to not want to permantley watch a child whose mother I have never met?

[ditavonteesed]

who is round ours and neighbour a lot, nobody has ever been over to say hello or anything, she crosses road which I dont like as terraced street, double parked cars. my girls and neighbours girls wanted to go to her house and she had asked them, so I said I would cross them all over and go and meet mum and ask her to cross them back, she saw her daughter and other girls coming I was round corner so she didnt see me adn just said no your not coming here, all sent away, not a problem I have crossed them all back home, however we still have her dd. Not a major rant she is a lovely little girl and you dont know you have her, but I could be anyone.

This is absolutely normal behaviour round here. Kid 1 (plus others, sometimes) comes and 'knocks on' for kid 2, generally asking "Is 2 playing out?" Then, depending on the mood of the kids, and what's allowed/tolerated by parents, they'll either go out or stay in... So if your own child doesn't feel like playing out, or isn't allowed, you can often find yourself with other children in your house.
When my kids were younger, it was my habit to go and introduce myself to the mum of any kid who did this more than once or twice, but clearly many of the other mums thought I was mad! Have you, like I had back then, moved to a new area? Maybe up north?

I would just give her back to her mum, so she knows your not a free babysitting service. She oes not sound very caring

The only rule you can install is, if you are playing out you are out, if you are playing in, you dont have ramndom kids from the street and your dcs dont play in thier houses. thats the rule I set. no one plays in here and dd does not play in anyone elses house. Difficult if you are friends with the other neighbours though and happily can return having each others children in your houses without having the piss taken, sadly you will just have to be a bit stronger when it comes to this child and just tell the dcs that you dont know each other well enough to play indoors together.

My dd is 6 and a bit and I don't let her play out alone yet. She is friends with our next door neighbour who is 2 years older and is allowed to play out. My dd is always asking to be allowed out but I don't feel she is ready so the neighbour often comes to ours with her younger sister and sometimes the older girls other friends.
I try to see it as a positive - I can keep an eye on my dd and her friends and what they get up to, it stops my dd from nagging to go out and play and I hope long term, turns our house into a place where dd and her friends are happy to hang out in, so I will know her friends and know more about what they get up to.
is better to be a house children want to come to than one kids are trying to escape from. I get cheap snacks in for if they ask for something to eat and the kids happily play for hours.

sorry I didnt get back last night, had people round. anyway I have decided to go with ET great idea, she is round right now and I have told my kids they can play out with her but I dont want any kids in the house, also told them they cant go to her house as I dont know her well enough, they seem quite happy with that. Thanks :)

mum just came to collect her so have finally met her, she actaully seems nice enough and has said the girls can go over any time after this weekend as she is in middle of a sort out. :)

maybe she has read this thread dita, well at least she has given an explination, she probably realised she sounded like a mad woman the other day and is less stressed now.

Like flow says, this is the norm where i am from, in Liverpool, it is only when the friendship continues that you meet the parents, otherwise it is the norm to have a house full of children.

When mine and myself was growing up, we used to have friends all over the area in which we lived, there wasn't a need for the 'playdate' system, you 'called' for children until you found someone to play with and then played in or out of the house.

That is still how it is round here, Birds. My kids are much older now, so have mobile phones and generally make arrangements by text; but my youngest (12) will sometimes wander around from house to house across the neighbourhood looking for someone to play with, and I constantly have teenagers calling at my house for my eldest (17), and it has been like this since he was about 4!

I think it happens in areas where the community is still strong and stable: parents allow their children some of the same freedoms they had, because families and neighbours know each other, and everyone trusts that people are happy to keep an eye on each other's children and make sure they are safe. To outsiders it might look like irresponsible neglect, but to people who live in such places, it's called community! And if ever something does happen to a child, everyone rallies round... :)

flow, you are making me feel all nostalgic for my own childhood in a Yorkshire village. I now live in the South East - benefit of being in a friendly cul de sac is that ds does go and knock for the other kids in the street, but there are only a few of them and they only get to play out in our road.

It has lots of green space and bushes and so on so it's not a completely boring environment but when I was little there'd be a big gang of us and we'd be out all day, exploring our whole village, all the fields, woods and stream. Happy days... We knew that any passing adult would tell us off if we were being naughty and equally that if we got into trouble, we could knock on any door and ask for help.

Yup, it is a (large) Yorkshire village that we live in edam :)
If they need help, my children know only to knock on the doors of people they know... But there are dozens and dozens of these within a half-mile radius... And the time that my then-just-3-year-old took himself out in his pyjamas to 'buy sweeties' while I was still in bed, he was brought back safely by a neighbour who knew where he lived... :)

I sooooo wish I could move back, but dh's Mum has been getting increasingly dependent, and we can't up and leave. (And finding work in the sorts of jobs we do would be harder in my bit of Yorkshire, sadly.)

This Is 100% how it is in my road 8 5-7 year olds in this street and they bang on the door till they find someone to play with in or out we also do a rota system for taking them to school up the road the kids know the boundarys (we are well away from the main roads in a quiet village ) and it warned my heart when 2 new children came to the street they were adopted in to the fold within 48 hours i thought it was strange when I moved here now I see how great it is there out making plays and drawing together instead of infront of the tv

:(
I don't really understand why anyone lives anywhere other than Yorkshire... Or the seaside, I suppose ;)

flow, stop it! I know, why would anyone live elsewhere, and it is a bitter regret to me that I do...

Sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry! Have a bunch of flowers by way of apology And look, none of them white roses!