my kids come in at 7. End of story? I see no issue.

6.boundaries- people ring at the doorbell, tell then to go away, call to your dc tell them mto stop.

Tbh you sound very anxious about things and im wondering if there is more to this than just playing out?

ha ha, my husband always sighs with relief when the nights get darker and they all go back inside. Living on an estate in summer is v annoying at times, but the kids love it and think of the memories they'll have. I'd say give them rules, a time to come in, keep an eye now and again, and then leave them to it.

I agree with 5dcsinneedofacleaner.

I've said what's behind me being particularly tense about intruding on the neighbours.

A couple of years ago (our first year there when we were a 3 under 6 family with only toddlers living on the estate) we got hate mail. All along the lines of how we're inconsiderate to have DC playing in the garden when there is a park round the corner, how much nicer the area was before we arrived and then spinning off into my nationality and my eldest's mental health (rather far fetched accusations).

The neighbours majorly rallied around us at that time - and I'll be damned if my kids at all get a reputation for being loutish - bouncy and boisterous as they are.

The 'ball kicked against someone's door' incident - as luck would have it - involved the guy I suspect wrote the hate mail (he was later sectioned under odd circumstances) - and DH was very uncomfortable with how that panned out: bunch of kids playing football directly in front of one of their doors, ball ricochets around and bounces against their next door neighbours door (Mr Green Ink), kids melt away leaving Dd getting told off by the guy that once described her as 'mentally ill'. And we only hear about it because one of the kids was scared & broke ranks to tell DH (while another kids was strenuously denying it in the background ).

Could you not hold a neighbourhood meeting do discuss the importance of outdoor play and how to manage it so that everyone is reasonably happy?

You need to take control of this for yourself, your DCs and your neighbourhood. Pulling your dcs out of the equation won't help because the problem will continue. As exotic says, call a meeting or chat to some of the other parents. Chances are they will be feeling as uneasy as this about you are.

You can turn it into a project if you have time, or rope someone else in to do it, this organisation have advice and support playingout.net .

The behaviour of these children seems to indicate that they are goading you because they want boundaries and now is the time to do it before they grow up into loutish teens.

Free play is all well and good but it can lead to a lot of trouble. I would start by going outside yourself and making your presence felt. Supervise them, I'm sure some of the other parents will start to come out eventually. It's important to set an example in these situations, hard, but quite possible. It happened in my area and now all the neighbours talk to each other and when things get out of hand we then reign them in a bit.

playingout.net/

it is o.k. to say no sometimes.

It doesn't have to be always yes or never.

my kids (7 and 9) play outside most days, but I go out and check every 30 mins or so. If they are not sticking to my rules, they have to come in, and after 7:30 they have to be in. I have sent them in for random screeching (poor neighbours), play that got too rough, or just if they are tired.

I can see that it is harder if you have a baby in the house.

She has little baby, hard to supervise out in the street for long & meet the baby's needs (btdt).

I'd like clearer info on how old the kids are.
The old-fashioned model is that you let them out within strict geographic roaming boundaries AND strict rules. They break the rules & then immediately come in, not allowed out again until the next day.
It's like we've culturally forgotten how to enforce sensible playing-out rules.
You are going to have to tackle this somehow fairly soon, they aren't getting any younger. I'd view it as an experiment to get to grips how YOU want to manage it. Rules you set up now for the older ones will apply to the others as they age, too. Tell the kids you're still figuring out the rules so they are subject to change.

I would have thought devise initial rules, & allow kids age 6+ to play out within geographic boundaries, etc., and only when convenient to you.

Can you disconnect your doorbell (so it doesn't disturb you & baby) & put up a notice that other children are only to come calling between X & Y times?