Children chalking over our land

[Charliec12]

Hi all, am I over reacting? My neighbours brought their children some chalks at the weekend. The children are chalking everywhere with them including on my driveway which we half share with them. My OH said to one of the children tonight that the area looked a mess. Said child started crying and then the Mum came out and was confrontational and annoyed with me that I don’t agree with it looking nice in the area. I also have 2 young children and I get they want to have fun.

Oh, here's another one .......

I don't even have children but I couldn't care less if every kid in the school in the next block decided to draw on my driveway.

And yes, I would describe OP as a miserable old bag! (and she's probably a good deal younger than I am)

thats assuming that there’s live plants in this garden

Such a charmer.

More like the other way round they are constantly asking us favours 🤣 it isn’t nasty asking people to have respect for your area.

In shock ?? Good grief, if he is “ in shock” at some children’s chalk drawings I hate to think what his reaction would be if faced with a real issue !

All the commenters seemingly not appreciating that the kids are chalking on someone else's property not on the street. If we'd done that as kids we'd have been given a right flea in our ear.

OP if you have a gate, close it. If you have a car, park it. And as others have said, it'll wash away.

So they are reasonable parents then if he did this - means he's told his kids to keep to their side. Problem solved but I expect it's soured their opinion of your DH!

What did they draw?
we used to draw a hopscotch.

If you live in a house with a shared driveway then you have to choose your battles imo.
Chalk drawings wouldn’t be one of my battles.

I love seeing chalked rainbows, writing etc. in the area. Brightens up the place.

I'm a damn sight more charming than you

Absolutely.
They will have thought what a knob he is.

My neighbours DC did this, I was really quite amused watching chalk penis after chalk penis being drawn by two children while the third child was aghast and trying to turn them in to flowers, their DM did put a stop to it, be glad it wasn’t chalk dicks 🤣

@Charliec12 nope, asking people to respect your areas is not nasty at all

Knocking on the door and asking the parents to keep it on their side - not nasty and totally reasonable

Having so little self control you reduce a child to tears by raising your voice - nasty and rude. See the difference??

The child did something wrong and your DH handled it wrong, but he's an adult so judged more harshly lol

The parents don’t care, they also covered a communal playpark with chalk over the weekend too.

Of course you are, ducky

My child did this with our neighbours child a few days ago. They did the whole cul de sac. They made up games, used it to tell stories, just played. It lay for a couple of days then disappeared in the first rain. If they did anything wrong like chalking on someone's private path I'd expect a neighbour to tell them not to do that and to let me know. Like a community.

When you say they chalked outside your house – do you mean right by the front door, beneath the windows etc, or on the pavement by your garden?

The clue is in the word "playpark".

Chalked in the playpark?

I think you're just taking the piss!

Nope the land is not owned by them it is owned by their landlord and the shared driveway that we own half of is right outside our neighbours house not theirs.

Well, on sight of seeing small children having fun my husband’s reaction would have been more along the lines of ‘nice, what’s the biggest animal you can draw?’.
If for any reason he needed them to move, say he was about to do DIY, he would have been quite capable of asking them to move without tears.
Especially considering your own husband has children I think his raised voice and reaction, and your justification, is worrying.
I mean the worst I could have imagined is getting a bucket of water out and asking they to clean it off at the end. Some self reflection would be healthy for both of you

Lots of entitled parents in here...

At least your H apologised to the children, that's something.
But really I wouldn't have been annoyed about it to start with, especially as you admit it's ok for your kids to do it, so it's not about mess, is it?
As for the communal play park, you don't own that, 'not your land' mind your own business!
The rest you can CHALK up to experience 😂

100% agree with this point of view.

Jesus christ.

When we first moved here I came out one morning to find the 2 girls next door drawing a giant track for their scooters across both drives and the cul de sac. Like a normal human, I said hello to them. Now my kids are bigger, the same girls next door help my kids draw out tracks for their own scooters. Which for a couple of tweens seems like a very nice activity.

Chalk washes off. Calm down.