To tell my neighbour to refrain from telling my children where they can play...

[minionmadness]

We live semi rurally, there are only 6 houses next to a small farm. We are surrounded by fields.

In front of the houses there is a single lane that is both our access, (onto the main road around a mile away) and a public footpath/bridleway.

Back gardens are around 150 feet long and at the footpath also runs along the end of the gardens.

Today the dts's (7) wanted to ride their scooters in the lane that surrounds the houses. I was out there with them and they were instructed to stay at the back rather than go near the lane in the front of the houses.

As they went past one of the neighbours gardens their dogs started barking, I reassured them that the dogs were in the gardens and they carried on scooting. Neighbour then came out and shouted to my dc to go and play somewhere else. I presume he didn't know I heard.

Was IBU to tell him to tell him to mind his own business and to please stop telling my dc where they could or could not play, or should we have moved the children since their scooting past the bottom of his garden was making the dogs bark. Incidentally his own children are teenagers now but when younger they played in the lane all the time... and why wouldn't they. There is no way the noise could be heard from the houses as the gardens are too long, neither were the dc shouting, they were merely scooting.

Not sure about the actual AIBU, but thats just because I am very non confrontational and would have gone inside and cried about the mean man (I'm a massive wimp)
But i can;t see how it is unreasonable for supervised children to play on a lane outside their house.

our gardens are quite small cant really scoot in them. our garages are at the back of our gardens theres an alley way for the cars to get in.. in summer my kids and neighbours kids all play out there. my dog gos out there as well runs up and down with the kids. but if he becomes a pain in the butt/barking just bugging people in general then he comes in.

i think if dogs where barking because of the kids i would try keep the kids from that fence area...but then if i could not i might kind of think sod it as there's no where else or the kids to play..... im on the fence

We've been here over 10 years and we were the last ones here, so we know all the neighbours well.

I can say that I never once though it WU for any of their dc to play there. Why would I, what would be the point in living here and none of our dc not being able to play outside of their garden.

This area is the only safe area for them to play since the front is a road.

The dogs bark when people walk past so by some posters logic my dc shouldn't play there full stop. Even if they played just near our own home the dogs would still bark.

Bubble I think that was really rude. It sounds like there are plenty of other places the OPs children could play without making the dogs bark.

Other people are posting on this thread about dogs who bark when they go out to hang out their washing or just go in their garden. Of course those posters aren't being unreasonable because if they didn't make the dogs bark they wouldn't be able to go about perfectly reasonable activities which they couldn't do elsewhere.

But in this case it appears that the OPs children despite having lots of other spaces to play have chosen the one place where they are going to make the dogs bark and disturb the neighbourhood. I really can't see why it would be such a problem for the children to move a little further down the lane away from the dogs.

This isn't an 'either or' situation in which the OPs children can't scoot at all without disturbing the dogs or the dogs can't be outside if the children are scooting. It sounds like with a little compromise both the children can scoot and the dogs can be out without anybody being disturbed.

But Bubble given the rudeness of your response I suspect you're probably the kind of person who would say that if your kids wanted to play there then sod anybody else even if they could perfectly happily play a few yards down the lane where nobody would be disturbed.

To be honest given the amount of space there seems to be I can understand the neighbour being pissed off they've chosen the one place that's going to set his dogs off.

Tough shit if he loathes the sound of children playing.

We live in a street of family sized houses; gradually as older (now) couples move out, younger families are moving in . I love to hear the next- door- but- two children playing in the garden, also my immediate neighbours' grandchildren when they childmind . It brings life to the place. I wouldn't be so keen on noisy dogs. It's up to your neighbour to control them .

He needs to deal with his dogs, the Op doesn't need to deal with her kids scooting along a public footpath.

Fuck that! Kids trump dogs every time. He should sort his dog out.

Moan great points. Ignore the ignorant.

Why do people keep assuming that we have lots of other places to play just because of where we live... we don't!

The fields are all privately owned (some filled with animal) the public footpath is not suitable for scooters either. So this piece of lane is the only safe place to scoot, save getting in the car and driving to a park.

I have no problem with the neighbour, never have. I often give his teenage son a lift down the lane on his way home from school. We are all usually quite accommodating of each other.

But Moan, there is nowhere else, is there? Its either the road (obviously not!) or the lane. You can't scoot well on grass, can you?

Nah sod that for a game of soldiers, let your children play there, after all, he let his play there when they were young, hypocrite. His dog is not your problem.

The dogs are the problem and not your DC. Your neighbour is grumpy and unreasonable. If his dogs are bothering by barking, he should bring them in or train them. I'm astonished that anyone has suggested your DC should stop scooting because your neighbour is rude and a feckless dog owner. Only on Mumsnet.

It would seem the majority agree IANBU.

I just wanted to clarify that my dc were not being noisy, simply enjoying their first bit of freedom to play where we live, outside of the garden. Do any of negative posters remember that feeling. My dc are very respectful of adults and it was they who came scooting back to me when he shouted at them. They then refused to carry on in case he shouted again.

My DH could not hear them from the house so presumably none of the other neighbours could either.

I clearly don't want to antagonise the neighbour as we do have to live in this small community, but I cant help feeling that it can't be fair for his children to have had the benefit of this outside space... but mine can't.

I am not a dog owner (thinking about one though) but family members are and I know my DF would not let his dog bark at children playing outside.

No where else to play all these years?

I am interested in knowing whether there are any differences between the neighbour's kids and the OP's kids playing out there. For instance, were the neighbour's kids scootering up and diwn loudly, how long were they playing for, where along the path, etc, etc. Just curious.

I do not go looking for trouble but when it finds me, I will confront it. Nevertheless, there is a lot to learn from Desidarata.

Op you have my sympathy, the fecking dogs bark if your in the garden and you live next to a Knobber who is a hypocritical lazy dog owner.

At least next door tried with a dog behaviour expert. The dogs are still a pita, and I keep hoping every six month anniversary they move and take woof woof fucking woof with them.

newrule, scooters do not make much noise, its not like it has whistles and bells on, does it op! My dd scooter is very quiet.

For the record, my other neighbour has a dog, everytime you walk past his house, the dog barks, even if somebody is walking fgs! If it senses somebody is there, it will bark, so nobody use the foot path!!!

The dogs are the neighbours problem, not op, he children are not screaming and shouting, just playing, in a safe area that is PUBLIC land.

newrule His dc would play there all the time, scooting, cycling, skateboards, all manner of play really.

It never bothered me because the gardens are so big the noise wasn't intrusive.

YANBU he is. It was good enough for his kids, he can't complain that the next lot of kids play in the same area.
His dogs will get used to the kids going past and will ignore them eventually.
Our neighbors dog would bark every time we went up our driveway for about 3 months, he eventually got to know who we are and ignores us now. His owner didn't tell us not to walk up our drive, he would just tell the dog to stop.

minionmadness

How long is the lane? Is it long enough that you could have moved a bit further away and continued to scoot away from the neighbour's garden?

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Just for the record

If I was the neighbour I would have taken the dogs inside until the children stopped playing IF there really was nowhere else for the children to play.

If I was the OP and the lane is long enough to move away so that the dogs stopped barking then I would have done so. In fact I'd have done so long before the NDN came out and shouted at the kids, it's just common sense and common courtesy.

If the lane is incredibly short and only stretches the length of the 6 houses then I would expect my children to be able to play there. Hopefully I would have been a bit more polite in my response to the neighbour irrespective of him being a bit shouty. Kill 'em with kindness and all that

Your DC's are being a nusiance. They should go and be a nuisance somewhere else. A lane is not a playground.

Who owns the lane? What do the deeds say? Do you jointly own it with the neighbour or do you just have a right of way over it?

OP's dc are only 7. She doesn't want them going half a mile down the lane. Why the hell can't they scoot in the lane? His dog, his problem. If thenoise of 2 girls on scooters is antagonising it, it needs to be better trained or shut inside.