5  | 

I found this helpful Thank You! Your vote will be tallied soon!

Our neighborhood is full of kids, many of them elementary school age or younger. Yet Cordy isn't friends with any of them. There are probably some nice kids her age a block or two over, but the kids who are closest to us have proven to me time and again that they are not good influences. Specifically, the kids next door are terrors.

Our next-door neighbors have four children. The youngest is six months older than Cordy, and the others are roughly two years older than the next. They have a much smaller house than ours, with a small yard compared to our large yard. Because of this, the kids often spend all of their time playing in our side yard. They could play in their own backyard, but with their three dogs, there is too much of a risk of stepping in dog poo. My husband and I try to be understanding of them playing in our yard, but they are so inconsiderate that it is difficult at times.

Lately the kids have been playing baseball in the space between the two houses. Our backyard is fenced with a nice wood fence (which we partially installed to keep their dogs out of our yard), but lately chunks of wood have started coming out of the fence. This is clearly the result of a baseball being thrown into our fence, but they will not admit to it, and we have no windows on that side of the house to catch them in the act. Also, their baseball often goes into our yard, and while we've told them all they have to do is ask and we'll open the gate for them, the kids still prefer to climb the fence to retrieve the ball, causing further stress on the fence. Today I found one slat bent back, ready to break.

Our fence isn't the only property to be damaged, however. Our tree's branches have been broken off, and just lately we've found dents and scuffs on our cars, also probably from a flying baseball. The kids have been found going through our stuff when our garage door is open, and their bicycles are often laying in our driveway, blocking our cars. Other neighborhood kids come over to play with them as well, so our yard is always full of kids that don't belong to us.

"Talk to the parents about these kids," you must be saying at this point, right? Well, I have tried that a few times. The parents simply shake their heads and say, "Well, there's nowhere else for them to play in this neighborhood!" Essentially, they believe their kids have a right to play in our yard. They want the kids to play where they can see them, yet they're rarely watching them. When I bring up the baseball hitting our house, our fence, our cars, they immediately take no blame, saying the other kids in the neighborhood must be the ones responsible. Right now the dad is out there with them, and I can hear the ball hitting our fence. But were I to go out there, he would still claim it wasn't hitting the fence since I can't see it.

"You've got to put your foot down," you might now be saying. And we should, but these neighbors have also proven to be not-so-nice. You might even call them violent, scary people. Were we to get angry and forbid them from our yard, the parents would start a war with us. I wouldn't put it past them to purposely damage our property when we weren't home. The one time I asked their kids to not hit our house with their ball, I could hear their mother spewing all sorts of curses and threats out of her mouth at me, yelling loud enough to make sure I heard her inside my house.

Cordy sees these kids playing in our yard all the time, and I can tell she wants to go out and play with them. But I refuse to let her out with them. The kids are destructive, violent, and rude - all traits I don't want her learning. I know that the parents are the real root of the problem, and their lazy parenting has led to this. I don't usually like to criticize someone else's parenting, but these people are beyond bad. Their kids are often ignored, sent outside to play so the parents won't be bothered inside. The toddler is often wandering out into the street when his older siblings aren't watching.

I know I won't always be able to control who Cordy is friends with in the future, but while she's this young, I will exercise my discretion in choosing who she plays with. My only hope is that these neighbors will soon move out. They've said a few times that they plan on letting their house get foreclosed on when they're ready to leave, and every day I cross my fingers and hope this will be the day they leave.

How do you deal with bad parents that you are forced to interact with daily? Have you ever forbidden your children from playing with someone else?