Neighborhood pool policy

[supermatt9]

We are in a neighborhood with lots of kids and we're are the only pool that I know of.

I have the young kids (8, 5 & 3) and I have no problem with their close friends coming to swim whenever we are home and the pool is open.

But it's the other kids in the neighborhood that concern me. They are "sort of" friends. If my kids and those kids are outside at the same time they'll play together, but that's about it. I don't know their parents.

What's your policy on those kids swimming in your pool? We keep the gate to our back yard locked so I'm not too worried about those kids swimming while we're gone, and our kids are never in the pool without supervision...

But I guess I'm concerned in this day and age that some crazy parent will, I don't know, do something stupid or crazy????

Am I being too paranoid? What do you do when the random kids in your neighborhood want to swim?

 

[jblizzle]

The simple answer is, tell them no. It is your pool and your rules. If you give them a taste, they will take advantage.

There are threads about this if you search. I remember one that made the rule that the kid could only be in the pool if their parent was also in the pool supervising their own kid ... Not many parents want to spend all day at some one else's pool.

 

[Isaac-1]

This is one of those issues that is hard to get right, you want a balance here, and it is a bit like walking a tightrope. For some people that means making strict rules, others decide to be more flexible, but that can lead to a slippery slope. Personally I like the idea that any kids visiting that are not very well known friends must have a parent with them, the ages of the kids matter too, 8 is different than 12, and once they get to be teenagers it is a whole new ballgame.

 

[Smykowski]

The simple answer is, tell them no. It is your pool and your rules. If you give them a taste, they will take advantage.

There are threads about this if you search. I remember one that made the rule that the kid could only be in the pool if their parent was also in the pool supervising their own kid ... Not many parents want to spend all day at some one else's pool.

I subscribe to all of this. Most of the kids on our block are young and short, and can't stand in our pool yet. I don't want to the liability (or to spend the energy) being the lifeguard for children in addition to my own. My personal rule is just like blizzle says above....the parents have to come with and watch their own kid (so I better like the parents, too).

 

[CCisotope]

We have a neighborhood with a number of pools. Before we built our pool our kids would be invited to swim at the neighbors pool by their friends and parents. I set the rules very early with my children and let them know they are not allowed to swim at the neighbors pool until I meet the parents. Also my youngest at the time could not swim well in the deep end and I set very firm rules that she is not allowed to swim at anyones house without me there.

Now that we have our own pool the same rules apply. If the child is a weak swimmer they are not allowed to swim without their parents. Also, if I haven't met the parents I don't allow them to swim. There are many different personality types and I don't want to take the chance of having a lawsuit on my hands if something should happen. It's your property and they need to respect your rules and property. If its a case where I haven't met the parents; I take the opportunity to try and meet the parent by setting up a play date if the child is younger than 10.

We have one neighborhood girl(10yrs) that would constantly be at our door at 8am on the weekends and every evening asking to play and more recently swim with our daughter(7yrs). She would press her face against our glass door so she could see if anyone was walking around and kept ringing the doorbell until someone came to the door. It shocked us that the parents would allow this to happen and they never put a stop to it.

We would constantly tell her "no" but the next thing we know the mom was at the door asking if her daughter could play or swim. She came to the house one morning at 7:30am ringing the doorbell and peering through the glass. My husband answered the door and told her, "You cannot come to our house this early in the morning and you shouldn't be looking through our windows. What if someone is walking around naked?"....since then she nor the parents come by and knock anymore. We still see them at the bus stop and we are cordial but some people don't get it. (And having family from Europe we have no issues with nudity in our home .)

I became known as the "mean mom" in the hood amongst certain families... Because I tend to be stricter with my children and have specific rules for the neighbor hood kids when they come to play at our house. I came to realize that some parents in our neighborhood don't want to take the time to watch or play with their own children and would rather send them out to "play" so other parents would have to watch the kids.

You need to set the rules early or it can get out of hand and parents and their children need to respect your rules and property...

 

[JasonK]

Matt - I have fought this for 5 years now!! Mainly a family friend. This year I put my foot down (along with the help of my insurance agent). Absolutely no swimming when we are not home.

I'd pick up a flag you can raise to let kids know that if their parent comes with they can come over. Flag not up, don't ask to swim.

NO PARENT - NO SWIM!!!

 

[Isaac-1]

There also always the pool maintenance excuse, no swimming right now while chemical treatment is going on, etc.

 

[glitter&guns]

I moved into a house last year in a neighborhood with just a few pools. Kids I had never seen before, feral children, and sorta friends showed up with regularity asking to swim. I spent a summer saying "no". One kids I had never seen in my life showed up in a suit saying that his mom said he could swim. I still don't know where the kid came from. I realized that if I said "yes", I was going to spend the entire summer sitting in the back yard babysitting kids that I wasn't getting paid to watch instead of doing cool stuff with my own kids (and sometimes their friends). NOT why I bought a pool. So I was terribly mean and just said no. Several times a week my girls text their friends for "2 hour swim" and whoever on our approved list can come is allowed to come down and swim. At the end of 2 hours, they have to get out of the pool. I don't make them leave, just no more pool time as I feel obligated to sit outside while they have friends in the pool.

Be tough. It is far easier to slack the rules some as opposed to tighten them up.