Neighbour told my kid off.

[Shootingstar2918]

I’m not precious and nor do I think my kids are angels! But hear me out. Most of the houses around me have kids living in them. Due to the current situation a lot of them are out playing understandably.

My children were playing outside whilst I cleaned up. All of a sudden DS started screaming that he’d been told off and told me the man who lives behind us told him off. I couldn’t see what DS was doing. There’s a Tallish fence between our gardens so I cannot imagine a lot could be done.

Just to add DS has autism and wants to talk to everyone. I think he was at the back of the fence shouting hello. I’m not really sure. My garden is secure and safe enough to let them out without me being outside. I was in the kitchen with my patio doors open but missed what actually happened. Sometimes DS can be a bit loud but I don’t let him out for hours on end or anything. Far from it.

So a man told him off. If he did wrong then that’s fine but the man told him off with no explanation. When I came out he hurried in his house and slammed the door. Aibu to think he should talk to me. With distance of course!

Like I say DS has autism. My neighbours wouldn’t know this I guess but it’s ended up with DS having an hour long meltdown on the grass outside. They must be able to hear him.

I’m not the type to go matching round and of course we can’t right now anyway but aibu to think the guy should man up and come and speak to us (again distance) and give me an explanation at least! So I know what the hell just happened. DS is that upset he can’t explain to me!

The chap could have been just the other side of the fence and your child was shouting hello from a short distance away, who knows.

OP you are being VVVU

Here's the thing...the bloke doesn't know that your child would leave him alone if he would only say hello back. Regardless of any other non-facts we could all make up here, the man does not know!

It's all very well you telling us about how friendly your son is and how he will get on with his day and leave the man alone if the man would just say hello back, the man does not know this!

Sheesh.

If a child next door was yelling at me over the fence I think I'd be pissed off too. You let your DC outside to yell at the neighbours and now you're all pissed off because the neighbour did what - told your DS to shut up? To stop making so much noise? TBH my sympathy is with the neighbour. If I couldn't even be out in my own garden and expect a bit of peace and quiet I'd probably yell too. He doesn't know your DS has autism, all he knows is that your DS was being a PITA. Wind your neck in OP, stop being so precious and try to explain to your DS that yelling over the fence isn't acceptable.

It doesn’t matter how lovely your child is op. That doesn’t give him the right to badger someone else so much in their own garden that they snap.
Not everybody wants to talk to/ be pestered by children, not everyone will agree with you that your child is lovely.

You can’t ignore your sons behaviour just because he’s autistic. You need to guide him through life.
The world doesn’t change for him, he needs to be equipt to deal with the world, one where not everyone will want to pander to him.

You let him have a melt down in the garden for an hour?

Also, you left 2 children with additional needs in a garden alone together, and completely missed this event.
Yes they’re safe, but it really doesn’t sound like you should be in your kitchen with your back turned whilst they’re outdoors.

How do you know the man “snapped”? Perhaps he’s just as unpleasant as some of the posters on this thread.

Also, you left 2 children with additional needs in a garden alone together, and completely missed this event.

Well, exactly. OP has guessed that her son was repeatedly saying hello- do we even know if that's actually what happened?

The man might not have even snapped. Nobody knows because the OP doesn’t actually know. She has admitted she wasn’t there and that her children can’t say what, if anything, happened.

He could just as easily been saying something to someone in his own household for all we know!

In the kindest way, If you missed this happening and neither of your 2 kids can tell you what happened I don’t think they can be left outside even for the shortest time.
Gardens are our sanctuaries at this time, and we should all respect everyone’s right to some privacy. Having said that though, however friendly your boy is, the neighbour doesn’t know he just wants to say hello, repeatedly saying hello would have been annoying for him.
I think you need to stay outside with them and speak to the neighbour in a polite way and ask what happened.

" my wasn’t lingering by his fence. He just went up to speak. *"
*
How do you know if you'd turned your back for a few minutes?

Tbh your neighbours don't have to like your children, he could have said stop shouting at me, which is perfectly reasonable and you'd have no idea as you weren't there.

Put a taller fence up and teach your child to say it once.

And the neighbour has the temerity to have a cat! Whatever next?

OP Why is your child so special ? If a child is doing something wrong or being rude then it is reasonable that they are told to either to behave or to be quiet. Which part of that is hard to grasp ? For those that will chant the battlecry"nobody tells my child what to do" If you want a brat that will do what it likes when it likes, good for you, just dont blame anyone else but yourself when they get to be young adults are sat in a Police station ,a prison cell, a job centre queue because nobody will employ them because they only do what they want to do or lying in a hospital bed because they finally met someone who wont put up with their bratty attitude. Its the real world out there !

Go round there and explain your son is autistic and ask what happened? Or pop a note through the door. If he's annoyed that your son kept saying hello but that he can stop it by saying hello back that will surely help? Doesn't matter that he might get not have done this in the first instance, maybe he's just generally grumpy? Sucks but there you go. He doesn't know the first thing about how to interact or not with your son. Maybe he shat himself when your son started screaming because perhaps all he said was be quiet please.

Also, saying he had no business being at the end of his very long garden is a bit off. It's all of his garden! You could say the same about your son, no business being at the end of the garden.

Fwiw I think it's perfectly fine for kids of 9 yrs old to be out in their back garden playing without an adult present constantly.

Unless it's constant, ridiculously loud, or at unreasonable times, you just have to give and take
Sadly it often is one of these because parents let it be. Many parents treat the garden as the place to send their boisterous hyper kids out of their way so they can have a bit of peace and quiet. The fact that it's the neighbours that have to cope with it is none of their concern as long as they get their time to relax.

Someone stated that you can't stop kids being noisy and I really don't get this. Of course you can, you teach them to lower their voice, you take them away if they start shouting, you distract them, you engage them in another activity. So many ways to deal with it, but you do have to do something rather than ignoring it.

Just move on...

Op I’m truly gobsmacked at the kicking you’re getting here. Ops son has the right to play in his own bloody garden! The neighbours sounds like an arse, and I’d tell him so next time he was hanging over my fence having a conversation that I wasn’t involved in! @Shootingstar2918 continue to let your kids play out, the weathers gorgeous and they should enjoy it. One of life’s few pleasures at the moment! Don’t believe for a second that the people berating you supervise their kids in the garden 24/7 either.

Yes her son has the right to play in his garden. As the neighbour has the right to be in his own garden without a child shouting hello at him. He didn't know the boy has autism, he's not a mind reader.
And for OP and another pp to suggest he's 'weird' for being in that part of his own garden is shocking.

You don’t know he “shouted” anything 🙄 unless you are the neighbour.

Just reading that back haha “without a child shouting hello” is this for real 😂 an adult who can’t deal with a child shouting hello. He has the right to be in his garden without a child shouting hello well he doesn’t actually because it’s outside? He is free to go into his house if he’s such a delicate little flower that he can’t handle a child taking to him!!

But even the Op doesn’t actually know what’s happening. She is assuming he was pestering the neighbour to say hello but we don’t know that was all. We don’t even know what if anything the neighbour actually said.

This could all have been avoided with basic supervision from the OP

OP: Neighbour upset my son, even though I don’t know what he said or did.
He should be more understanding of my sons additional needs, even though he doesn’t know he has them.
Neighbour shouldn’t stand at the end of his own garden.
I can’t leave my son alone for a moment, even though I did.
Have I missed anything?
🤣🤣🤣

I'm going by what OP says about her son. Of course I don't know.
If it has have been me I would have said hello back, if that was the case, but the neighbour has a right not to.

@drinkygin I hope that the next time you leave the house, someone gets in mind to shout hello at you every 3 seconds, on repeat...

OP, you're being unreasonable. Kindest soul ever to meet as your son might be, shouting at someone else on their property, over and over again, is very irritating. You're not doing him any favours by trying to put this on the neighbour, because if you go through life expecting everyone to grant you special dispensation, you're going to get a lot of shocks. Your son isn't entitled to conversation with everybody, everywhere, at all times - the fact that he is autistic and gets upset when people don't engage him in conversation, does not change this.

But even the Op doesn’t actually know what’s happening.

Exactly. She doesn't know that her son was bothering the neighbour, or have the faintest idea what the neighbour said to him. That's why I'd want to be there to see what's going on next time.

What @hello said.