we have a group of neighbor kids, who spend a majority of their evenings riding their bikes up and down the street.
they like to come over and talk to us sometimes when we are working in the front yard.
recently they have decided that NO. means "Why yes! absolutely go in the back yard while were not home, jump on the trampoline, look in the garage window and lie to Bob." i have "caught" them on the tramp. twice in 2 days. and by caught i mean that the gate is open and there are small foot prints all over the trampoline.
These kids range in age from 11 to 4. the 11 yr old knows darn well what they are doing, and should not be. Every time they ask to do something, and i tell them no, i get "but that's not fair..."
no it is fair. you pay my house insurance and we'll talk.
Two things bother me than anything else: deliberately doing things after they have been asked not to, and the fact that i have never ONCE seen their parents outside.
what do we do? the kids are clearly board out of their minds. and who know what their relationship with their parents is.
Bob will call the cops on them the next time he catches them in our yard when we are not home.
We don't think this is a battle we will win with fear.
But how do we get through to these kids that we will respect them, if they respect us? as they do not seem to understand personal boundaries. [found out they are the ones pealing off our bumper stickers.] they arnt nice kids either. among many other things- Tim is an "assmuncher."
We would like to be the better role models in these kids lives- and not another grouchy set of people who just yell at them.
Monday, June 08, 2009
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3 comments:
You could talk to their parents, but you will need to use all of your diplomacy because many parents believe that their little angles could never do such a thing. A lock on the gate might be good too, and Amazon sells a motion detecting lawn sprinkler that blasts any movement.
1. the gate is 3' tall. not gonna stop anyone. and we have 2, 4' wide section of this short picket fence area. don't want to change the fence. and shouldn't have to.
2. the kids already want to know when our sprinklers turn on.
3. it hard to not sound uh.. whatever here.. but unfortunately it happens here [denver]- a lot- the parents don't speak English or will pretend they don't to get out of conversations. [always the extremes to create the stereotype.]
i know we are asking for it, having a trampoline. but we love it. i jump on it almost everyday.
one word: caltrops
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