neighborhood kid issues

Ima2NYM_LTR

Sun, Nov 02 2014, 2:22 pm

We live in an out-of-town community, on a quiet street. There are a few other children my children's ages. One family has two children close to my sons age. They like to come over and play.
Generally I like the concept of neighborhood kids getting together without having to arrange a play date for plan in advance.

Unfortunately we have been having trouble with these children. Both of them come over, take out toys without permission, and then when it's time to clean up they all the sudden say that they have to leave. It has happened with both indoor and outdoor toys. We spoke to the parents, they promised the kids will never do this again. They haven't had time to get together that much since then, so I don't know if it will really happen.

The more concerning thing is the fact the boy who is slightly younger than my son tends to come over and if my son cant play he goes into our backyard on his own starts helping himself to her toys. Today he started to walk away with a baseball bat. I asked him to leave it and he put it down, a few minutes later it was gone. Yesterday on the way home from shul we found one of our bats halfway between our house and his house. My son told me today that a few weeks ago this boy hit a ball into her house and broke some of our siding. It's not bad, but it's a pattern of behavior.

Obviously the first solution is to keep the toys locked up, but what else. I spoke to the mother today, but I felt bad. She was very apologetic. I don't want to get her kids in trouble, or force the kids not to play together, but I can't let her kids act like my house is their personal toy store/playroom.

Any advice would be helpful.