First day of holidays and neighbour complained about children playing outside

[smileycath]

My new neighbour called round this afternoon to complain about my children playing outside. She is retired but works from home as a translator and needs to concentrate and my children's screaming and football games are making this impossible.

I feel gutted. It's the first day of the summer holidays. I'm a lone parent to three boys aged 6, 8 and 9. We don't have a garden and it's only recently that I've felt able to let them go out with friends on the street. They play on the road below and I can keep an eye on them from the window. They are a bit noisy but there's never more than half a dozen of them and they're not a nightmare.

She suggested that we have a compromise and that they be allowed to play out for half an hour in the morning and half an hour in the afternoon. I couldn't agree to this and she obviously thought I was being unreasonable but honestly when the weather is nice I don't want them stuck in front of screens.

She said they should be in the park and that the street wasn't a playground. Fair enough and we do go to the park a lot and I try to take them out at some point every day but some days we're at home for longer periods and I want them to play out. I'm self-employed working from home too and have to squeeze in a few hours each day and this is often when they play out.

She argued they were old enough to go to the park on their own but my youngest is only six and my eldest is slightly autistic and certainly not able to look after the others. Plus there's a road to cross and somebody was recently stabbed in the park during the day!

My next door neighbour overheard our conversation on the doorstep and said FFS but his children are older and go further afield now. I feel like this woman is not going to let it drop and I hate confrontation. What can I do?

Given that you're not actually supervising your kids OP, you don't really know where they are kicking the ball/ how much of a pain they are being for your neighbour.

You can't just let your kids make your neighbour's life a misery just because you want to ignore your kids and do some work. You are not being fair.

I actually think the neighbour working is a bit of a red herring. She could be watching daytime telly, snoozing, or reading in her garden. She would still be unreasonable to expect silence BUT entirely reasonable to expect the noise and duration of dcs playing outside her house to be moderated.

The key is consideration for other people. Not an attitude based on rights, your own convenience, and what you can get away with.

'Other people' is important - other people are 'other'. They can be quite different from us, have different desires, sensitivities, expectations and ideas of social norms. An attitude of consideration will always allow for difference and offer a very large buffer of accommodation for desires we might not share, before tolerance of difference loses way to recognition of unreasonableness.

That was rule 3 of playing out in my childhood. That parents would do their best to accommodate the wishes of neighbours, however grumpy or unreasonable they seemed. Because they were neighbours and life is easier if we can all rub along and, because they were other people, to whom consideration is owed.

I presume that you are at home while your kids are playing outside??

Why can't you actually do something with YOUR kids??

It doesn't have to cost any money, the park will do.

I think yabu

Your kids are screaming and playing football outside her house.

There’s is nothing worse in an evening whilst I’m trying to settle my kids than the neighbors kids screaming and shouting outside because their parents can’t be bothered to do anything with them.

Why does your kids needs trump her needs. Why can’t you compromise.

Kokeshi123 nails it.
To me, this sounds like reasonable noise in a residential area. It's not late at night, it's not loud music/anything deliberate.

I think it's fine for her to say "is there any way you could keep the noise down?", and for you to respond considerately (thinking about how to keep them reasonably civilised and not bouncing balls off her house, etc.). That's just polite neighbourly stuff. But when she starts suggesting they only get two half hours per day(!), that's not on.

As for "six is too young to play there", I think this is slightly ridiculous when no one knows the area, the child, or your style of parenting. So I'd ignore that, OP.

Compromise to 2 hours morning and 2 in the afternoon and she gets noise cancelling headphones.

I think that your children should be allowed to play outside but reminded to keep the noise down. The idea of a soft ball (maybe sponge?) which doesn't make much noise is a good one.

As a side-note, if she is a translator she will not need specialist software nor access to audio/video. Translators translate written document from one language to another. She will however need these things if she is an interpreter. Interpreters interpret the spoken word for speakers of another language.

I think 6 is ridiculously young to be out without a parent OP and I think you're kidding yourself if you are of the mind that you're supervising them, given that this involves glancing out of a window while you're working from home.

Take your children to the park and work when they go to bed. Alternatively, arrange some childcare for them. It's that simple.

when no one knows the area

We know what the OP has told us, which is that someone recently got stabbed in broad daylight in the nearby park. We also know that cars exist in 2018.

Most translators do use specialist software though.

Although if she's just a retiree doing a little bit of informal work, then perhaps not.

I have not come across any that do for written work, Spring Rolls, although that may just be within my group of acquaintances.

Ionlylookatthepictures

Oh wow! I just looked up misophonia. I can finally put a name to my self-diagnosed condition.

Repeated sounds, sudden sounds etc. really get to me. When the annoying kid across the road thumps his football repeatedly against the wall ALL DAY it's almost like I can feel the thudding in my heart - like a heavy bass.

I agree with this:

*On the face of it none of us can gage whether your kids are too loud or not but I think the fact she suggested a "compromise" of 30 minutes in the morning and evening is significant. This isn't a reasonable compromise at all (reasonable would be her asking they're quite at certain points of the day, ie after 7pm) and suggests to me that the noise levels are ok.

Also, if she wants complete peace and quiet maybe she'd have been best moving somewhere without neighbours!!!*

There are some people who think they are entitled to silence at all times. They will complain about short term DIY during the day, lawn mowing, kids playing, etc etc

If you’ve ever lived in a rented property you’ll have had noise clauses. These normally say ‘no noise which goes beyond your property before 10am and after 11pm.’ I think that’s a good rule of thumb.

strawberrisc are you a translator? I would say 80-90% of the translators I know (and I know a lot) use CAT tools.

I think it's a bit selfish to have a set up which means you get to work from home and pay no childcare costs if it directly impacts on your neighbours ability to also work from home.

My ds is 9 in December and we live down a cul de sac and i don't let him play out there without me.

Ignore her. No screaming or loud extended shouting. No kicking balls against her walls. Otherwise its a public place and dc have right to play. I think she needs to accept that things change in the school holidays. Working from home you have to put up with changes in neighbourhood noise.

OP could you formalise your arrangement with the parents of the dc your three are playing out with, so that they are guests of one of the families who live on this road? For a couple of half days a week perhaps? That might offer closer supervision and a more flexible mixture of indoor and outdoor play - they could go in for a bit without having to stop playing together and 'go home'. Having that sort of indoor option might relieve the tension on the road a bit.

Of course the other dcs' parents may not want three extra dc in their house. They might at least agree to be your dcs' 'official supervisor' while playing out, given you're not there.

In our cul-de-sac children as young as 2 play out under the supervision of 6 year olds.

I think it is disgusting that such little care is taken over young children.

What it comes down to is that she doesn't own the road
No she doesn't, neither does the OP.

Playing football in the road is actually a criminal offence - Section 161 Highways Act 1980.

If you choose to work in a residential area, it's up to you to put in place anything you need to get this to work--without putting the residents' noses out of joint.

"So what arrangements should the op make to ensure that she can work from home without annoying the neighbors?"

None. The OP may be working from home too, but letting one's children play outside is something she could equally be doing if she was just a stay-at-home-parent as well. It's part of normal parenting, just like playing outside is a normal part of being a child.

If translator lady wants to work from home because she doesn't want to hire office space, it's up to her to noiseproof her workspace or learn to deal with some noise.

If we were talking about noisy parties late at night, translator lady would be within her rights to complain because that goes beyond the boundaries of what is acceptable in a residential area, but children have the right to play outside and make a reasonable amount of noise during daytime hours in residential areas--it's part of the deal.

If translator lady wants to work from home because she doesn't want to hire office space, it's up to her to noiseproof her workspace or learn to deal with some noise

You could turn this around though. If the OP wants to work from home because she doesn’t want to pay for childcare she should adequately supervise her children.

Although I'm on the fence on this one the consistent suggestion of 'just tell her to wear headphones' really bemuses me. If anyone suggested that to me - they would certainly get short shrift.

Are you"talking"to the children from your window