To stop throwing the balls back over the fence?

[Danielsss]

Those bloody balls. The kids next door constantly play ball games, the balls always go over our fence! We would always get a knock on the door, every 2 minutes. I ended up saying if just throw it back over, it's still as frequent!!! How do I stop this?

Exactly. I think my neighbourhood is pretty great, even if it is a poor high-crime area. I know my behaviours, we help each other out, and I do a lot of volunteering.

I don't even understand how we got onto the subject of crime and safety since my only argument against the 10ft ladders thing (apart from that I can't legally make any changes to my home as I rent) is that I don't want to be responsible for a kid falling 10ft into concrete and splitting his head open.

We actually have the benefit of 5-6 foot high double skinned brick walls in the back gardens (a condition of the houses being built back in the late 1800s). They would be more than capable of taking a ladder .

However, a ladder into our garden from the neighbour on the right hand side would mean that they would be jumping into an 8 foot wide herbaceous border (belonging to my downstairs neighbour). So quite apart from the damage that can be done by the ball landing, let alone the child trampling around looking for it is very high.

In the left hand side, there is a very large patch, about 6 foot wide, of brambles along most of the length of the wall . So ds quickly learnt not to let balls go over that side if he was the one playing - and no child in the next garden would want to put a ladder over that point.

But we don't fall out with our neighbours because we don't believe our children have a god-given right to be careless with their balls and to be able to do what they like with them without consequence

'Fanfiction'?

'Lies' about you?

'Very privileged area'?

All in your imagination.
There is a large intermediate zone between a place where people puke and piss on your doorstep and get stabbed regularly, and a place where people are rich and privileged, and the way you are suggesting mine is a rich and privileged place indicates to me that you actually don't see much of the world.

I have lived next door to one set of neighbours for nearly 30 years, I've held their children as babies, chucked numerous footballs back across the fence and watched them grow up. We are part of each other's extended families. But that is perfectly normal for many people, so I don't see the need to rhapsodise about it at great length.
It's not at all normal according to Littlecandle.
Your friendly relationship with your one neighbour isn't exactly a relationship with 'the neighbourhood' either.
A real neighbourhood usually has more than one neighbour. As I mentioned, I have about 30 and maybe you have about that many on your street or in your surrounding area. Do you know them at all? Or are they all strangers and potential hooligans whom you must keep at bay with your flimsy fence?

My mum has lived in her house since 1966. It's the house I grew up in. She welcomes ball-retrieving children into her nice garden, over her 8' high concrete block wall. She welcomes the children of men and women whom she knew as boys and girls when they visit grandparents and spend time kicking a ball around, as well as newcomers. This is not in the US but in Ireland. No deaths or serious injuries reported yet, and there have been 50 years of climbing in so far. And not once has it ever been suggested by her insurance agent or her solicitor that children climbing in and out is a situation that could imperil her coverage.

Francis, you are full of balloon juice, especially when it comes to your comments about insurance. If your policy does not specifically mention fences, you may well not be covered. And your 'solution' to the problem of children knocking on a door to request their ball back will lead to ulcers.

www.theguardian.com/society/2015/aug/19/english-children-among-unhappiest-world-widespread-bullying
We create the society that we inflict on our children. Our attitudes shape theirs. We model the behaviour that they copy, in schools and elsewhere.

We are apparently willing to invest a lot of energy into the sort of speech and behaviour that tells children they are at the bottom of the heap. We are so invested in this exercise in fact that we dismiss practical solutions to simple problems as ridiculous. Top-down nastiness creates a miserable environment for children.

What is school bullying if not the sort of jockeying for status that has been described on this thread in comments such as, 'Or perhaps the children should just wait until the OP has the time and inclination to get the ball. Children are not some sort of small God to be pandered to.'

This^^ response is based on fear of losing some sort of imagined status that is seen as higher than a child's lower status. The qualities that would mark one as a loser in this fear-filled world so many of you inhabit are patience and kindness.

It is indeed a sad little world that you are busy creating.

But the fact remains that I DO live in a high crime area "where people puke and piss and get stabbed regularly."

Your area might not be wealthy but it's obviously extremely privileged compared to much of the world. Privilege doesn't mean money.

Again, not sure what relevance that fact has to the issue.

Again, still waiting for a single suggestion that is legal and doesn''t endanger children.

Our NDN as kids used to have a limit of 3 balls a day that we could knock and ask for. After that we had to wait till she next went in the garden for her to throw them back.
The neighbour on the other side built us a step so we could climb over the 4' fence to get them ourselves...

Oh, did I say I didn't know my neighbours? I'm certain that I didn't, because I do know most of them ( not the new people who moved in a few weeks ago, but that is because I haven't seen them to say hello to yet) and we have a very pleasant, cordial relationship. Some of them I know better than others - all perfectly normal.

I do find it quite disturbing that you continue to extrapolate things from my posts (and others) that I did not say. You really do need to get out into the world and stop spending all day regarding your naval whilst waiting to throw someone's ball back. Oh wait - I forgot. You don't need to do that, because of your open-plan garden. You definitely need to get out more.

I can't believe people would deliberately burst a child's ball. I would report you to the local police.

I would report you to the local police.

Do we not think the police have better things to be getting on with? There are far worse things that happen that the police aren't interested in. Kids get assaulted at school on a daily basis and it's called bullying and left to the school to deal with whereas I would deem that it's assault and more worthy of police resource than dealing with a burst football. Lesson is, if you don't want your ball burst stop annoying other people with it. I can't imagine any sane person would deliberately burst a football on an occasion landing in the garden. to get to that point they have probably been harassed to the point of the loss of reason.

Incidentally, the guy who used to burst balls in our estate when we were kids (admittedly a long time ago) was commonly called Slasher Harris, he was a policeman. The kids quickly learned not to let balls go in his garden. Footballs were proportionately a lot more expensive and prized back then.

WankersHacksandThieves, depends how you feel about the rule of law. Destroying someone's property deliberately is a crime and just because the property belongs to a child it doesn't mean it is OK to vandalise it. Personally I believe in zero tolerance, it worked in New York.

Policemen aren't always law abiding, the fact that you know of a bad one doesn't prove anything. I used to work with a senior officer who was vile, no one shed a tear when he was sent down. I am assuming he had a great time at Her Majesty's Pleasure.

I don't think anyone is saying it's okay to vandalise a child's property, but actually I'd rather the police were out dealing with more impactive crimes and that for someone to get to the point where they decide to destroy the ball, they've probably been harassed by said child. It's a life lesson really, isn't it? If you want to be a shit and keep encroaching on another persons property and time then your property might get damaged. Socially, who is committing the bigger "crime" here?

If I ever got to the point where I'd feel it appropriate to call the police over a damaged football then you may as will just shoot me cause that isn't a society that I want to live in.

I've already detailed the way I deal with balls over fences, one or two may have got accidentally hidden over the years. In general I have a good relationship. I think most people would have exhausted all reasonable possibilities before they decided to puncture the football.

If my children had been kicking a ball over a fence to the point where the neighbour decided to puncture it, I wouldn't be calling the police, I'd be dealing with my children's behaviour and apologising to my neighbour.

You and me both Francis I am as protective of my children (well teenagers now) as the next parent and would defend them with my dying breath, but they will be anti-social over my dead body.

I am happy discuss and mete out appropriate punishment to my DSs which doesn't mean beating them up. I am happy to explain how what they do impacts on others. I will not however always take their side in everything when they are clearly in the wrong.

Sadly it seems like an increasingly minority view.

When I was a child, you didn't go tattle telling to your parents when you knew you were in the wrong as that resulted in an extra punishment. Society taught you a lesson, you learned it and moved on.

I agree that part of our role as (good ) parents is teaching our children appropriate behaviour, respect and consideration of others - as well as allowing them to play as well, of course.

That's why the type of playing has to be appropriate to the size of the garden and its walls/fences

Which is why ds no longer kicks the ball in the back garden but he does do passing practice with his dad. And which is why our (downstairs) neighbours' boys (playing in the same garden) can still kick the ball around at the moment, as they're that bit smaller. But they'll soon have to go to the local park as they get more powerful.

Nothing to do with not being neighbourly and everything to do with showing consideration - and common sense (risk the wrath of their mum for trampling through the border to get to the wall after finding a ladder on one side, as the neighbours on that side have a closed gate into their garden and are often away, or getting scratched to buggery trying to search for a ball in the bramble thickets on the other side

They also sometime play cricket in the back garden. There are lots of cricket balls found in the undergrowth once it dues back in winter My side of the garden and my own herbaceous border might not be pristine, but children (and adults) hunting for a cricket ball do not do it any good. And to be fair, they respect that and only do a superficial search (hence so many being found in winter )

Francis can we please have the debate about boys not being able to join the brownies again? :o

I agree with the sentiment entirely. I taught mine not to be annoying to others in the same way that I taught them not to drop litter, take other peoples things etc.

If I heard a ball being kicked off the fence, I'd shout out to tell whoever it was to stop doing it, I couldn't care less if it was my child, a neighbours child or wee Jimmy from the next estate. On the other hand, I hate it when the neighbourhood children chalk all over the pavements (my OCD kicks in) however, they aren't doing any harm, it washes away and they are perfectly entitled to do it. the fact that I don't like it is completely irrelevant and their rights trump my likes and dislikes.

God this has moved on since I last looked! Some of the suggestions are crazy.

If I wanted children in my garden I would have had my own. I want to be able to wander around my house in various states of undress without worrying that I will be scaring someone else's children who may look through the patio doors. Someone in my road had to put up a higher fence as next door's children used to come in their garden and stand outside the back door staring in. I presume some people would think that's acceptable but I don't. Children's right to play does not trump my right to privacy.

Ha Ha Francis, that was tongue in cheek re the brownies - those threads can get quite heated!

re the chalks - I know I am being unreasonable hence I keep my gob shut :)

Just thrown them back over and stop moaning these kids for gods sake !!