Kids playing on street

markpb

Del2005 wrote: »

How can safety be a big thing if you are letting them play on a road? Whatever about crossing the road to get to a play area put children shouldn't be playing on a road. There is no safe way for children to play on a road as that's where cars and bikes are supposed to be. Pedestrians have footpaths to play on or should the cars use the footpaths if they want to?

There's nothing inherently unsafe about playing on quiet streets. I didn't grow up in Dublin but I'm well aware that children here play on residential streets and I drive accordingly.

I'm totally in favour of it happening too. I think that it's great that children can go outside and play with their friends in their neighbourhood, close enough to keep an eye on, far enough that they have their independence and without having to be ferried to and from a friends house or scheduled activity. My own are too young to do it right now but I'll definitely be encouraging it soon enough. They'll be taught to be careful and respectful of others for sure.

freshpopcorn

I grew up in the countryside and playing on the road wasn't an option when you were a child. I always find the situation in housing estates so weird when kids walk on your grass/put finger prints on your car(as well as the odd dent) and leave toys/bikes on your lawn. I totally back this woman.(What happens when a kid damages somebody else property or gets injured in somebodies private driveway?)
Kids can play outside there house and friends houses no problem and if the neigbhours don't mind they can play there as well. They seem to have plenty of places on the road to play. So, tell them to plat their.

LionelNashe

Playing on quiet streets in a housing estate is normal. I grew up playing football, squares (a game with a football that uses the rectangular sections of the road), kerbs (where you stand on opposite sides and try and throw the ball to bounce off the opposite kerb), building ramps for BMXs, tennis when Wimbledon was on, rounders at the top of the road with a lamppost as the wicket. This was back when most houses had just 1 car, so they mostly used their driveways instead of the bit of road outside their houses.

No neighbour ever had an issue, expect when we were teenagers sitting on the wall at the top of the road and some of the kids were from a different estate. But, we weren't up to anything, so the concerns were not justified in my opinion.

If they were my kids I'd tell them how to assertively decline the neighbour's request to play elsewhere, or else to ignore her, and if she continued giving them grief I'd have strong words with her.

AlekSmart

April1 wrote: »

This isn't the first time she's done this. one of her younger family member who lives there too, drives too fast and reverses into the parking space outside the house like a rocket. If he thinks anyone is near his car he shouts. Also there is a strip if grass outside their house. It's public land, he's often told the kids to get off the grass.

So,is it accurate to suggest that "Kid's playing" is not really what this is all about?

Are there other issues between neighbours involved here,perhaps on a personality level ?

As for the specific issue of "Kids Playing",I find the definition of the term "Playing" can often be the core of the matter.

Swinging from a lampost on a rope,or playing noughts & crosses is what many of us traditionally regarded as "playing",however since we ourselves last played,much has altered,particularly as the children move from the teeny stage into 5 years+.

It can often be very instructive to observe the progress of young children as they take in and adjust to the parameters of their expanding world...patticularly the parts about boundaries,limits and other restrictions on their freedom.

We all love children...don't we ?...but perhaps more often than we care to admit,we come across one's that put us under pressure......never our own,mind you !!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7CEbd7ffNw

I'll get my coat........:eek:

beauf

freshpopcorn wrote: »

I grew up in the countryside and playing on the road wasn't an option when you were a child. I always find the situation in housing estates so weird when kids walk on your grass/put finger prints on your car(as well as the odd dent) and leave toys/bikes on your lawn. I totally back this woman.(What happens when a kid damages somebody else property or gets injured in somebodies private driveway?)
Kids can play outside there house and friends houses no problem and if the neigbhours don't mind they can play there as well. They seem to have plenty of places on the road to play. So, tell them to plat their.

Its a bit like having your own room VS sharing a room with other people. Your expectations of privacy have to adjust.

You can't control the public space outside your house. You don't own it.

dubstarr

Tigger wrote: »

I think your neighbour is dead right. This belief that the entire estate is the kids playground annoys me so much. It's totally careless on the parents' part. They are rarely watching their kids 100% of the time and sometimes not at all. They could get hit by a car easily in an estate but the mindset seems to be that the drivers shouldn't be on the road and the kids are supposed to be running under the wheels of the car or rollerblading etc.

In my estate all the kids play down at the cul de sac despite only one child living down there. They screech and roar all day long and sit in the middle of the road having picnics and playing dolls. They look at you like you are in their way when you drive in and I've often sat for a few minutes while they slowly move to another place to play so I can park. Its not their fault so I say nothing but I think their parents are extremely negligent and careless.

I have never complained because we're the only couple with no kids. They have put signs up outside to drive slowly as children are playing. I do take care as I don't want that on my conscience but surely it's the parents job to protect their kids and not leave it to chance that they don't get injured playing on the road.

To be honest I think it's a country versus town thing.

My partner and I are from the country, we were never allowed play on the road or stand on street corners growing up. It was unheard of. You played in your own garden, end of story. But a colleague of mine grew up in an estate and she loved the playing on the street life she had and bought a house in a big estate so her kids could do the same.

That's how I know I'm in the minority but if I ever have kids I would not let them annoy the neighbours. The kids are polite in my estate but they never look left or right and run out of their houses onto the road. Surely their parents must worry about the ramifications of not teaching them road safety. But no instead they put signs up for me to take care. I'm an adult so I know to do this. I wish some parents would teach their children about safety and personal responsibility so we don't all have to suffer a tragedy.

Youbunderstand it's the norm for city kids to play in estates but youbthink you will change it
And if you have. Amid you won't let them play with the other kids
Maybe you should return to the countryside[/QUOTE]

nobody is saying the whole road is the kids playground,Same way its not hers to say who can and cannot play outside her house.
how else are kids supposed to learn.They wont be able to cross the road t 15,and have no common sense.You need to play out wiht other kids for kids to learn bounderies.

And cars shouldnt be flying up and down residental roads anyway.

Big Bag of Chips

Kids in cities have to play outside on the road. They don't have the luxury of large gardens like children do in the country. A game of football, or even tig, or kick the can or whatever, would be impossible in the city if you were confined to playing in your tiny garden.

In saying that, OP, you need to teach your child to respect the area she is in, and to respect that she will be playing quite close to neighbours. If your neighbour has to learn to share her space, then your daughter does to. The fact that your daughter came in to tell you that the neighbour had given out, means you didn't see where your child was playing at the time the neighbour told her to move on. She could have been sitting on her doorstep! She could have been playing "shop" on her front windowsill. The neighbour has asked that your daughter not play outside her house, I think the sensible approach is to tell the neighbour that you will ask your daughter to stay to the other side of your house in future, but you hope she'll understand if sometimes a child's game might pass by her house.

You live in terrace houses, with no front garden. There is not much space for your child to play in unless you confine her to the backgarden, or let her out the front. We all had a cranky neighbour, and we all knew to avoid them. Your daughter will learn the same.

Sunny Dayz

Once none of the children enter her property, there's nothing she can do about it. The path and the street outside her property are public so there's nothing she can do apart from noise disturbance complaints.


We live in a similar set up, few semi-d's in a cul-de-sac in part of a housing estate. My son and the neighbouring kids would often play in the road outside our houses - it worked out great cos we could all see our kids from the front door/window and they had room to kick a football or cycle about. All the houses have a knee high wall for boundary between the properties and it was always the rule that you don't go onto other peoples property without permission unless to retrieve a ball.

GritBiscuit

April1 wrote: »

Maybe if she handled it better and didn't give out to the children.
I wouldn't mind so much but each day her dog relieves itself right outside my house.

I have a few neighbours that have gotten into a race to the gutter of self-interest and it doesn't make for a pleasant living environment for anyone.

We have the drivers who got so fed up moving bikes and toys out their path or waiting for some vacant, unsupervised toddler to notice a 2 ton hunk of metal baring down on them justified with "well, cars don't own the road, they should be watching for the kids" that they now drive inappropriately for the conditions justifying their own selfishness with "roads are for cars and I'm not driving over the speed limit anyway"...then there's the neighbour who loves getting woken up by kids who break no laws on public property by screaming and roaring outside their house at 9am on the weekend so much that at 10pm on a school night, they're quite happy to start electric guitar and band practice with all the windows open - "sure, see how they like getting their kids to sleep through that, it's all happening on my property...I'm legally entitled to....blah blah blah". Ugh. :rolleyes:

Self-entitlement makes for crappy asshole neighbours. As long as you are doing your bit to ensure your kids know compromise and that everyone deserves privacy, safety and consideration, not just them, then there's not a lot else you can do. If your neighbours make no effort to meet you half-way then that's on them and you have my utmost sympathies but the advice stands. It will only benefit your blood pressure and your kids life lessons to give those kind of people a wide-berth rather than get into any kind of tit-for-tat or unwinnable personal-rights semantics war.

arrianalexander

From someone who doesn't have kids and has no desire to have kids ..

In our estate the kids play on the road, the minute a car is coming they all blot to the side to let the car pass.

Come 9pm they are gone inside...8.59 all out playing 9pm all gone

Some evenings they can loud and annoying but they are kids.

I think as long as kids have some kind of boundaries instilled into them it's ok.

I'd much rather an estate with kids playing then no kids, there is much less chance of burglaries etc if you have kids around.

dubstarr

GritBiscuit wrote: »

I have a few neighbours that have gotten into a race to the gutter of self-interest and it doesn't make for a pleasant living environment for anyone.

We have the drivers who got so fed up moving bikes and toys out their path or waiting for some vacant, unsupervised toddler to notice a 2 ton hunk of metal baring down on them justified with "well, cars don't own the road, they should be watching for the kids" that they now drive inappropriately for the conditions justifying their own selfishness with "roads are for cars and I'm not driving over the speed limit anyway"...then there's the neighbour who loves getting woken up by kids who break no laws on public property by screaming and roaring outside their house at 9am on the weekend so much that at 10pm on a school night, they're quite happy to start electric guitar and band practice with all the windows open - "sure, see how they like getting their kids to sleep through that, it's all happening on my property...I'm legally entitled to....blah blah blah". Ugh. :rolleyes:

Self-entitlement makes for crappy asshole neighbours. As long as you are doing your bit to ensure your kids know compromise and that everyone deserves privacy, safety and consideration, not just them, then there's not a lot else you can do. If your neighbours make no effort to meet you half-way then that's on them and you have my utmost sympathies but the advice stands. It will only benefit your blood pressure and your kids life lessons to give those kind of people a wide-berth rather than get into any kind of tit-for-tat or unwinnable personal-rights semantics war.

The thing is none of that is relevant here.Shes moaning about kids out playing.

Self entitlement works both ways though.I HAVE TOLD MY KIDS CERTAIN GARDENS ARE OFF LIMITS,CAUSE PEOPLE ARE OLD ,INFIRM OR JUST DONT WANT KIDS HANGING OUT OUTSIDE.

By ad large the kids give them houses a wide berth.If you live in an estate,theyre has to be give and take.By all means if kids are vandalising by all means say something.But normal noise from kids should be expected.

trixiebust

dubstarr wrote:

By ad large the kids give them houses a wide berth.If you live in an estate,theyre has to be give and take.By all means if kids are vandalising by all means say something.But normal noise from kids should be expected.

How do you define normal, is the problem. Our neighbors kids, & their friends, can be heard roaring & screaming from every room in our house. They start at 9am, finish at 10 pm.

We had to put a fence up, in our estate the front gardens are shared. So the kids used to walk out of their house, right past our front window, and through the garden, when leaving their house.

The lack of consideration from parents, about who lives next door, and what they allow their offspring to do is crazy.

When you get people like this living next door, it's a living hell. It's like living in a zoo.

cruizer101

Some people on this thread seem a bit confused, there is a big difference between kids playing on the street and kids damaging property and playing in private gardens.

I see nothing wrong with kids playing on a quiet cul-de-sac, why shouldn't they.

fmpisces

cruizer101 wrote: »

Some people on this thread seem a bit confused, there is a big difference between kids playing on the street and kids damaging property and playing in private gardens.

I see nothing wrong with kids playing on a quiet cul-de-sac, why shouldn't they.

Oh there is, but some don't seem to know or care about the boundaries of what's reasonable and what's not. I'm talking about kids as well as their parents.

trixiebust

fmpisces wrote:

Oh there is, but some don't seem to know or care about the boundaries of what's reasonable and what's not. I'm talking about kids as well as their parents.

The kids are learning from this from the parents. Next door have 3 different age group of kids. They are all as bad as each other. The oldest, who's now about 17, is just as bad as the 6 year old.

Because none of these kids were ever taught boundaries, they all feel as they can do as they please.

JDxtra

Kids playing outside, enjoying life and each other, causing no harm or serious annoyance to anyone sounds like an nice place to live and grow up.

Some seriously grumpy folks on this thread apposed to this who really need a bit of a reality check.

pogcica

I played outside my house growing up as did all the other neighboring kids.terraced house lots of big families, lots of noise sometimes fights,lots of fun,sometimes narky neighbours, rarely break ins. Tell my own kids to go out and play now and also sometimes tell my neighbors to drive slower. How many of you have a sign on the bottom if your street indicating playing kids? Where else is safer when you want to give your kids a little freedom to create there own games with their pals.between daylight ours people should expect normal life going on around them, in my opinion kids playing outside is normal healthy life.

Rgds D.

freshpopcorn

pogcica wrote: »

I played outside my house growing up as did all the other neighboring kids.terraced house lots of big families, lots of noise sometimes fights,lots of fun,sometimes narky neighbours, rarely break ins. Tell my own kids to go out and play now and also sometimes tell my neighbors to drive slower. How many of you have a sign on the bottom if your street indicating playing kids? Where else is safer when you want to give your kids a little freedom to create there own games with their pals.between daylight ours people should expect normal life going on around them, in my opinion kids playing outside is normal healthy life.

Rgds D.

Most people have no issue with above!
Some people just don't want kids playing on there driveway/lawn!

April1

Del2005 wrote: »

How can safety be a big thing if you are letting them play on a road? Whatever about crossing the road to get to a play area put children shouldn't be playing on a road. There is no safe way for children to play on a road as that's where cars and bikes are supposed to be. Pedestrians have footpaths to play on or should the cars use the footpaths if they want to?

The children us the road when on bikes. The neighbour doesn't want them to play, on the footpath near her house.

April1

freshpopcorn wrote: »

Most people have no issue with above!
Some people just don't want kids playing on there driveway/lawn!

There are no gardens or driveways, the fronts are right on the footpaths with only a tiny path to the front doors. Any grass is public area out side the neighbours house.

freshpopcorn

April1 wrote: »

There are no gardens or driveways, the fronts are right on the footpaths with only a tiny path to the front doors. Any grass is public area out side the neighbours house.

Who cuts the grass?

April1

freshpopcorn wrote: »

Who cuts the grass?

The residents association pay for the grass to be cut.

freshpopcorn

April1 wrote: »

The residents association pay for the grass to be cut.

Well I suppose it's a public space then. If your kids do accdiently scrap any cars in the family expect a bill in the post!

shesty

Ugh OP.There' a strong chance too that if the kids were in back gardens they would be giving out about the noise of them out there.Some people are just like that.I grew up in the country but in a housing estate.We played on the road all the time but never in people's gardens and that was the rule.Where we we live now is similar....and we have lived here pre- and post-kids (our own).
Kids screaming and playing outside still annoys the crap out of me if I'm honest, but I have to remind myself of a few things.Firstly, I grew up playing outside.Secondly, the whole emphasis of raising kids today is on reminding parents that they need to be outdoors and free to play.And thirdly...it doesn't last forever.At present, there's another two weeks left before school starts and winter is on the way.And next year they'll be bigger, and the year after that bigger again, and will be out playing less and less (I'm seeing it around us already).

We were all kids once.

beauf

Tends to go through a cycle then the street matures and there are very few kids on it.

Teyla Emmagan

beauf wrote:

Tends to go through a cycle then the street matures and there are very few kids on it.

Thank God.

dubstarr

If you live in close proximity to other people,ther has to be give and take.

On this thread we are talking about young kids out playing.Not little feckers who break car windows.Or who are disrespectful.

Most people on this thread dont seem to have a lot of time for kids out playing.only wanting to moan about noise.What if somebody next door to you knocked in ,moaning about stuff everyday.It would get wearing.

So live and let live.

freshpopcorn

dubstarr wrote: »

On this thread we are talking about young kids out playing.Not little feckers who break car windows.Or who are disrespectful.

Most of the damage I've seen on cars in estates are from little kids with balls/bikes/etc. If somebody asks you to stay away from there car I don't see why people can't just tell there kids stay away from XXXX car.