My children in the garden.

[C231009]

Hi all, ds and Dd are aged 10 and 5. Both on the spectrum.

I absolutely dread the better weather. It’s a little sunny where I live today so they’ve managed to get into the garden but they are so loud. They don’t seem to have a volume setting just loud 🤣 they end up arguing and shouting at each other too they I end up calling them in. Then they try and talk to all the neighbours - I do discourage this as most neighbours probably don’t want to be bothered.

Instead of using the garden we tend to go out instead but difficult at the minute.

We live on a residential street where lots of households have children but mine seem the loudest.

If you were our neighbour would you get peed off with 2 loud autistic children? Shall I let them play out more? I’m not saying I’m going to let them out for hours on end or at unsociable times but maybe an hour or so a day in the afternoon.

But I just get paranoid that the neighbours will hate us and we will be disturbing them!

Yours could yell over the fence at mine! Mine are LOUD with ADHD and one autistic. The three of them shout, laugh, sing and yodel. They yell over at the girls 2 gardens down. They talk to the neighbors. No one seems to mind (small village so I’m sure we’d know if they did!)

Noisy playing doesn't annoy me at all, but screaming and arguing would. Mine play noisily too, but i call them in/separate then if the start shouting angrily at each other.

It would not bother me and I'd be quite happy to chat with them.

@RoseMartha

The constant one volume is exhausting isnt it. I take/took my dc out to countryside or beach. As when we lived in a house my neighbours were always complaining my asd child made too much noise. In a flat now and they are at secondary but I still take them out for a run.

On the other hand while my asd dc is too loud. Asd dc expects everyone else to quiet. 🙄

I can relate. Mine are the loudest little people I know but hate loud noises themselves!

Not going to lie, the sound of loud kids screaming and shouting in their garden pisses me right off, especially when I am trying to work. I don't understand these people who find it joyful to hear kids screeching at each other.

The kids around us out playing for hours every day, and unfortunately we live in a built up estate too, sound bounces around and you can hear everything.

However...they're playing. Not playing music or banging a drum kit. So I deal with it.

Autistic or not, kids shrieking and screaming at each other is irritating as hell.

Good on your for being considerate though- I wish the parents on my street were as thoughtful as you. They seem to leave their feral kids outside to cause mayhem and turn a blind eye to it.

My neighbours son is autistic, when he's out in the garden he continually bangs bin lids. Is it annoying? Yes! Would we complain? Hell no.

yes it is annoying, as is any loud kid noise or most loud noises full stop.

but it is part of living in a place where there are kids around. You are clearly doing your best to keep it reasonable and that's all you can do.

long live my neighbours here in this child-free zone - but if someone moves on and a family with kids moves in, that's just how it is. Better than sodding dogs as at least people don't leave their kids alone to scream all day. Unlike their dogs.

It wouldn't bother me.

At our old house, there were children who lived next door. They were loud but the most annoying thing was listening to their mum telling them to keep the noise down, stop doing this, don't do that, every 5 minutes.

If I’m being totally honest, yes it would really annoy me. That said my children are grown up now and we live on an estate full of pensioners.
I’m not great with noise, but I can’t see how anyone can complain about children playing in their own garden, if it’s within reasonable hours.

There is a man who backs onto my yard who has SEN. He taaaaaaalks none stop its like s stream of whatever he is thinking. He is a really nice lad but looks over back yard gates to find peolple to speak to then tries to come in! Your kids wouldn't bother me at all OP.

I'd try and keep it to an hour or so at lunch time so as not to annoy the neighbours who are wfh (but I like mine so 🤷‍♀️)

Don't feel like you can't use your own garden. That would be such a shame for you ans the children.

My kids are nearly 5 and 2 and I worry about neighbours as well as they can get loud. I only bring them in when they are arguing and crying 🙄🙄 as I don't think that's fair on my neighbours. But normal happy children noises are absolutely fine I think.

Some noise is fine, kids playing will make noise and wouldn’t bother me. Continuous overly loud noise or constant screeching/screaming would not be ok. Not would trying to talk to me through/over the fence.

Please also bear in mind that autistic children grow into autistic adults, of whom I am one.

Day to day noise is fine, yes, but screaming or screeching is unbearable, especially when you're trying to work.

I have a neighbour within autistic son. General playing - fine, arguing with sibling loudly or screaming - not fine. A lot of people have to take work calls from home just now and it's very disruptive

dc make noise
what I hate
our previous neighbours (now moved yay!) who use to bbq at the bottom of their long garden & whose conversation where announced & invasive & deliberate & could be heard 2 counties over & who smoke use to linger (I don't mind normal conversation but that was extreme)
people who burn things that shouldn't be burnt & smoke out the back garden mid summer for days
otherwise as an old cm kids noise goes thru one ear & out the other
(dh says there are advantages in hearing loss!)

Both of our neighbours have SEN children. On one side they play loudly but the parents watch them, it’s lovely to hear. The other neighbours often just leave the child in the garden, sometimes just close the patio door as she screams in the garden and bangs her head against the door, she regularly hangs over our fence and winds up our dog. We’d never say anything because it must be terribly difficult but it can be wearing late at night!

They absolutely should be able to use their own garden and I think so long as it's reasonable hours (I'd say 9am-6pm) it's expected when you have neighbours.

My neighbours boys shriek, cry and scream a lot, and one likes to talk to me over the fence.

I don't mind so much, but the noise upsets my little boy - my neighbour has always apologised bless her (she doesn't need to, kids are kids and my boy is getting much better now)

The kids bother me far less than the epic chavs down the road who seem to think it's acceptable to have a TV in the garden blaring football all through the summer and smashing crates of stella, or the bloke the other way who thinks it's OK to circular saw at 10pm every night!

As long it’s reasonable times why on earth would you stop them? If someone moaned about my child having fun in her own garden I would tell them where to go!!! They aren’t caged animals for goodness sake.

I think that even if I found it annoying I would need to accept that it's tough luck and that I just needed to deal with it.

OP please prioritise your children's well-being over your neighbours.

For reasonable hours of the day I wouldn't mind. If they were screeching and yelling I might get a little more annoyed, but I wouldn't hate it.

As long as they aren't playing music or kicking a ball against a fence, all would be fine!

I find that most problems are avoided through good communication.

I have contact numbers for my immediate neighbours and so if my DS is being loud in the garden, I message them to ask them to let us know if they'd prefer us to keep the noise down. Usually they're fine with it but one day during the heatwave last year our immediate neighbour was having a conference call and wanted to keep his office window open since it was stifling. So we retreated indoors, closed the curtains and watched TV quietly and then used the paddling pool later when he'd finished. So maybe just ask your neighbours if you bump into them? Our neighbours are all completely reasonable so I wasn't worried about giving them my number but that may not be the case for everyone.

@TidyDancer haha I didn't even notice the typo!

Wouldn't bother me. Can ds 9 and ds 6 come and join them please?!