Neighborhood Kids

[tootie]

Boy oh Boy, usually I'm not some body's push over or door Matt..
But I have a issue here I can't seem to clear up..
We have about 6 kids in the neighborhood, witch 3 of them only come over for maybe an hour or so at the time..Now the other 3 show up around 2pm and don't leave until I get my Kids out around 8pm..By the way , I have 2
I really don't have a problem with this, since I'm out there with my Kids anyway..But I do have a Problem with feeding everybody around here, at the beginning I talked to there Mom so she could pack up some snacks, witch worked for about a week, now they come over hungry all the time..
I'm constantly fixing snacks, food, drinks and so on..
Now , don't get me wrong I don't let anybody starve at my House, but with rising prices, it's starting to take a toll on me. I already go to the store now, with there favored snack in mine...

I kind of feel used, not only do I provide free babysitting service, I also feed them around the clock....

Somebody HELP ME!!!

 

[TizMe]

When your ready to eat send them home. Its your pool not theirs !

 

[colormesummer]

i had the same prob when my kids were little, i'm non/confrontational myself..but kids were there way past dinnertime bugged me/ a couple of times (it took a couple) I told the kids next time they stayed til dinnertime they had to bring pre arranged dinner brought in by their parents, that slowed them down

 

[tnthudson]

My wife had a similar issue this year, with some friends coming over around lunchtime each day. She finally told them what time to come over, which was after lunch but before dinner, and she has something cheap & easy (chips or those ice pops) if they want a snack. She even has a designated snacking area now because everyone was making too much of a mess.
It worked great; you may want to try it...just give them a time (i.e. 'you can come over from 2:00 - 5:00 but then we have family time, so you'll need to leave at 5:00'). Her friends are fine with it, and I think it keeps people from taking advantage or taking her for granted...and they still have a ball when they come over.

 

[frustratedpoolmom]

I agree, if the kids are coming over without Mom, they are older, so they are old enough to understand your set limits. So I say set them. And tell the kids...(if their mom is that inconsiderate) "you are welcome to come swim between 2-5, but please bring a snack (and towel, goggles) etc., with you. I'm not the neighborhood snack stand, ya know" to put a humerous touch on the truth aspect of it. IF your nice but direct, they'll do it.

My kids' friends haven't ever just shown up. So I've been lucky with that.

We had a party a few weeks back, an "evening" yard party, the invite said BYOB, etc....so what does that tell you? No where on the invite did it say "Pool Party for kids, drop off your sons." yet thats what one neighbor decided to do, and she hardly knew us, dropped off her 7 and 5 year old sons....I would never drop off my kids at a party that was clearly going to have alcohol unsupervised. And then the boys wanted to swim so eventually another parent who knew them and whose kids wanted to swim too agreed to sit out there with them and watch. Next thing you know was " I don't have a towel." "I don't have goggles" ... "so and so (little brother) is hungry. Can you fix him a hotdog?" "Do you have any bbq sauce"? .....on and on. I didn't have the heart to send them home. She finally showed up 6 hours later to claim them.

 

[tootie]

Thanks for all the great advise.
I really thought I made myself clear at the beginning of the season, when I talked to there Mom.
We had the same scenario last year, so I thought if I set limits right from the get go, I would not run in to this problem
Long and behold here we are...

Frustrated, I know how you felt, I would never dump my kids on some body's party.."How rude"!!

But , Today is a new day, and I'm putting my foot down

 

[Butterfly]

You might find some interesting ideas from this recent thread:

best-way-to-handle-this-swim-requests-t4421.html?hilit=kids

 

[TizMe]

One of our rules for younger kids is you can go swimming if first you ask and second one of your parents come watch you swim .... All our kids are grown up and gone from the house so we are not babysitting anyone elses kids!

 

[Floater]

We had a party a few weeks back, an "evening" yard party, the invite said BYOB, etc....so what does that tell you? No where on the invite did it say "Pool Party for kids, drop off your sons." yet thats what one neighbor decided to do, and she hardly knew us, dropped off her 7 and 5 year old sons.... I didn't have the heart to send them home. She finally showed up 6 hours later to claim them.

"BYOB"... Bring Your Own Boys

 

[Hotrod30]

We had a party a few weeks back, an "evening" yard party, the invite said BYOB, etc....so what does that tell you? No where on the invite did it say "Pool Party for kids, drop off your sons." yet thats what one neighbor decided to do, and she hardly knew us, dropped off her 7 and 5 year old sons....I would never drop off my kids at a party that was clearly going to have alcohol unsupervised. And then the boys wanted to swim so eventually another parent who knew them and whose kids wanted to swim too agreed to sit out there with them and watch. Next thing you know was " I don't have a towel." "I don't have goggles" ... "so and so (little brother) is hungry. Can you fix him a hotdog?" "Do you have any bbq sauce"? .....on and on. I didn't have the heart to send them home. She finally showed up 6 hours later to claim them.

Just think mom ..... For six hours, you were a better mother to them than their own mother.

 

[uwimage]

great birth control :lol:

So glad we opted for cats and not kids (don't get me wrong, we have 8 nieces and nephews and love them to death and are god parents to 11 kids)

Good luck with it! Be firm with the parents, if you tick them off, oh well, you won't have to deal with their kids! Pretty selfish if you ask me...

 

[Guest]

Some parents need to be spayed and neutered! I work with kids and it never ceases to amaze me how some parents just want to dump their kids on anyone they can!

 

[frustratedpoolmom]

"BYOB"... Bring Your Own Boys

Just think mom ..... For six hours, you were a better mother to them than their own mother.

I highly doubt it....Um, it was also my 40th birthday. I was not a sober host, LOL...
I was too busy turning the driveway into a dancefloor with my neighborhood girlfriends....

 

[uwimage]

I highly doubt it....Um, it was also my 40th birthday. I was not a sober host, LOL...
I was too busy turning the driveway into a dancefloor with my neighborhood girlfriends....

NO PICTURES? :lol:

 

[lulupalooza]

We had a party a few weeks back, an "evening" yard party, the invite said BYOB, etc....so what does that tell you? No where on the invite did it say "Pool Party for kids, drop off your sons." yet thats what one neighbor decided to do, and she hardly knew us, dropped off her 7 and 5 year old sons.... I didn't have the heart to send them home. She finally showed up 6 hours later to claim them.

"BYOB"... Bring Your Own Boys

ROFL floater that is a good one but I don't think thats what FM had in mind!

Thankfully we haven't had the problem like I thought we would have. The 4 MONSTERS next door left a week after school let out for the summer. The dad just moved out 1 week ago, so house is vacant. The others- the parents bought them small pools. I have only been letting one child come over and hes only done it twice.

School starts back monday! YAY!!!

 

[lulupalooza]

Some parents need to be spayed and neutered! I work with kids and it never ceases to amaze me how some parents just want to dump their kids on anyone they can!

I so TOTALLY agree with you on this one waterbear! I know some of those- Also, know some who were so happy t dish out Benedryl so the kids would go to sleep. Talk about being wanting to their brains out,LOL

I am the opposite. Won't let my kids out of my site for nothing! My kids are begging to ride the school bus this year- the 11 and 8 yo. NOPE,NOPE,NOPE,NOPE

 

[lulupalooza]

"BYOB"... Bring Your Own Boys

Just think mom ..... For six hours, you were a better mother to them than their own mother.

I highly doubt it....Um, it was also my 40th birthday. I was not a sober host, LOL...
I was too busy turning the driveway into a dancefloor with my neighborhood girlfriends....

Oh girl you know that party is

 

[lulupalooza]

Tootie

I followed the suggestion of no one swimming unless their parents come and swim with them. Guess it worked, because no one has asked.

 

[tootie]

Well, I'm glad we have such a lively thread going...
Y'all to funny....
I took me a big shot tequila(JK) Tuesday morning and went over to there house..
I told there Mom that the kids could not come over, unless she provides some snacks and drinks..
What she said next floored me.."Why are you coming over here telling me this, you've been doing it all Summer"..Boy was I HOT.. :grrrr: I reminded her about the conversation we had at the beginning of the season, and she said," I'm on a tight budget"...WT.....???
By then I was so mad, that I also told her she needs to come over to watch them...Since I'm to busy fixing all the Food for everybody!!

Yep,I haven't seen them since..


Waterbear, I so agree with you on that one.I'm so amazed how some of them just dump there Kids on anybody!!!

Lulu, I'm just now going to put my 12 year old on the bus in the afternoon, in the morning he still has to put up with me.

 

[karenh]

My next door neighbors no longer speak to us, which really doesn't bother me. :-D We refused to make our pool a "neighborhood pool" and they got ******. We only have an 18' AG, so it really isn't large enough for a ton of rowdy kids. But we also had the problem in the winter because they just wanted to send him off to wherever they could (the step-mom didn't want to take care of him). Not only that, this kid is 9 and my youngest is 16. He would stand at the chain link hollering and asking could he get in, and cry when we said no. We now have 8' privacy fencing. LOL Good fences make good neighbors, or block out the crappy ones!