6 year old causing havoc with neighbours

[Amiemac]

I’m literally at my wits end! We live in a street I grew up in as a child. It was a great neighbour hood, now since my kids have been in it the neighbours are so easily annoyed. Don’t get me wrong my 6 year old is no angel but I seem to be getting knocks at my door constantly over him. It just puts my anxiety levels up and makes me feel really low. A few months ago he threw a few stones into one of their gardens and the man came up and was extremely rude about it and approached me in a horrible manner, fast forward to yesterday my next door neighbour came out complaining about a football that hit her window. I’ve spoke to my son about this and have even went as far as to ground him for the week, I just feel as though either I’m doing a bad job parenting or my neighbours hate me. I’ve had a rough year with a miscarriage and mental health issues and my neighbours are very aware of this, I just don’t know what to do.

Don't let him play ball in the front garden if there's a possibility he can hit Windows with it. And if he's throwing stones he needs to be more closely supervised; you ' ll have to be out there with him.

Plus if you see page one there’s quite a few unsupervised, keep him in comments without the park and club etc etc And...? If your child can’t play in a garden without throwing stones they need to be better supervised or taken elsewhere to play.

Loistu to answer some of your points (apologies can’t do it in paragraphs, on phone). When did she say she blamed it on her neighbours? In the first couple of sentences where she says her neighbours are so easily annoyed. Re my various posts, sorry I didn’t realise there was a post quota and I reached mine, How do you know that she took some of the advice? At no point did she say, maybe you have a point, wel’ll pop to the park after school to get rid of some energy / I’ll look into what clubs are available / I’ll keep him in the back garden where I can keep a better eye on him / I’ll take the ball off him at home so he can’t annoy the neighbours, maybe our garden isn’t suitable for a ball. Instead she went from saying her son is causing havoc and it feels like her neighbours are constantly knocking on her door about him to it only happened twice and that everyone was being mean to her. What is wrong with saying to the op to supervise her child? How is that bullying? She asked for some advice, she was given some advice, she obviously didn’t like it, which is fine, but to then start crying abuse and bullying is ridiculous.

I realise this is off-topic, but is it only me who is wondering how the heck a family of 6/7 (not sure about a DP) live in a terraced house???

There are some pretty big terraced houses out there but you made me laugh!

@thanssavedme her very last comment was thanks for the advice and opinions, are you a mind reader now. No your not so don’t say she never took any of the advice. @soupdragon at what point did you give her any advice just wondering?

After the throwing stones incident, my dc would not have been playing out unsupervised again for a long time. The football thing is an accident - my dc has put several balls over into NDN's garden. But is your front garden big enough for him to be playing football in it?

Which is it, OP? 'I seem to be getting knocks at my door constantly over him' or you have had 2 complaints about him?? Makes a difference.

@eelbecomingforyou because she had anxiety it obviously seems a lot worse than what it actually is !!

I didn’t say she didn’t take the advice. I said how do you know she took some of the advice? There is a difference there.

@ar44455 I agree, think this lady was a bit more distressed than everyone thinks, twice maybe felt like constant to her because of her anxiety, as people with anxiety tend to magnify and catastrophize things.

Well, from OP's posts it wasn't clear, ar44455 and Loustu.

If neighbours have only complained twice, it's not the same as constant complaints, so advice would be different.

I don't think anxiety affects your ability to count?

OP could have said 'neighbours have only complained twice but I've reacted badly to each complaint and it makes me feel terrible' or ssomething like that.

soupdragon at what point did you give her any advice just wondering? smile

About the same time you did.

By the time I’d read the thread, the OP had already dismissed any suggestion that better supervision was required.

My 6 yr old is a little terror, and sound v similar to yours. I can’t let her do anything unsupervised as she will always ALWAYS do something she’s not supposed to. As a result she does nothing unsupervised, there’s no way I’d let her outside on her own. I’d end up being lynched by my neighbours if I did. She plays in our backyard or i take her to the park etc.

I live in between two families of small children and balls landing in my garden are an almost daily event. It doesn't bother me in the slightest. I think the issue here is trying to not let the neighbours aggression get to you and trying to find the confidence to deal with it appropriately. I assume you apologised so just move on. Grounding for a week sounds extreme to me, because he has bad aim? I'm sure he didn't mean to do it.