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?

ILikeSpringRolls

I'm not a translator. Just someone who hates the sound of thudding footballs!

Either teach your children to behave like decent children or don't let them out. It's not hard.

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

Well no, but OP's not the one insisting that children are effectively banned from being there is she?

Hateisnotgood - exactly what irritates me! Headphones and earplugs are the universal solution on here for anyone who dares to ask for other people to execute their responsibilities and actually parent their kids.

No, the op is the one insisting that her kids being allowed to scream outside someone else’s window is one of their human rights which must not be denied, no matter what kind of pain in the arse other people consider them to be.

The neighbour hasn't asked that the children stop screaming or playing with balls near her house though. If she did that would seem entirely reasonable. She seems to just be asking that the children don't play outside though or do so for a very limited time period. That request is not reasonable.

Football outside your house is hell. They really shouldn't be playing it in the street.

Providing they don't hit my car with a ball, use my wall repeatedly for football practise, are in the street for 12 hours solid and aren't screaming pointlessly for the sake of it, then I'd have no problems with this at all.

If these were my boys, I'd give very regular reminders about no screaming and generally being mindful that other people live in the area. I'd also have them in at a reasonable time.

But based on what you've said, she is u reasonable not you

the op is the one insisting that her kids being allowed to scream outside someone else’s window

Why are mumsnetters so incapable of maintaining perspective?

Kids are playing on the street = kids screaming outside someone's window all day long?

Playing outside? A-okay. Screaming and thumping a ball around outside for hours on end (ala my local neighbourhood kids)? Fucking annoying as fuck, disrespectful and rude. Have a chat with your kids about how and where they play.

If they can agree to play quietly and not all goddamn day then I don’t see the issue. Although if they were my kids, the first hint of screaming and they’d be straight back in.

I really don’t like seeing children playing on the street. I appreciate not everyone is blessed with a garden but I agree with your neighbour here, they should be in the park. If you need to arrange childcare to make this happen while you work then so be it. I just don’t think it’s safe for young children to be running in a road, even if it’s a dead end.

All neighbours have to accept some noise from children through the summer but screaming and kicking balls against their wall isn’t really acceptable. I deal with my NDN’s kids trampoline every summer, it’s not my favourite noise but I can manage. If they were screaming for hours and I was working though it’d be a totally different story.

I can't believe some of these replies!

Children are children and should have the right to be children. Playing is a normal part of childhood and yes normal child development involves noise, learning to negotiate and communicate with other children at times. Your neighbour needs to deal with that.

Provided your children are respectful, not outside too early or too late at night, and reminded regularly to keep the noise down, then I think your neighbour is extremely unreasonable.

For those of us who grew up in the 1970s playing outside in a cul-de-sac was perfectly normal - to have been forbidden to do so would have been practically viewed as harmful! How sad that times have changed so much.

Perspective, SpringRolls?
They do play outside her house.
It’s all in the op

From the neighbour's point of view you have sent your children along the road so they are playing outside her home rather than your own, it is understandable she would be a bit cheesed off. I can understand why you have done it but it can't be nice for her. As has been said though there are compromises such as not using balls and not having them out there all day.

Well no, but OP's not the one insisting that children are effectively banned from being there is she?
No, she is asking them to be respectful.

Why is it all or nothing?

Why can't the kids play and not scream or kick footballs at the neighbour's wall?

There are lots of advantages to working from home. This is one of the disadvantages which your neighbour should have taken account of.

As long as it is just normal play - with sensible levels of noise - which appears to be the case, she'll just have to put up with it.

There are lots of advantages to working from home. This is one of the disadvantages which your neighbour should have taken account of

But the OP is also working from home. Surely it should be she who is disadvantaged in this situation, not sending the kids to play outside someone else’s house so she can work undisturbed.

To be honest, it isn't just the situation with the neighbour.

Do you really think that a 6 year old knows what to do if a stranger tries to get them into their car??

We were always taught to scream as loud as we could to get an adult's attention for help but screaming is so common now that no one would come and see what is going on.

For those of us who grew up in the 1970s playing outside in a cul-de-sac was perfectly normal - to have been forbidden to do so would have been practically viewed as harmful! How sad that times have changed so much.

I’m glad that there are far less road accidents from children being knocked down and accidents in general. This golden age of the 70s is nonsense. I grew up then, my parents basically cooked dinner and left us to our own devices. I was badly bullied, my brother started smoking aged 8, they had stitches 3x each from playing on dangerous equipment unsupervised, and my best friend was killed knocked by a car.

Golden age?!

They do play outside her house.
It’s all in the op confused

Right. They play outside her house (i.e. on the public street outside numerous houses). Nothing wrong with that.

Surely it should be she who is disadvantaged in this situation

Surely she faces the exact same "disadvantage" as her neighbour (kids playing in the street outside her house)? Yet some how she copes.

I'd rather my neighbours kids were outside in the street instead of screaming at each other indoors personally.

I think a lot of the attitudes nowadays are due to the fact that people are losing the ability to interact with "real" people. In any other world, getting the kids outside to play instead of sitting in the house would be encouraged.

But in this age of insular, withdrawn adults who only engage on fairly rigid terms (MN'ers not answering the door without an appointment for example) any disturbance that can't be turned off with a switch seems to enrage people.

I love the MN rules that no child should ever play in the street, everyone should drop what they are doing and take their kids to the park, they shouldn't be in the garden either but too much indoor time on screens is awful.
It's up there with the idea that your garden should be a place of perfect peace and quiet and woe betide anyone who uses theirs to talk in.

Children playing in the street seems reasonable to me. We did it as kids and managed not to be antisocial criminals. The children on my estate manage it and are perfectly reasonable, happy children (they even wave to say thank you to cars for waiting whilst they move out the road).

As long as it's a happy children playing noise and not shrieking and yelling for hours on end, I think you're fine.

Mumsnet in general seems to have a very "children should be seen and not heard" attitude that you wouldn't expect of a parenting forum.

They're fine to be heard, just as long as it's at one of these magical soft play centres where the adults have to pay to get in! (Never heard of that before MN)