To let my kids play football in the road?

[sandyballs]

It's a quiet road and they are 12 so not little. I've told them to keep the ball low and avoid parked cars and I've watched them and they do. They're also good at looking out for cars coming.

They told me tonight that a neighbour freaked out at them saying how dangerous it was and to get out the road. She has much younger kids. I'm just pleased weather is nicer, evenings are lighter and they're outside and not on some kind of screen. AIBU?

Yabvu.

I think that's it Miaow. A 5 year old say, with a foam football is not the same as a 12 year old with a proper football. They have a very good powerful kick on them-best practised in the park IMO.

Are you my neighbour? Your children are driving me insane, as A&E the football prints on our vehicles.

ARE not A&E

The kids round here seem to congregate in our small cul-de-sac to play football, despite there being a very large grassed area at the top of the next street. I don't even know who half these kids are.

Their ball often hits parked cars (last year a couple of cars got damaged) or windows and the boys are forever trampling all over flower beds and gardens to retrieve a misguided ball without a care in the world. Not to mention the noise.

Then there is the idiot boyfriend of the girl next door who makes his mission to see how fast he can rally his car around the corner and do a 90 degree turn in the street completely ignoring the 20 limit!!

At 12 years old I would expect them to go to the park or a large grassed area at least.

Miaow This sounds like my road. They even come from the next street to play with their friends. The Neighbourhood Watch rep was verbally abused by one of the parents when she tried to ask them to stay away from other people's houses.

I live in a large cul de sac and there are a few kids who play footie or use skateboards. I try not to mind but it can get noisy and I've seen one of them lean on my car whilst watching his mates. He got a flea in his ear, I'm afraid.
What bugs me is they don't play outside their own houses.

I don't send them up the road outside others houses, they are outside ours. They are also girls, does that make any difference, shouldn't really.

YABU. Football should be played in the park or a garden.

I think what Sandy meant was that her dcs are girls as some assumed they were boys..

Doesn't matter if they are girls or boys. Playing football generally gets heated, the ball gets kicked harder etc the more the game progresses. Someone kicks the ball hard, the person who sees the ball coming towards them, moves out of the way, bang a dent in the car.

Of course they are noisy. The sound of the ball bouncing on the road. The girls screaming and shouting at each other to pass the ball to them, or to get the ball. The cheers when one of them score. You might not think they are noisy but your neighbors will.

YABU

For all the reasons already stated.

While it is great that they are out enjoying themselves and letting off steam, not so great if your wing mirror gets knocked off due to a powerful kick or your newly planted bedding plants get trampled on by size 8 feet.

That's why we have parks and gardens

and that isn't miserly.

It's when you are sitting in the house, with the car that you've saved for years for (not posh - just hard up!) parked on your drive, waiting to hear the unmistakable sound of a football hitting it - which happens from time to time even if the children are being careful - that you get wound up... If there's a playspace nearby, they should be playing there, not near people's cars and properties. (It's even worse when the football hits your front window and you nearly have a heart attack....!)

If the ball hits the window and it has grit on it, it leaves a lovely scratch.

Holly there were not many cars in the blitz! and parents kept an eye on their kids too.

op YABU. same reasons others have said.

we once lived in a culdesac. tha amount of cras that got sctratched/windows smashed/kids running to and fro in front of house.....a park just round the corner, unused back gardens....

what Miaowsayd too. why dont they play outside their own bloody houses? in their own street?

I do think cars have appropriated an awful lot of common space (i.e. all the roads we have) andthat has had a negative impact on children and childhood.

Nevertheless, if there's a park they can get too that is safe then it would seem like a better place for them to play.