If you allow your kids to kick a ball at a joining fence repeatedly, you're a trash person.

[TesChique]

It's 24 degrees

We all want to enjoy our outdoor spaces.

If you allow your darlings to repeatedly thump a ball at a fence because "kidz shud b allowd to play innit"

You're a trash human
.

Where has consideration gone in this country.

Neighbours a few doors up from me have a type of pool they use as soon as the weather gets warm.
Then every sunny day we are all subjected to their kids just splashing, shouting & shrieking for literally hours on end.

I find it rude and selfish tbh because it's constant and can be literally all day at the weekend.
I get kids want to play and can be noisy but I think they could limit the hours of use or tell the kids to stop shouting and screaming.

I can only imagine they are monitoring from inside with noise cancelling head phones on!!

Surely you just water the plants along your fence line?
Ime.

Your kids can play in the garden without kicking footballs around and into your next door neighbors. There are other things to do in the garden besides football, they should save football for the park if your garden isn’t big enough for them to play. It really isn’t acceptable for them to be kicking balls into and over fences, I can’t believe you think it is, and you’re the parent so you can’t stop it. I have two young DCs, I would never allow them to do this and they are out in the garden all the time at the moment.

I've collected four balls this weekend. My dogs have popped them. I expect to find many more throughout the summer. Eventually the parents surely get fed up of replacing them.

Yes, but. 30 years ago kids could play in the road. Now cars have taken that space.

In my opinion if you are going to live in a residential area you need to be tolerant of people / neighbours. You also need to be pretty perfect if you are going to complain!

Lots of houses in my area, I have a neighbour who’s partial to a bonfire and friends gathering, one that plays loud music in their garden. Get kiddy and dog noises too. One of my neighbours son learnt to play the trumpet one summer and he was also partial to a bit of karaoke! He’s a lovely lad:

My kids play football - we have rebound goals tho and a row of bushes so doesn’t hit the fence. Sometimes they go over, and sometimes they come back with dog teeth marks in them! I have a two year old that sometimes screams…

A relative has just in the past couple of weeks spent over £1000 on a new fence (the next-door neighbour did not offer to contribute) So far the 11 year old kid next door with the heavy football has broken the new fence panels twice ! No offer of money to repair.

what you’re doing is fine though, you’ve put up rebound goals and also have bushes so only occasionally goes over, and everyone knows a 2 year old occasionally screams. That’s good parenting and most people would be tolerant of that as you say everyone makes some noise. What’s bad parenting is just saying oh well the ball is going to continuously hit the fence and go over and I’m going to anything to stop it apart from sometimes telling them to keep the ball low, and it’s that or screens.

I’m with you! Our children went to the park every weekend but they also played in the garden. Thankfully our neighbours (elderly childless couple one side, elderly widow the other) had no problems with our children being children in the garden. Balls occasionally went over and if the children went round to retrieve them. Invariably the couple would ask if it was ok to give my DC a freddo. They never complained about the children making any noise. Now we’re the older ones on the street since our neighbours have died and young families have moved in either side. We don’t have a problem when their children are playing in their garden. Some people forget what it was like to be a child or have young children.

People aren’t forgetting what it was like to have a young child. They remember very well that they didn’t let their kids launch missiles into other people’s gardens or allow them to bang on people’s doors.

Your description of your elderly neighbour being nice to your kids doesn’t mean they were ok with it. They were dealing with simpering parents who let their kid kick shit into their garden, then disturb them in their own home to retrieve it. Young boys can quickly become intimidating teens. Of course they were nice to them, they didn’t want trouble, with you or them.

My elderly widowed neighbour actively grovels to the young boys who do this to her to keep the peace. She buys them birthdays gifts while they wreck her garden and fences. Her garden used to be amazing and now she can’t go out there any more for fear of being hit by a ball. She is scared of them, that’s why she’s nice to them.

I don’t believe anyone really thinks their neighbours don’t mind balls being smashed into their space or being turned into a skivvy for the neighbours kid. People know they’re putting neighbours in the position of quietly suffer it or potentially have trouble.

I got a taxi to the beach. But I can't get to the park every flaming day.. and every day is different for me as to what I can do but I do my very best for my children. So will you please stop judging me. You guys don't know me. Wish I never made a comment. This is stressing me out maybe I am a shit mum, maybe pp is right I just need to get up off my lazy backside, ha! Wish I could but currently my legs aren't working because I done too much today! Ohh I hate FND. But yeah I'm a shit mum because I let my kids play and have fun.

Whats your health got to do with your kids acting out in your garden? Why can’t your partner take them out instead of joining in with them?

Get some netting up instead of celebrating how boisterous and chaotic your kids are. I’m sick of hearing boy mums bragging about how dysregulated and loud their boys are, it’s pathetic and nothing to be proud of.

I've currently got 3 footballs in my garden. No idea where they came from, neither of my next-door or next-door door but 1 neighbours have DC, so they are from at least 2 gardens away. Which means whoever kicked them over is kicking them too high/far for our small gardens.

All I can tell you is my experience, we had a very good relationship with our neighbours and that my children were respectful towards them. The last thing I am is a simpering parent, I have raised my children into adults who know right from wrong, if their ball did go next door they would knock on the door to ask for it back politely, apologising for bothering them. Sometimes they came back empty handed as the neighbours might be out or have company. Never a problem. I can categorically say that my children never intimidated our neighbours they grew up with them and as stated previously were always respectful. If they had chosen to keep, puncture or throw a ball away I would have accepted it. I don’t know the type of behaviour you’re used to but I can confidently say that my neighbours were not afraid of me, my DH or our children. Some people do actually like each other and get along. Choose to believe me or not. I know how it was and the relationship we had. I treat my neighbours children the way my neighbours treated ours, I’m not afraid of the parents. Children playing doesn’t bother me. If a ball comes over I’ll throw it back if I see it or they come and ask. Not an issue.

100% on your side @TesChique My neighbours across the road have a similar issue. Semi detached 3-bed houses with integral garages, and the kids in the one house kick the football against the garage door continually sometimes. The neighbour joined on can hear every bang right through the house. She had a couple with a daughter living there for about 10 years who were as quiet as mice, then this family with 4 children between 4 and 11 moved in. (3 boys, 1 girl.) Her life has been miserable since, and she wants to move.

So glad I live in a small 2-bed cottage, with an elderly couple next door, and don't have '4 boisterous boys' next door to ME. I'd lose my shit.

Also, you can see from the posts on here which posters make up the one fifth of voters who think the OP is being unreasonable! Some people are breathtakingly entitled, and think their children should be allowed to do whatever they want because 'they're just kids,' or 'boys will be boys!' 🙄 Probably chuck rubbish out of the windows in the countryside too, and let their dogs shit all over the pavements!

Honestly. 🙄

@Dingdong62 That's so sad. I feel really sorry for that lovely elderly widow being intimidared by an entitled, noisy, 'boisterous' family and doing what they want, just for a quiet life, and because she's afraid. How horrible for her. The attitude of some people really is so remarkably despicable isn't it? These careless, don't give a shit parents of these 'boisterous children' better watch it, THEY will be elderly and vulnerable one day!

I laughed at the balcony part but it must have been hell

How nice to see so many Mums on here in favour of NOT allowing kids to constantly kick footballs in the garden, or at least doing it in a RESPONSIBLE way if they do.

I'm beginning to think that the tide is turning, and people are getting so fed up of this entitled attitude that so many have got away with over recent years, that they're beginning to bite back, and say what they really think, rather than necessarily being intimidated by these awful disrespectful families. I do hope that this continues, even if it is just on an anonymous forum like MN, as it allows these shit parents to read just how much they are loathed by decent people.

The irony of telling us how respectful your kids were while describing them being disrespectful and launching balls into your elderly neighbour’s private property and disturbing them to get it back 🙄

If you’d brought them up to be respectful you wouldn’t have entertained them doing this even once. You can’t possibly know how your neighbour felt. You’ll be telling us how your elderly neighbour enjoyed keep having to retrieve their balls next.

I take it all back, I confess. I thought I was doing ok as a parent but I’ve just been kidding myself all these years, I didn’t impose any rules, discipline or consequences. I have passed my self centred selfish ways to my children. If I really think back I remember them using George and Sheila for target practice and then hammering on their door screaming their names telling them to hurry up and get my ball NOW!
Is that what you want me to say?
It’s a complete fabrication but regardless of what I put here it’s what you believe to be the reality.

I have passed my self centred selfish ways to my children

I know you think you're being sarcastic...

Regardless of your dramatics, the reality is you allowed your kids to repeatedly disturb elderly neighbours in their own homes to fetch their balls back. Balls that should have never left your garden and were your responsibility, not theirs. That’s disgusting behaviour on your part.

A kid would disturb my elderly mum once like this and I would go ape shit. She’s not a skivvy for other people’s kids. This behaviour in a residential area relies on guilt, manipulation and a good dose of believing your sons are entitled to other peoples space and should be catered to.

Its that BakeLikeBertha, that people have had enough of.

I allow my child to play with his football in the garden, but I have rules. He has a net and he knows he's not allowed to kick the ball at the fence, firstly because it's loud and secondly because it damages the fence. Parents shouldn't be allowing a child to repeatedly kick a ball at fence.

I see selfish entitled little shits every day in London. On the tube with loud music loud talking, putting their dirty shoes on seats. Always in a mood and no manners.

If you actually read what I wrote, I said balls occasionally went over. Not frequently, not often, not regularly. Occasionally, probably once every summer. I know they were fine when it happened because we got on well with them. They adored the children although you believe they were petrified of us. Maybe, just maybe we were the exception to your rule. Peace out!

I did read what you wrote. “Sometimes they came back empty handed as the neighbours might be out or have company” and you mentioned them giving them Freddos. Doesn’t sound like a once a year thing.

You're backtracking, like Waterfallfairy did before she asked for her posts to be deleted after playing the victim. Fact is, kicking or throwing any item into someone’s private space is intimidating.