Kids friends keep coming to us to play

Stars

Wed, Mar 14 2018, 1:00 pm

Chayalle wrote:

I was the neighborhood hangout for years, but I did set some ironclad rules to make it work. Firstly, no friends before x o'clock. That number varied between summer and winter, but before a certain hour, our kids had to play quietly with each other or read, rest, etc..so that DH and I could recharge.

Secondly, I was not a drop stop. That is, I was happy for the neighborhood kids to play at our home and I even provided Shabbos party, etc...but you can't just drop off kids at my house that are not playing with my kids. I had a neighbor who tried to drop of her 4 year old son to play with my 8 year old daughter. No go. She was not interested in playing with him. I also need my Shabbos rest, and am not the neighborhood babysitter.

Thirdly, I expected everyone to keep house rules and clean up after themselves.

Fourth - if I ever encountered bad middos or language, those kids were no longer welcome. My kids were no longer available, or it wasn't a good time, when they came.

Great post, especially the last point. We love having kids over, but I can't have the teaching my kid all kinds of fun words, or that throwing magnatiles at the wall is a game. Or that screaming through kiddush is great fun, especially when both parents asked you nicely to be quiet.

Boca00

Wed, Mar 14 2018, 3:49 pm

Chayalle wrote:

I had a very similar situation when my oldest started Primary (she's 19 now). There was a family in the neighborhood whose mother worked till late, and seems their plan for their kids (primary and first grade) was to go to a neighbor when they came home from school.

Officially they were supposed to go home when an older sibling came home, but that older sibling wasn't that interested in babysitting, so more often than not they would show up at my door and stay until bedtime! The older sibling would go out to her friends, or not answer the phone and pretend not to be home.

I finally had to put my foot down, and told them that their kids can not show up at my door. I was juggling supper and bedtime, and feeding two extra kids on a daily basis was not part of my plan. Also, I work full time, and sometimes had appointments and errands to run at that time. I told them that their kids can only come if it is pre-arranged, and that they must have after-school arrangements for their kids.

Guy showing up to drop his kid by you shock

I'm not going to say anything as they are moving soon so it won't be for much longer. Wish I was better about putting my foot down with friends like you.

amother

Tan

Wed, Mar 14 2018, 8:55 pm

Ahhhhh lakewood.... op this sounds familiar stuff about Lakewood. So to people out there who don't know.

Lakewood has different types of housing. There are developement sand regular separate housing. The developement s are build where the houses are very close with each other and the kids are very close with one another.

They are practicaliving in each other's houses. This is like bungalow colony lifestyle all year round. It had good and bad parts. This is ypthe part op needs to learn how to keep strict rules or she will get very resentful.

I live in Lakewood but not in a developement for one of these reasons.