Sorry... dog days of summer here and I'm not very tolerant.

We have a 5 year old neighbor boy who comes by every morning at 7:30 and rings our doorbell to play with my boys -- ages 9 and 12. He's lonely; an only boy in a family of three others (all g.i.r.l.s). But my boys are not interested in playing with him. He's very loud, young and immature -- incredibly annoying.

His mom never knows where he is. One day he came over and climbed up on the trampoline. Several times, he has walked right into our house if the front door isn't locked.

I don't want to cause any problems in the neighborhood so I keep quiet and head him off at the door or don't answer when he rings the doorbell.

I don't like living like this... I'd love talking with him or encouraging the boys to play with him once in awhile but EVERY day??? I feel like if I give in to him, he'll be here twice a day. I'm not kidding. But, part of the truth is, I feel sorry for him... he's neglected and over-indulged at the same time.

Any tips?

yeah, I was thinking maybe saying one day a week for only one hour or something like that.
I know what you mean, I hate situations like that.

What do your boys think? And is this a situation that they can handle on their own? It may seem kinda mean, but sometimes the other kid will get it when the children are as wonderfully candid as they can be....i.e. "Hey Jack, we don't want to play with you. Go home". I cringe when I hear it, but it does seem to work.

As a mom, I would have no problem telling the kid not to show up at the door until 10am, or whatever time you think is reasonable.....I don't think 7:30 is reasonable, personaly.

cj/

I would definitely do something about the 7:30 time. Maybe you can tell him, "when you see XXX and YYY outside, it's a proper time to come over" or, maybe after the mailman/lady drives by??? Soemthing the kid can hopefully relate to.

Personally, I would have my kids play with him for a little bit. You never know, your boys may just change his life. You never know how you can influence a child. I wouldn't tell him to go home, I just can't bring myself to say something so mean to a 5yo. Maybe you can give him a coloring book and crayons to use on your porch???

__________________
Doing the right thing isn't always the same as doing the easy thing.

I like these ideas!!

cj/

"This boy is the stinky kid in school " I see why kids are so mean to other kids sometimes. It is a behavior that is taught from the parents. Perhaps this child cant help it. Perhaps they dont have money for hot water and/or soap... You never know. When I was a kid there was a girl at school that everyone called stinky. One day I went to their house only to see that they had NOTHING... they didnt have enough money to turn on the gas, they didnt have money for new clothes, hell goodwill was alot for them. My perception changed from that day on.


I do have to aqgree about setting time limits. My neighbors know they are not allowed over until 11 am.

Who lets their kid go play at 7:30 AM?

What is the mom doing??

Talk to his mother using all of the advice you have gotten here.

__________________
Square dancing is friendship set to music!

My rule is when the window blinds are open, the neighbors and their kids are welcome to come over... Everyone knows that but he chooses to come at 7:30 anyway. Sigh.

Mom is an author -- she is writing a book (I guess???).

Neighbors across the street from me act like pseudo-grandparents for this child. Now he's wandering past their house (because they aren't awake!) and making his way around the neighborhood. Free babysitting (Addison hit the nail on the head).

He's clean, well-dressed, over-indulged, YET neglected. Not the coloring book type... more the rough and tumble, rock-throwing type.



I plan to talk to the mother today using all of the great ideas you all have given to me. It is nice to have so many who have experienced similar and know what this is like. It's really hard when it has gone on for so long... it's just really getting to me after a month and a half. Thanks.

Is it an abuse issue that maybe authorities need to be alerted to??? I'd ask the Mom "gee, Sally, aren't you ever worried about little Johnny being abducted??? or getting lost???" Some parents are clueless. We had a neighbor who let their 3 yo wander around the streets all the time. well, one day he was on my corner and I saw him pee'ing. Yes, pee'ing. That was it, I called someone. Many times the kid was on a 2 wheel bike with training wheels, in the middle of the road, on a curve, no less.....people flying thru all the time. he was VERY overweight, too, and could NOT for the life of him maneuver that bike. A call was definitely warranted in that case.

Good Luck, let us know how it goes.

__________________
Doing the right thing isn't always the same as doing the easy thing.

op omg i could have written this post years ago we had an annoying nabe kid that would come banging on the door at 7am and yes she would try to open the door and walk right inside if you didn't answer, etc, sounds just like this kid you described
i kinda felt sorry for her but i am also a bit cranky when someone knocks on my door and i'm not even awake yet!! she would say she wanted to walk to school w/my kid and i would tell her school does not start til 830am, my kids and i are not even awake yet! argh
she would say well my mom said i could go now..etc...i did try to talk to the parents which did not help thAt much but i reminded them (very nicely and in a friendly way like, i don't know if you realize how early your kid is out in the morning)... the school had put out safety bulletins about not leaving your kids unattended before school is staffed
she finally grew out of it thank goodness lol

you guys are much nicer than I am. I'd have to tell him he is NOT allowed to knock on my door or come in house before a certain time and that the next time he did it, we'd both be walking over to talk to his mother.

__________________
"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God? " ~Epicurus

We have triplets next door that are almost two years younger than my 7 yr.old grandson, but they all play together fairly well. One of the trips was ringing the door bell about 30 times and if we didn't answer, he would just keep ringing. I finally said to him that it was against the rules to ring the doorbell more than twice. It's never happened again. Five year olds aren't much more than babies. Usually they need rules and direction. If this little guy wants to come over, set some limits. Also keep your eyes peeled and ask around to see if you can find someone his age to play with.

We have a great program here called Adventure Club. It's not cheap but it is offered by the school district and is basically a latch key program. It's available to fit any needs. My grandson just loves it. He only does it during the summer and they do all sorts of camp activities and at least two field trips a week. I know this child is not yours but he needs someone, so maybe you could find out about programs like the one we have to suggest to his mom. Another point to mention is, that often talking to the dad might get a better response than the mom. Moms seem to take offense and get their hackles up easier than men do.

LOL I totally agree with this!! Then again, my kids and I sleep in during summer, so I would be pretty hostile if woken up at 7:30am!!

I think I'd probably talk to the mother anyway-- maybe give her a list of camps or VBS's during the summer that her son can do.

Holly

__________________
Forgiveness is love in its most noble form. -Anonymous

I'm having a similar problem. Our neighbor's grandson spends every weekend with them all year long. Since they moved in last summer, I now dread the weekends because of him.

At first he would come over 7:30 - 8 in the morning and ring the doorbell nonstop until I got to the door. And since I was still asleep in bed this would take a few minutes. I had a talk with the grandmother and he usually doesn't show up until 10 or so now, but sometimes he sneaks out and comes over earlier.

My biggest problem is the grandparents don't spend anytime with him so he wants to play with dd the whole weekend from sunup to bedtime. Well, weekends for us are family time and they just don't get it. I feel sorry for him, but we've had to put our foot down and just tell them that we have family time on the weekends and dd won't be able to play all day long. They're upset with me, but that's tough. This last year we gave up a lot of family time for dd to play with him and I'd had enough.

We've always had memberships to the zoo and various museums and would usually spend the weekends doing those type of things or going to a festival, special event, etc. Then all of a sudden dd had a friend in the neighborhood and she had to play with him on the weekends since he was only here then so we stopped going anywhere. Dd has lots of friends, just none in our neighborhood so she was overjoyed when they moved in. But I'm not losing out on my family time anymore for a friend, so they are spending a lot less time together now.

I know the grandmother is upset with me. She and her husband are realtors so weekends are busy for them in their work (they work from home). Dd and I were pretty much her free babysitters this last year and now she is having to watch her grandson more. They would either play at our house or I would go over there with dd. They have a pool, so in the nice weather they swim over there. Dd isn't a good swimmmer and I couldn't trust the grandparents to keep a close enough eye on them in the pool so I would watch them.

He's 4, almost 5, and they just let him come over to our house by himself and even cross the street to another neighbor's house alone. We live in a neighborhood, but still our road curves and we have some teenagers down the street who don't always slow down enough. I never let dd cross the road or even let her play in the front yard alone. But he is out all the time alone and they see nothing wrong with it.

She tries to make me feel guilty telling me that all he does when we aren't home is whine and complain about Danielle not being home to play with. Why doesn't she do something with him and maybe he wouldn't be so bored? She complained to me once that his mother never takes him anywhere, well, neither do they. And when would the mom have time, he's at their house every weekend and the mom works during the week? I won't even get started on why he's there every weekend, that would be another whole long post in itself.

He's too much of a handful for us to take him along anywhere. At least when he's at our house and acts up, I send him home for a bit and he straightens up and then they play more. But if I had him out at the zoo or somewhere I wouldn't be able to do that. He's very spoiled and allowed to get away with way too much misbehaving. He's really a sweet kid and is just craving attention.

So now we limit their playtime to an hour or two each day and that's it, whether we go anywhere or not. The rest of the weekend is family time. Dd is adjusting to it fine and understands and enjoys our family time. Now if the grandmother would just get over it and start spending time with her grandson everything would be good again.

Jenn

Update...

Well, things seem to be under control; finally!!!

I never did talk with the mom because she wasn't at home when I got up the guts.

A few days ago, the little boy came over with his two sisters and I talked with all of them. I asked them their ages and told them my sons' ages and that their interests are very different and they like to play with 'older' kids toys and do 'older' kids games.

I told them that if my boys want to play with them, they can play but that I will not force them to play with them (my youngest will be 10 in a couple of weeks, oldest is 12... the little boy is 5).

ALL Summer, the little boy has been asking me if my boys can come over to their house to play. So they started in on that again and I told them to have their mom come to my house and talk with me about it. They asked me for my phone number and I said, "No", if your mom wants for the boys to come play at your house, your mom needs to come talk with me.

Things do seem to have calmed down after that last conversation. I think he's finally giving up on my boys.

One more note is that if the 7:30 visits start up again, the plan is that DH and I will go over there in the evening when their Dad is home (great suggestion wildwood!) and talk with both of the parents and go from there.

Glad things are working out!

If your rule is no coming to the door until the blinds are open, I'd just ignore the doorbell if he shows up sooner.

And there's no reason your blinds ever have to open, is there?

I do feel badly for the boy, but it's not your kids' obligation to entertain him.