to ban this child from my house?

[GooseyLoosey]

I have a dd (5) and ds(6). Very wealthy (biggest house in area) next door neighbour has a child "X" who is just about to turn 6.

Dcs go to local school. X goes to posh school. X does not play with local children but some of his older siblings do. Put as politely as I can, generally, there is a perception that our neighbours confuse wealth with status.

Anyway, at the weekend, ds asks X if he would like to come and play. X looks up and says "nah". Fair enough. 20 minutes later, X saunters in our garden to display his talents with his new toy. Does not address one word to the dcs except "look at me", repeatedly shouts at me to stop what I am doing and watch and then leaves as soon as he has finished without another word. Dh and I were pretty taken aback by the whole thing.

AIBU to say that the dcs can never invite this child again around again or is this normal behaviour which I should just accept? (There are one or 2 other incidents which may have prejudiced me).

Glitterknickaz - do your boys appear confident and outgoing/at ease with some children? If so, I will reassess my judgement of this situation as I have interpreted it solely as showing off.

I accept that a nearly 6 year old might not have great social skills, but he showed a complete disregard for and lack of interest in my children and it was that I had problems with. From everything I have seen of this child he is confident and outgoing when he chooses to be.

Dandy - to get to my garden, he would not even have to go on a public footpath, he can get there directly from his garden. I doubt his parents would bat an eyelid if he told them he was coming round. I have let the dcs go around there in the past when they have told me where they were going (only to be ignored I might add).

The dcs' friends often show me new talents and toys and they are always welcome to do so. They are the dcs' friends. X is not, he scarcely knows them or me so I do find it at little odd that he came to show us something and then left straight away. If I though for a minute that he had any social issues I would have no problems at all with what he did, but I have never seen any signs at all of this and whilst I may not know him well, I have seen and heard an awful lot of him over the past few years. I accept that there may be something which I have not recognised and will give that some thought.

YANBU
You don't like the child, your own chikdren don't seem to like him much, the parents don't seem to be interested in being friends with you, the boy doesn't seem interested....so just leave it.

You are a parent, not a saint.

It is not yourt problem to sort out whatever social or other problems this boy has.

I wouldn't be explicit to DCs about it but just steer well clear of him and them.

Life's too short to try to be friends with everyone.

OK, so the consensus is IABU to ban him, but I can "not encourage" my dcs to be friends. I will also try and be more alert to the possibility that there may be reasons for X's behaviour which require special consideration.

Whenever I start these threads I always think I am being totally reasonable and it comes as quite a surprise to me to discover that I may not be!

I think you're fine to discourage the friendship, given your reservations. In your position I personally would not discourage or have your qualms about the potential friendship, but it's your right to subtly discourage if the boy and his family unsettle you.