To keep my kids off the street this summer due to rough element, exclusion& bad language?

[101cockerspaniels]

We live in a large new build estate, the dc 9 & 11 have food friends they play with often but their not out... New kids have moved to the estate but after an initial period of playing together they started running off on the dd's.. One girl told her x is my bff so F off home!!!
Since then they've avoided this girl but the others in that group have started trying to exclude my younger child & get my older child to gang up with them.. It's got to the stage now where they play in the garden or with their original friends when they are out..
I was dreading the summer for this reason.. They do have playdates, do plenty of extracurriculars but I feel sad they can't play out when they feel like it due to that group... Aibu?
The main elements of the group I don't like are the bad language, excluding my younger dd & running off on both of them. Also the main ringleader makes a frowny snarl whenever she's sees either of my kids..! I've seen it myself!

Depends where you live. I did not let my child "play out" we live on a main road and it's not a great area.

The area is nice but due to a large park attracts teenagers from all over in the evenings..

This terrifies me, honestly I don’t blame you but unfortunately I have no advice.
kids are just vicious and smart phones just make it worse.
when I was a kid, i was out all day in for dinner then back out again. I’m not sure if let my kids to the same (kids are 6 and 4 so too young yet).
the thought of them being left out or mistreated breaks my heart.

@hardboiledeggs I know & this group have phones outside with them.. This post has been very helpful. I was second guessing myself. The winter was heaven!

Generally I think playing out is brilliant for kids and though our road isn’t good for it, I’m very happy to let my 9 and 7 olds play out at their friends’ houses who live on estates/cul de sacs.

But this sounds like a shit dynamic OP and I think you’re making the right decision to keep them away from these kids.

At 9 and 11, I’d be teaching them how to deal with this behaviour themselves, not banning it. Your eldest is going to start secondary, she will have to navigate all this stuff all day without you there. Use this as an opportunity to teach them both. Team Surname when out - so you have each others backs - but I don’t think they have to always include both. Your youngest can stay with her mates and your oldest can go out. Educate her on safety, language, and empower her to handle this stuff herself. Prepare her for the big wide world, she’s plenty old enough.

SW England here and ours play out too. It’s a great little melting pot for learning about life and the wealth of different people in it.

Personally I'd let them play out. Your job is to teach right from wrong so they don't get caught up in any mess.

I'm in my 30s now. I grew up in north London and remember playing out every day (my friends all lived with 4 roads of each other). The park was close-ish but too far to go without supervision until we were 10yo /11yo (getting ready for secondary school) and promised to stay with our group but as for playing on the pavement, riding bikes between each others flats/houses, kicking ball and YES playing knock down ginger (not sure why we called it that but you pressed a doorbell then ran - no ginger folk were harmed) or red rover etc.

I loved it. We are now in a London surburb and when my kids are of age I'll let them play out . I'll remind them I've eyes everywhere so don't do anything they don't want me to find out about .

I do wonder if it's a class thing because we were a mixture of mainly council housed (in flats/houses not blocks) so playing out was far cheaper than wrap around care and after school/summer clubs . Either way I'd still encourage my kids to play outside even though I'm a 1%er