to think "neighbour" has assaulted my child

[BubbleBathAddict]

Basically my 11 year old son was in a group of school friends yesterday after school. On the way home from the park they played "knock down ginger" -ie they knocked on a couple of front doors quite near us and ran away. Now this is not something I was aware of or would condone, but on the scale of "crime" it's not something to get too excited about.

My son said he did not do the knocking and stayed on the pavement.
At the second house the woman came out and yelled. The boys ran. All of them more quickly than my son it seems. Half way home (a few houses only) he felt someone grab his wrist and the said woman insisted he tell her where he live and frog-marched him home. He was in tears. I was at work, but his dad and older brother were in.

I do not know the woman at all. She apparently said her children were scared. I am pretty furious that she thought it was OK to grab and intimidate a child. That might have been appropriate 40 years ago, but these days touching anyone without consent is battery isn't it?

I don't want to over-react, but will be going over there today. What would you do?

Gosh how embarrassing for you, your son caught annoying your neighbours.

I'd send him round with an apology, with yourself. I would ask the neighbour to inform you if anything like this happens again and to refrain form putting her hands on your son. I would promise her that you will deal with this appropriately.

Okay it is very wrong what she did, was wrong. Hope your DS is okay. However knock down ginger can be seen as intimidating behaviour, especially if you're of nervous disposition, and if its been going on for a while. Which. My insticts tell me it has.

Why not do the right thing. Swallow your pride and take your DS round to the house and let him apologise. You'll be teaching him a valuable lesson in life. Surely you'd rather your son grow up to be a thoughtful decent human being. He wasn't assaulted by this woman, how do you know she wasn't at the end of her tether. Do the right thing. Otherwise be prepared for a son who'll give you grief for years to come.

What would I do ?

I'd get my Son round there and hope she accepted his apology, that's what I'd do

A group of young boys kept doing this near me about 4 years ago. At the time my husband was working long hours, I'd recently had my 2nd baby who'd needed emergency surgery following birth at a children's hospital and I had PND.
The knocking scared me and actually made me cry at times. One day, they took it further and threw a brick at my window, smashing it. I ran out (husband was with the children) and caught one of the children, I took him home and told his parents and rang the police who came out and spoke to him/his parents. His parents made him give me his birthday money to pay for the breakage.
Your neighbour did the right thing. He has no business knocking on people's doors. I'd take your son round to apologise. My eldest is 9 and I'd be so disappointed in him if he was anti-social and knocked on people's doors/window's.

If I went home and told my mum that. I'd be told off/smacked or something by a neighbour. I'd have got another hiding, because my mum would have said. "What some outside has had to tell you off. Well you must have been doing. Making a fucking holy show of me".

Cleaty more than one said it. That's why it was a pile in

Page 1... so far he is a little pest who deserved it Page 2, he was too slow and deserved it age three I called him an irritating little toad and OP should be grateful she has been offered a golden opportunity, more of that on page 4.

Page 5 he is a precious little snowflake OP comes back with her oddly rambling PA diatribe and we are reminded that her son is unlikely to become a Kray but he needs to learn this lesson - also a deleted post.. wonder if that was really rude?

Page 6, reminders that harrassment is a crime, parents need to deal with this, nip it in the bud... page 7 the words of one syllable post, another deleted post that could have been horrid.

Page 8, ah ha! Waltermitty says that if they act like little shits there are consequences maybe that's it! Oh and the 'I'm a ginger and I am offended' posts

Page 9 and OP herself refers to her child as a little shit, in response to a poster who had not called her son any name at all on the preceding page and Iona asks for peace and love.

So I deduce that in 8 pages 2 posters might have referred to OPs son as a little shit! Not really a consensus of opinion, no evidence of piling in

Page 10 another deleted post, some baby food thefts Page 11, Kondo says she doesn't think OPs son is a little shit but many 11 year olds take part in shitty behaviour, best learn his lesson now, whilst it will be an easy one, lilac proffers many posters a grip.

Page 12 another deleted post, possibly the one that chides other posters for blaming the OP for working, when that was part of OPs oddly rambling post not anyone elses accusation.

Page 13 is the with rights come responsibility page and another post is deleted. I posted immediately after that and don't remember it being nasty!!

Page 14 is the I Am Spartacus page and the one where Fanjo objects to OPs son being called a little shit.

So in 14 pages there are 3 or 4 posts where that could have happened and one of those is the OP!

Sorry Fanjo.Nobody piled in. Almost everyone has said that silly irritating behaviour is normal and that it is best practice to use such an occurrence as a golden opportunity to teach kids about social responsibility. An opportunity OPs insistence on shifting the focus to the her neighbours behavior is wasting!

Now, as it is too early for wine or a G+T, I shall have a cup of tea and a biscuit

Agree this is what is wrong with society.
Your son is harassing soneone in their own home, so is taken back to their parents, yet some parents would yell at the person harassed???
This is why some kids grow up with no discipline.
It doesn't matter that it was only 5.30 And she wasn't old.
Well i'm only In my 30's but suffer with chronic pain and severe anxiety! This would terrify me!
We've had teenagers constantly do it, unfortunately the last time my dp was in and he terrified the teenagers.
He'd had enough of finding me constantly on edge.
If their parents had come round we'd have told them exactly what their kids little game was doing!

OK that's me told then

Ok kids will be kids and most certainly at the age of 11 can do silly sometimes dangerous things particularly when around others of the same age!

No one is perfect, no child is perfect!

No one is saying your child is a master criminal or any thing of the sort!

However what he did was very wrong, antisocial and intimidating- he faced the consequences of his actions and rightly so.

I played knock knock ginger once and had a bucket of water thrown over me I went home crying to my mum who sent me to bed and grounded me for doing it.

It's good to learn that negative actions have consequences!

Iliveinalighthousewiththeghost "Okay it is very wrong what she did, was wrong. Hope your DS is okay."

I couldn't disagree more. IMO the neighbour did nothing wrong at all.

This is a valuable lesson for any bully to learn. No matter how little they care how the people they bully feel, eventually it's going to come back and bite them on the backside too, which may well be the only thing that makes them stop.

If you keep on picking on people eventually you're going to do it to the wrong person and come up against someone who is a bigger, nastier bully than you who will teach you a lesson. This boy was lucky he didn't encounter a bully but just an indignant but responsible woman. He's lucky he didn't come up against someone who would really have taught him a lesson.

Fucking hell. What has the world come to when the harassed person is in the wrong?!

Christ.

Page 9 and OP herself refers to her child as a little shit, in response to a poster who had not called her son any name at all on the preceding page

OurBlanche thanks for noticing. I was going to point that out at the time but thought better of it. I did not call the OP's son that on any page whatsoever.

Is that all you can say? I spent whole minutes on that Fanjo

Seriously, it is really likely that 2 or 3 people over 16 pages did call OPs son a little shit. They were wrong and OP has every right to be pissed off at them.

But it has been an otherwise fairly calm exploration of why being polite is a social more. To quote Robert Heinlein

“Sick cultures show a complex of symptoms ...but a dying culture invariably exhibits personal rudeness. Bad manners. Lack of consideration for others in minor matters. A loss of politeness, of gentle manners, is more significant than is a riot.”

I would be mortified if a neighbour brought my son to my door having caught him doing something so ant--social, and I would hope that in that situation I would do what I could to teach him some responsbility for his action. Like others I have been a victim of this sort of thing, and it can feel intimidating even if it is only kids.

Fanjo - I will ask you again, what should the women have done?

Mrsdv I didn't mean you. I meant people who posted

"Your son is a fucking obnoxious shit who will end up in prison and you are a twat"
etc.

Not sure why you are interested if you didn't call him it sparkling. Clearly I wasn't then addressing you.

I would've been mortified if that was my son and I would've backed this women up 100%! I'm amazed at your reaction to be honest.

You weren't there!!! You were working!! Sorry! In your absence another adult took control of the situation.

Shame on you for your reaction. Guilty perhaps for not being there!

Something tells me this kind of bunfight is exactly what OP was aiming for

See, maybe your average kid playing knock down ginger is just indulging in "hijinks" (I disagree, but let's play devil's advocate). But them you throw in a parent who seeks to reprimand the victim by making her child the victim, and you lay the foundations for a kid who learns to deflect, learns that he can behave badly but adults can't challenge him, and THEN you end up with a self-indulgent little shit destined for jail. OP needs to stop this before he goes down that path. In my parents' day, the response would have been "you got what you deserved" not "assault and battery! How dare you touch my angel!" She didn't even hurt him.

I don't know what you mean Fanjo. I was pleased someone else (OurBlanche) had noticed something I did.

I wasn't referring to anything you had said just to what OurBlanche did. That's why I was interested. Sorry.

OP did, Fanjo. Sparkling had not, in any post done so but, on page 9, OP addressed her as though she had!

By then there were 2 deleted posts, one of which, presumably, included the rant you refer to.