To ask neighbour to close curtains

[Handrearedmagpie]

First of all, I know IABU. It's more a question of HOW unreasonable.
My young DS is autistic, non speaking and has a severe learning disability. Meltdowns are triggered by sudden changes like adverts on the TV. Neighbour diagonally across street from me has very large windows and an ENORMOUS TV. Never shuts her curtains/blinds so DS can watch her TV from our house and fixates on it when his own tablet is removed before bedtime.
Every. Single. Night. It's meltdown when adverts appear on her TV. Obviously I shut our own blinds but he knows her TV is there and just opens them again, or he will go upstairs and hyper focus on her TV from my bedroom window.
How horrendously unreasonable would I be to ask her to close her blinds for half an hour at night just to avoid this nightly hysteria??! I'm at my wits end with it.
YABU - absolutely unreasonable. It's your child's disability to manage.
YANBU - you can only ask and see what she says.

I agree, tbh I think that there is an obvious rigidity of thinking and lack of empathy at play here and the poster may well be neuro diverse themselves.
Either way, I have a solution now (or a 'solution' 🤣🤣🤣) so all is good!

Oh, the absolute utter irony.
Enjoy your solution.

The headbutting wouldn't be solved by the neighbour shutting the windows then.

As I said earlier in the thread, I come from a ND family. It's not an acceptable ask of the neighbour, as it essentially forces them to say yes to a daily task that they might not be on board with, when OP could solve it on their own. And it opens the door to more requests that the neighbour can't refuse without feeling shamed or others shaming her (as in all the people in this thread.) And it also leaves the routine up to people outside the home, meaning OP can't control it and it might leave DS more distressed if neighbour forgets or does it 'wrong.'

The van solution is fine and hope that it works out.

Well that is good you have found a solution that makes everyone happy

OP, I posted earlier that YANBU to ask but WBU to expect them to oblige (I knew you weren’t expecting them) - and that I wouldn’t be saying yes. I still stand by this but have to say the replies here are appalling, I’m so sorry you’ve got so many crazy responses!

Really hoping the solution works for your son, how amazing the feeling will be if it does. You’ve been given a really hard time on here, clearly from people who have absolutely no idea of your day to day reality. I’m so sorry that happened and really hope it won’t put you off posting again as in amongst the naysayers there were also people who really wanted to help and a genius who came up with a solution. Wishing you and your son well.

Ignore this poster and their sarky comments. It’s clear from your posts that there is nothing easy about your life and that you’re at the end of your tether. Sometimes that means we don’t always see the more obvious solutions!!

I hope it works op and I wish you all the best.

I didn't say OP had an easy life, I said she took the easiest solution and that was understandable.

No, I use it when it's appropriate.
I'm not kicking anyone, merely pointing out the entitlement level, and I'm not the only one who made this point.
As before, feel free to ignore me.

Thanks for the reports on this thread - there have been a few.

Discussions like this often get heated but we'd like to remind you that Mumsnet is here to make parents' lives easier. While we encourage healthy and robust discussion, we hope that everyone can respect each other in their choices and express their views without resorting to personal attacks.

We're sure you'd all agree parents need all the support they can get. After all, parenting is hard enough without facing judgement and criticism for those choices.

Peace and love
MNHQ

You have been posting almost continuously for 24hrs in an attempt to make out that the OP is ‘entitled’ and outrageous for simply considering asking her neighbour for help. You’ve misinterpreted posts and refused to acknowledge that people have a different opinion to you.

It’s obvious you’ve upset the OP but you carried on…

Yes, some people have agreed with you. Unsurprising given it’s a discussion board and a post that has gained significant traction. Of course there will be a range of views.

A number of people agree with me and have also called out your crap behaviour towards the OP.

Feel free to ignore any further posts from me and I'll do the same with you.
For what feels like the hundredth time, it is entitled to expect to control when your neighbours close their curtains, regardless of the challenges you might face at home. 😧
Have a nice day.

How gracious if you to grant your permission.

you can gradually put boundaries in place, a good place to start would be "no window time from Xpm "
Ask his school to support you with a social story.
An example would be "Names" bedtime routine, 'Name' goes to bed, 'Name' will not go to the window until it's morning.

You could also start working on his anxiety around adverts, introduce him slowly and use that time to play, blow bubbles tickle him have a toilet or snack break etc. He is going to encounter issues in everyday scenarios and you won't always be able to ask others to adjust. It's up to you and your sons school to help him learn.

And for the hundredth time, that is YOUR opinion.
There are many people who don’t feel asking a neighbour for a favour is in anyway entitled or outrageous. Lots of communities are very neighbourly and supportive.
I’m not saying you need to live like that and you are entitled to feel that a neighbour asking for help is out of order. But you don’t speak for the whole of society.

The OP isn’t demanding her neighbour help, she just wanted to know if it was okay to have a conversation about it. That’s all.
She didn’t deserve the name calling and vitriol.

Morning OP
Glad to hear one of the suggestions was something you could try – hopefully it’s helped a bit.

Ignore the drama – some people seemed to be outraged on your neighbour’s behalf just for you asking if it might be reasonable to gauge things. Luckily, a few posters have been really kind and explained other ideas you could try, as well as how to focus on longer-term ways of supporting this sort of behaviour.

The ones who’ve been critical or up on their high horse (even though they have a neurodiverse child themselves) don’t have your child, your life or your exact situation – so it’s not really fair for them to judge why you haven’t acted on every single suggestion straight away!!
l

You sound like a brilliant mum who’s doing her absolute best, and you’re definitely not expecting the world to change to suit you.

All the best – I’ll be donning my own hard hat soon to post about my DD with high-functioning autism. Not as tricky as your DS’s situation, but she has massive meltdowns over certain things that are causing huge issues here too.

Thankfully, there are still some lovely, helpful people on MN who give great advice.

Some of the responses, for both sides of the argument, are just indicative of the way people embellish and exaggerate something they don't agree so they can kick off about it and feel justified doing so.

Asking someone something isn't 'demanding' or 'entitled' and likewise saying no to something isn't being heartless or a cunt.

I would say no, not merely on principle because I'd been asked, but because I know that I'd forget. I'd want to help but the issue wouldn't be uppermost in my mind because it doesn't affect me so it's likely to be pushed to the back of my mind with my own stuff taking priority. I wouldn't take such offence that has been displayed here at being asked, but I also wouldn't expect to be ripped a new one for saying no either.

Different situation but my neighbour struggles to get her car out when someone is parked opposite her drive, there's a shop and parking can be a challenge and sometimes it's the only space, it was never a problem for the previous occupant but it is for her, I don't think she's massively entitled if it's my car that's in her way and she either asks me to move it or to guide her out, or even if it's not my car but she comes and asks.
Similarly if I'm in the shower or there's nowhere to move my car to, she doesn't kick off and behave like I owe her something. I'm parked legally, it makes her life a bit harder as it is possible with a car there, just easier if it's not.

Because I've helped her out in the past and I've not been overwhelmed by a simple ask and because she's not called me a cunt when I can't help, we have a decent relationship and she does things like bringing my bin in after it's been emptied so it doesn't get nicked when I'm at work, she's taken in parcels for me and even brought my washing in and put a note through the door one day when it rained. I didn't ask those things, she did them to make my life easier.

Likewise if I have to park there when I get home, but I'll move it later on when the shop shuts and parking frees up, and watered her pots when she was away (turned out in hospital) during the heatwave and they were flagging.
It's just cooperation really, something the world seems to be losing in favour of self interest.

Society relies on cooperative actions, but they're not always possible all of the time, sad really that the go to is to not cooperate when you can and be so offended at being asked, to the point people will expend more effort making someone else's life harder on purpose. Or be so offended at that someone can't cooperate for whatever reason they need to dish out nasty personal insults and behave like the no is a personal Vendetta.

So true!!!

If someone asked me in the summer, I would feel resentful. We have such a limited number of sunny evenings- it's horrible sitting in the dark when it's sunny outside.
I wouldn't mind occasionally but I wouldn't want to be responsible for someone's permanent fix.
Plus what happens if they're away? Do they have to keep the curtains drawn the whole time?
I do think you have to fix it from your end. Can you get those external shutters ?

You can’t demand someone else closes their curtains, I know life may be hard for you but that doesn’t extend to things like this

Anyway my tv goes off within 30 minutes of it getting dark, I’m not going to close them when it’s still daylight if I had them in summer

She’s not demanding anything!

This thread is full of ridiculous you posts, politely asking someone to do something is not controlling. Have you had some kind of trauma in your life thats led to not being able to understand normal interactions?

Tell me you lack reading comprehension without ,......