Our 7 year old has a friend who lives round the corner coming to our house fairly regularly. He rings the doorbell (constantly until you answer the door) 15min’s after our lad get’s home from school (3:45pm) and stays until we kick him out when we have tea (that’s Dinner for the benefit of CFH) at about 6:00pm. This is every night. Sometimes we turn him away, and he usually calls back about 15mins later with a different tack.

On weekends, he calls in the morning c.9:00am. This weekend he was round most of Saturday and most of Sunday. On Sunday we had a BBQ w/friends from the street who have kids of similar age to the boy in question. I didn’t really want him there, and asked our lad to indicate it’s not an open invitation (my lad didn’t want him there, as he wanted time with other friends). The lad came to see me in tears…I end up inviting him…feeding him, buying him an ice cream. Even when other people have left, he hangs around until I had to say ‘I think it’s about time you went home’.

If we go out, he’s waiting outside the house for us to return. He has a nasty dog, who has bitten one of our friends kids, so our lad is not allowed to go round to his house (not that he’s massively interested in doing so). His parent’s don’t appear to do anything with him. One of our friends close by has disconnected their doorbell because they are fed up with him ringing.

I don’t want to upset him, but I’m pretty much at the point of telling him to stop calling round. I don’t dislike him, and neither does our lad, but he’s just round far too often.

Thoughts / Similar experiences / shall I drop the hammer and ask him to stop coming round?

My initial thoughts are ‘poor kid’. What’s happening at home that he’d rather be at yours or anyone elses house 24/7?

Having said that – perhaps agree days/times he can come round (Saturday mornings and one weekday after school?). Tell him that you all need family time with your lad?

How does your boy feel about it?

What’s the kids name?

What’s the kids name?

hehe I see what you did there:D

Liam

You should come over all Madonna, or Angelina Jolie and adopt him. Its clearly what he’s angling for

I’d echo what waswaswas said, there’s something going on to make him want to be out of the house all the time. Or at the very least he’s just getting little or no love & attention at home and is looking for it elsewhere? Do you see the parents?

That’s good thinking wwaswas.

Do you feed all the cats form your street too?

FFS! if your son doesn’t want to play with the boy he needs to tell him himself.. seems pretty obvious where he gets his lack of assertiveness from

Do you see the parents?

Yeah, the Dad’s OK, but Mum is pretty ignorant. I don’t think there are any major problems at home, but they just don’t spend any time with him.

I m with Binners, adopt the poor little fella, call him Heathcliffe and move up on the moors above Hebden Bridge, sorted !

seems pretty obvious where he gets his lack of assertiveness from

I have quite a few faults, but ‘lack of assertiveness’ is deffo not one of them :-). The kids is 7, I am trying to be sensitive to the situation. My lad’s not shy either, he told him he couldn’t come round.

There’s a couple of lads at the end of our street who come round to play at ours at any opportunity & their appearances have become more frequent since their mum had a new baby. Owt like that happened?

Who’s new troll creation is persona? 🙄

Can the street not get organised with a rota of who has him round each evening?

Perhaps this rota could then be given to the kid’s parents, just in case they cared where he was.

Wouldn’t be the first.

There’s a couple of lads at the end of our street who come round to play at ours at any opportunity & there appearances have become more frequent since their mum had a new baby. Owt like that happened?

No, I think he’s always been round at other peoples houses. We just appear to be very ‘on the radar’ at the moment.

If you dont want him in your house kick him out ,its what my mum always did when she had had enough

Make up some stories to social services. He’ll be better off in care, and one day will thank you for it. And he’s out of your hair too. Its a win/win

Make up some stories to social services. He’ll be better off in care, and one day will thank you for it. And he’s out of your hair too. Its a win/win

Your a bad man Binners!

Seems a bit harsh to straight up tell him to stop coming round., especially if your lad is being a bit half-arsed at telling him himself (he wouldn’t be coming round if he REALLY didn’t want him there). That kind of rejection could damage his confidence for life.

His parent’s don’t appear to do anything with him.

There is the route cause of the problem and you can be a humanitarian who does the right thing [wwaswas or you can act like “persona” [swoons]] according to your own moral compass.

I used to spend much more time at mate’s than my own house (not the same mate all the time, and not as regularly as the OP’s “friend”). There were no major problems at home, my mates were just allowed TVs and Nintendoes in their rooms and I wasn’t allowed either!

Just make the child’s stay untenable. Make sure they can only play in the same room as you and the rest of your family while you watch something really depressing on Yesterday. Say SHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH at regular intervals even if no-one is talking. Refreshments and toilet facilities are not available.

That’s what we used to do 🙂

7 years old is young to be running round knocking on peoples houses…. is it?

Or isn’t it?

I can’t remember what I was doing at 7. We used to play out in the close a lot but there was about 5 of us all similar ages. We would spend a lot of time round 1 of the groups house but they had a very open family and household – all sorts of people would come and go all the time, doors always unlocked kinda thing…

Sounds like the poor bugger has a miserable home life. I think you are doing the right thing in treating it sensitively.

Hard to know what to do though. Sometimes we indulge people because they need our help…

Have you thought about just opening the door and saying “<Sons name> isn’t coming out today, sorry – bye!” And leaving it at that. No explanation – I mean, only if your son doesn’t actually want to hang.

I used to have a mate like this when I was a kid. Didn’t dislike him, but he liked me a lot more than I did him.
My thoughts at the time we’re that it’s not killing me to have him round so why upset him, we still had a laugh as all kids do.

Sometimes we’d go to another kid’s house and he’d latch on there for a bit, sometimes I’d say I didn’t feel like it, sometimes my parents would say it’s not a good time.

All I would say is don’t tell him outright that he can’t come round any more, I imagine that would devastate him. If it has to come to that then his parents should be telling him. Why not try whittling it down by saying it’s not convenient for a day or two a week, see how it goes from there?

Tricky. Does sound like you are treating him as you’d like others to treat your boy, which is a good thing.

We have a similar thing at ours. All of our kids friends come over to ours more than our kids go to theirs. I think it’s a combination of things.

1: Other childrens’ parents don’t care where their kids are as much, if at all.

2: Other kids’ parents kick them out of the house all the time to “go and play” because they want to watch big brother celebrity housewife jungle factor, smoke, drink and general other things that comes as a priority over the annoyance of their own children that they themselves had.

3: Kids think that round your house they can do what they want and get away with it.

4: We are parents that are actually nice and hence talk and interact with the kids.

5: Nicer atmosphere at ours, without annoying brothers and sisters at their own house. More freedom. Nicer “things” to do and play with.

We generally keep on top of it and I straight up tell the kids when they have over stayed. i.e. We are about to eat dinner so its like “right kids, we’re eating dinner now so off you go”. They are fine with this and always obey me. They generally behave well as well when round. In fact, our “problem” is nothing like yours I’m exagerating. I just sometimes feel they stay a bit much and want to come home to my own house kinda thing, with my family in.

I would say speak to the parent/s.

PS: Also have considered putting a sign up to stop kids ringing/knocking every 5 minutes. That actually annoys me the most. My kids are told what is/isn’t annoying and educated as to how when you keep knocking for people it can be an invasion of privacy. It seems a lot of kids are parented so badly these days.

does your son have a really cool toy/activity/thing that they play with when he comes round? other peoples houses and stuff is always more interesting than you’re own.

As above really, I’d just start saying firmly no, come back tomorrow.

Be careful though. If its an attention thing then any attention is good, even if it is making up stories for the Childline Police…if you know what I mean. 🙁

does your son have a really cool toy/activity/thing that they play with when he comes round?

We have a Wii, which is part of the problem.

Thanks for all the good advice. Tonight I have given him a small lego set to do, so when Liam calls my lad will be busy and unable to play.

Gives us a bit of breathing space.

I also thought “poor kid” 🙁

But I think you have to just say “No, sorry, ***** is busy/having his tea/doing his homework/etc.” I expect you will have to do this for quite a few evenings before he gets the message. It would be interesting to know why he’s not playing at home at all – but that’s not really anybody’s business but his family’s. I think you’re being remarkably sensitive about it too.

We have a Wii

Wii’s broken. I feel sorry for the little lad and I don’t even know him. Shows that he prefers you as a family to his own.

My daughter goes to our neighbour’s quite a bit (not constantly though) but he rarely comes to ours. He thinks our house is shit, Meg’s stuff is shit, and he (at 5 years old) does not yet have the skill to express this tactfully.. it’s dead funny 🙂

You should come over all Madonna

Took me three goes to read those words in the order they were intended.

😉

But I too though poor kid. It could just be he’s bored, lonely or finds something in your family unit he’s missing at home.

That wasn’t something I enjoyed. Told him Dan was busy, he was pretty persistent but he walked off in the end, looking a bit tearful. Not feeling massively great at this moment in time.

he was pretty persistent but he walked off in the end

seems a bit odd, was he arguing the toss 😀

No, I told him I was doing Lego with Dan (although Dan was playing by himself) and he said that he could do that with Dan, and could he speak to Dan to see if he wanted to play. 🙁

awkward 😆

Have you looked out the window?

Kick them out to play

“well, you can’t play in here, its sunny, get your arses out there”

that way if your lad wants some privacy, he can come home.