I sure hope you have an umbrella insurance policy! But I don’t think I’d want an unpleasant person in my backyard, even supervising her kid. The problem might be even worse when your young daughter starts playing with her son, because those two are likely play companions. Is she going to call you on the carpet every time your daughter offends her son? Unpleasant.
On second thought, maybe I would respond to the email briefly, saying that your son is used to how small children behave, so he generally will not respond to tantrums. And that perhaps it would be best if they do not play together, as it’s not really developmentally appropriate anyways. I would definitely do this if she is ignoring you overtly or being rude. If she is seriously upset over something so trivial, I would not want to have contact with her at all.
not only did she accuse your son of these things but by doing so, she indirectly accused your husband of lying about the situation when he went over to explain.
i wouldn’t be at all concerned about appeasing her. stand up for your family instead.
in fact i would write back, explain again that your son did nothing wrong, and demand that SHE apologize for falsely accusing him of the things you listed.
also i would add that her son is not welcome at your house anymore until she apologizes.
does your son even want to hang around a 4-year-old? ask him. if not, tell him he doesn’t have to babysit anymore.
this lady is a jerk and a bully and an a**hole and people like this need to be responded to in kind or else they will keep up their terrible behavior unchecked.
if you don’t have such a policy, i would just tell her to keep her kid away anyway. eventually the kid will get just get hurt somehow at your place, and she’s just the kind of nutjob who will sic her lawyer on you. you really need to protect yourself here.
watching over this kid is not your job not your daughter’s or son’s job. she needs to get off her butt and be a mother. you need to monitor the situation and if the kid is consistently endangered by her crappy negligent parenting, you might want to consider involving child protection services
Just let it go. It’s just one incidence. Your neighbor overreacted but I wouldn’t escalate things at this point. Just wait and see how things play out. Apologies from you definitely aren’t needed or warranted but you still have to live next door to this person. Some of the suggestions from others are too “tit for tat” for me at this stage of the game. Take the high road and just ignore it. You are more aware of her personality now and can keep that in mind for any future interactions.
i can see your point and my natural inclination is to blow things off. however, she and her husband did try to de-escalate and explain the situation politely and non-threateningly. this nut is the one who likely listened to her own husband explain the situation and tell her to let it go – and decided to escalate it herself with accusations against OP’s son. and not just with hasty words spoken in anger – IN WRITING. which requires premeditation and thought.
also, we do not know it is just one incident. she’s only told us about this one but there may have been other “situations.”
so she has three options
1 - apologize – No. nothing to apologize for, nutty neighbor is in the wrong, it will only embolden her to pull similar garbage later.
2 - ignore it. well, maybe this is the best route. but an unstable person is likely to take offense to that, and view a non-response as a direct insult.
3 - call her out. not without risk obviously. but she’s the one who chose to ignore reason, slap the olive branch out of OP’s hand, and stupidly escalate this situation with insulting accusations against her son. she needs to be called out for this junk b/c she is out of line.
4 - well, i just thought of this. forward the email to her husband, say “i thought we worked this situation out, what’s going on?” and ask him to deal with it.
Well, IMO implementing option #4 would put you in the whack job category with the neighbor.
(my advice is never get between a person and their spouse. Very rarely will the spouse ever take your side in the matter.)
I still vote for option #2 saving option #3 for the future if she actually did escalate things from here.
I don’t see anything weird about option #4, especially if you know the husband better and he has a calmer demeanor. Perhaps not what I would do, though. I’d probably go with option #2, saving #3 if necessary, like you would.
My advice stands. I would not acknowledge the e-mail.
Don’t put anything in writing that can be misconstrued and you know already that it will be twisted. She’s already ignored your verbal apology which was plenty enough.
And make sure you have an umbrella policy. Just in general not just for the 4 y/o.
I’d hate to bar any kid from playing that has been from the start unless there is really bad behavior (and 4 y/o tantrums don’t really count much of the time), But perhaps a crazy mom makes up for that definition of “bad behavior”.
(I have steered my kids away from “kids with crazy moms” in the past–just didn’t seem worth the trouble).
Your son needs his own age appropriate pals which you already know.
Perhaps school clubs, sports will help later on if he isn’t participating already.
There is just too big a gap between 13 and 4. Too much to be " friends"
. He is the acting baby sitter in this case whether he gets paid or not.
He is the oldest, he probably guides “the play” in his own way, the little ones look to him for guidance. That’s babysitting.
hey OP, is this really the first time nutty neighbor lady has wigged out like this? if so, MAYBE i can be persuaded that @doschicos and @busdriver11 have a point about option 2 (ignore it) for now, and holding option 3 (dish it right back to her in spades) in your back pocket in case she goes even more cuckoo CocoPuffs about this.
but also busdriver11 is right, it’s just weird for a 4-year-old to be hanging with a 12-year-old instead of his mother. although maybe your son is a better role model.
I don’t think I said “weird”, but “developmentally inappropriate” was the excuse I was offering (that someone else suggested), in order to suggest that they do not play together.
It comes down to she needs to supervise her own child and not depend on your children to take care of her child.
Somehow this message needs to be conveyed to her. Sometimes it is best to be blunt and get the message across and not worry about how it comes across for the sake of protecting an unsupervised child and your own children. Sometimes kind replies just don’t get the message across.
I had neighbors that left her 4 and 2 year old unattended out in the hallway (condo) and used it as a play area that disturbed the neighbors. Several complained about the noise and she was forced to keep her kids indoors when a notice was put in the hallways saying that the hallways are not to be used as a playground.
I know the age spread differential fades when there are a bunch of kids especially when siblings are involved. The older ones seem to just take on that “big brother, big sister” role at times. It comes natural at times.
But it usually has a limit based on shared interests which I think is about 5 years max.
The 8 y/o can toss a football with a 12 y/o to some extent. The 4 y/o can’t.
The 8 y/o will probably play trucks or help in the sandbox with a 4 y/o. Not so much the 12 y/o.
The 4 y/o and 12 y/o is babysitting.
I fall in the smile and wave and act like nothing happened camp. Let it blow over. How does your son feel? If he is upset I’d tell him he doesn’t have to play with the four yo, but to be kind about it.
I remember being in the four yo’s shoes. I remember being four (or five) and adoring a twelve yo neighbor girl. She was nice to me a time or two and after that I wanted to play with her all the time. My mom thought I was being a pest and made me stop bugging her. Given the age differences, I think that was a good response.
I vote for not reacting to her email. You have tried to explain and even mollify, and so has your husband, and now you don’t owe her anything other than to be normally friendly-- wave, smile etc. Hopefully this will de-escalate the situation.
Four year olds should be surpervised IMO. My daughter sometimes had friends of that age over without their moms being present, but I was always right there in the yard supervising. If you are not outdoors supervising the kids (and it seems his mother has no interest in supervising him), I just would not have the 4 year old over to your yard.
Also I would also encourage your son to focus on kids closer to his age; to not go out of his way to play with the 4 year old, and definitely not to play with him if there are no other kids around. Since the child’s mother has a distorted view of what happened, she could easily misconstrue other actions by your son.
I personally would want to address the issue so that she knows what to expect going forward. I’d probably write back something like:
"I’m sorry Billy was upset the other day, but the fact of the matter is that a 12-year-old is not really an appropriate playmate for a four-year-old. Sam [the twelve year old] is happy to entertain him once in a while, but I think you should gently let Billy know that Sam is generally not going to be available to play with him. And it is really putting too much on the older kids to supervise a little kid without adult supervision.
So, maybe we should have a little meeting to set the ground rules, so that there are no hurt feelings. Perhaps the best way to deal with this is to enter into a formal babysitting arrangement. I’ll talk to Sam to see if he is interested in earning some extra bucks, and if he is, perhaps you could hire him to babysit from time to time.
And, I’ve been meaning to bring this up, so I’m happy you’ve raised it, but I actually am not comfortable with a child that young hanging around my backyard without adult supervision. Maybe we can arrange playdates in the future. We love Billy and Sally [the three-year-old] would love to have a playdate with him. When the big kids are hanging out, they cannot be expected to supervise the little ones without a formal agreement."
Or whatever it is you want to communicate. I’d say it clearly and directly, without confrontation, with some compliments thrown in. Later, you can say Sam is too busy to babysit if she decides she wants to go that route and Sam is not interested.
I see the age gap a lot in my family. My cousin has a lot of grandkids, from 4-13. Whoever arrives first seem to play together. Then, when another older cousin arrives, the little one gets dropped. Just human nature.
We have that in my family too – lots of cousins that run the gamut from small to early twenties, but most of the kids in the teens and early twenties. The six-year-old girl just ADORES one of the fourteen-year-old boys and clings to him like crazy. You can just see that he doesn’t want to hurt her feelings, but he wants to hang out with the big kids. I always slip him a $20 when I see him patiently dealing with her at the big family events.
