Was DH unreasonable to ask the neighbour's kids

[differenttoyou]

to go inside at 9.40 this morning. There were 3 of them and they'd been outside on their trampoline (which buts right up to the fence) since 8.00 am singing at the top of their voices. Eventually we couldn't take it any longer as they started to sing a song from Frozen and they ramped up the volume until they were virtually screaming. DH called over the fence and asked them to go and sing inside.

Have you ever considered that your neighbours don't want to part of your 'village'?

Really have reached new lows when you're happily admitting that strangers can parent your kids better than you.

I don't think it has to do with fear. DD is far more biddable at nursery but she isn't scared of her key worker or any of the other staff - it's simply a different relationship with an adult who isn't the one that she can absolutely 100% depend on to be there for you, come what may.

There's nothing wrong with knowing you have upset someone else, in fact it's surely good to know, instead of carrying on obliviously - that's how we learn to live with other people.

QED

We had an elderly lady living next door to us who would often tell us off for shouting and screaming, or kicking our ball into her rosebed. She would also hand us biscuits over the wall and always bought us Christmas presents. We certainly weren't afraid of her, but we respected her. She was part of our community and neither we, nor our parents, saw anything wrong with her sometimes letting us know that we needed to quieten down or be more careful where we kicked our ball.

I think some parents nowadays make far too big a deal out of a neighbour putting a child in their place. It's very silly and not doing their children any favours. Also it's important to teach children the difference between an annoyed neighbour requesting a bit of consideration, and a bullying neighbour who's being unreasonable.

Calling over the fence telling them to go inside doesn't fall into the nice caring biscuit handing out neighbour category.

It falls into the scary neighbour category if your a child.

Or the cunt category if your an adult.

The trend I keep seeing on MN is that adults feel children should be quiet and not play outside in their own garden unless they do it quietly. There is also a trend for trotting out an afterthought of concern for somebody elderly who has not actually said they mind (or can even hear) whatever the noise is, as an instant shield of sainthood to hide behind....

Where I live there are rules about when children can make noise in the playpark which is slap bang in the middle of a row of houses, which is handy as its all nice and clear cut - 8am to 8pm on any day of the week is fine, later is not, done and its illegal to mow your lawn on a Sunday

No we weren't scared of her. She did sometimes tell us to go inside if we weren't going to stop that screaming or fighting with each other, because she didn't want to listen to us. We would just quieten down immediately. She was quite right, in my view. It was a much more sensible approach than coming around and formally knocking on the door and making official complaints to my parents.

I think I would hang on to see if the parents tell them off. I always come out and tell mine off if they get too loud. I also wouldn't mind if someone else did though, unless they were being unreasonable. I have also told a group of big kids off in the street for bullying the younger ones.

My kids aren't scared of our neighbours. They have neen taught the difference between reasonable and unreasonable requests. They also have respect for other people and know they have a voice when appropriate
Not like in the bad old days. You can swing too far the other way. There is a balance you know.

Mayhem, you're just digging your heels in aren't you? If you are able to effectively subdue rambunctious children running around outside, each and every time, then you truly deserve a medal.

When my two boys have reached the "tipping point", I firstly have to make a determination as to whether they're becoming a nuisance to the neighbors or just being children - it's hard to tell. If I decide it's the former, I have to scream/threaten for several minutes to get them to calm down - again, once they've reached this point. I may make the wrong judgement call, and it may take me several minutes longer than the neighbors would like to calm them.

Surely its legitimate for a neighbour to ask them to pipe down, but absolutely not even remotely appropriate to ask anyone to leave their OWN garden.

I think the problem is that a lot of people nowadays just see their family as some kind of little Island, whereas when I was a child you knew your neighbours and saw yourself as part of a community. So the whole 'village to rear a child' concept was accepted and people didn't get precious and offended at a neighbour telling off one of their children or asking them to stop doing something.

I would much prefer to go back to those days. Nowadays you're almost afraid to say anything to a neighbour's child in case you'll have one of those 'indignant parents' arriving on your doorstep.

They were in effect being asked to pipe down though. They were asked to leave the garden if they wanted to carry on singing. Not leave the garden full stop.
Talk about fuss over nothing.

or people like Mayhem (though let's hope there's only one of her) calling you a cunt and declaring war on you.

I don't need a medal thanks.

But I can open the door, call the offending child indoors to calm down and cool down before letting them back out.

Is that just basic parenting?

I don't require anyone else to get involved.

Maybe you don't Mayhem. But the parents in the OP obviously did, as they didn't intervene so their neighbours had to.

I live in a village in rural Bavaria - its like -1950 but with the internet :o NEighbors absolutely look out for each others kids, tell them off for hurting each other in the playground or hogging the swings or for playing in the middle of the road, pick them up and wash and put a plaster on a grazed knee, all of that (which no longer sounds common in the UK).

However nobody would dream of telling a child to go indoors because they were playing loudly at 9am... really they wouldn't.

I love the village mentality where I live, but it is NOT about closing children in and pursed lipped objection to children playing unless they are doing so in a whisper - bikes and ball games are smiled at, old and young alike are indulgent of children - there is none of this feeling that I keep seeing on MN threads that children's presence should not be noticeable from the other side of a garden fence - and the same people who object to child noise are often the ones defending the rights of adults to be having a family party in the garden til 11.30pm as long as it isn't so loud the police need calling, etc.

I agree. A total fuss over nothing. Parents getting all high and mighty over anyone daring to occasionally ask their child to keep the noise down, play football somewhere else etc really give me the pip.

You better believe I'll be on your doorstep.

Asking why you didn't address the situation with the me and what right you have to tell anybody to get out of their own garden.

Then I would send the kids back out. Tell them to ignore the rude man next door and not stop the screaming like I once would have done.

Had he knocked in the first place, I would have said that I would make an effort to keep them quiet.

But once you've been rude don't expect me to be nice to you.

You sound charming Mayhem. What a lovely example you're setting your children.

It is so much more aggressive to show up on someone's doorstep than tell a child to pipe down.

Surely its legitimate for a neighbour to ask them to pipe down, but absolutely not even remotely appropriate to ask anyone to leave their OWN garden

THIS^

This really has become a huge debate about a tiny incident but, honestly, it's just grating on me, more than it should!

It is perfectly reasonable for a neighbour to ask loud children to lower the volume, this does not necessitate sending them in from their own garden.

It doesn't have to be one extreme to the other; let them scream blue murder or lock them up in chains. There is a happy sane medium.

Exactly Boots. But some people are more interested in asserting their 'rights' than just dealing with things sensibly and quickly.