What the fuck makes you think you can threaten my kids !

The BBQ Pit
1

I’m so mad I could spit !

Yesterday, my kids were playing at a neighbors house with her kids. They were all outside acting like maniacs, like normal kids do.

My daughter came home crying and I asked her what was wrong. She told me that the neighbor told her that if she fell into the flower garden she would whip my kids with a belt. I double checked this with my son and the neighbor bitch did indeed tell the kids that.

I know she likes her flowers, I like mine, but get fucking real here ! When you are dealing with 5-11 year old kids, there is a possibility that they could fall in the garden. If it’s so damn important to you, put a big fence up. If that’s not an option, maybe you could just ask the kids to play away from the garden.

What in the hell gives you the right to think you could ever take a belt to my children ? Fuck you and your flowers ! My kids are no longer pemitted to go to your house.

The stupid bitch did beat her own son with a belt for stepping on the flowers. I think I’m going to call someone about it.

2

That’s totally unaceptable. I’d have a frank conversation with her to make that point very clearly.

3

The belt business is totally unacceptable.

Of course, it’s also unacceptable for your child to trample someone else’s flowers. If the woman is tactily permitting the children to play on her property near the flowers, then she bears the greatest burden for this; if they are playing in such a way that she can’t control them, then she has a right to insist that her flowers not be damaged.

In either event, she has absolutely no right to threaten to use a belt on a child not her own. That’s assault. If I walked over to her flower bed and kicked all the flowers up, she would not gain the privilege to attack me with a belt – her recourse would be to sue me for the value of the property I’d destroyed. Just because the other party is a child does not give a random adult the right to attack them with a belt. While her concern about her flowers is understandable, her method of protecting them is psycho.

  • Rick
4

I might consider reporting both incidents. I don’t know what the laws are concerning discipline in your state, but I think your neighbor could be arrested in Kansas for such a threat.

Thing is, you should also consider if your kids are friends with the neighbor’s kids. Consider if it’s worth breaking up the friendships. Also consider that she is your neighbor, and you will have to deal with her fairly often. Maybe she’s the reasonable sort, and will listen to your thoughts on the matter, and actually respect your wishes.

I don’t know what I’d do if I were you. Carefully consider before you do anything, because being “at war” with your neighbor can get really ugly fast.

Good Luck ((dragongirl)) ((dragongirl’s kids))

5

Let me get this straight. Your daughter never actually fell into the flower garden, but was warned that if she did, she’d get beaten with a belt by the NEIGHBOR woman? If I were your daughter, I’d be upset, too. I’m all for kids taking responsibility for their actions, but she didn’t DO anything, for shit’s sake!

Sounds to me like the woman needs a crash course in “Neighborly Behavior 101”. And I think Zabali_Clawbane has a point. I don’t know if I would report it just yet, but a talk with the neighbor might be a first step. After that, I’d consider reporting any other incidents.

Ava

6

Would it have been ok if she had threatened her with “time out”?

7

Possibly, that’s certainly better than threatening corporal punishment. That’s for each indivdual parent to decide, and implement or not.

8

I think you’ve done the right thing–making the decision that they will not go over there any more. Her kids can come to your place.

Your anger over this is understandable, but I do not agree with the advice to “report” this or take any other action. There is no way to know if that’s a threat she would have carried through with.

I think your most difficult task now is making your kids understand that you don’t believe that what she said was proper for how your family does things, but without making them question her authority as a grownup altogether or causing trouble with their friends. If she wants to use corporal punishment on her kids, that is her decision, ill-informed as I happen to think that is.

9

I agree that that the neighbor was totally out of line with her actions in this situation. the ‘belt’ threat was way out out of line.

that said, what do you think is the apppropriate level of discipline that another adult can administer to your child? i’d imagine that any physical punishment would be unacceptable, but i’ve always been unsure where the line is drawn, especially since while your daughter is at the neighbor’s house, the neighbor is responsible for her safety, and there is some burden on her to force behavior on your kids that might keep them safe (this was not a case of this, but you get the idea). of course, faling the, she could just send the kids home.

but, in any case, i think that keeping your daughter away from there is the best policy…i also think that pressing charges, etc. is a bit overboard.

of course, i’ll be the first to chime in about how when i was growing up, pretty much every adult was expected to watch out for every kid and administer warnings and discipline where they felt it appropriate. not saying that’s the best way…but like i said, where do we draw the line?

10

Whipping kids with a belt is child abuse, even for your own kids. Threatening to inflict bodily harm on someone else’s child is assault. Call the cops and report everything you know. Call CPS too. This woman is a criminal and should not be entrusted with children.

11

I would go give that bitch an earfull, threatening to bury her under her fucking flower garden and such (you shouldn’t threaten her, but I would). If problems persist then I would advise you to call cops.

12

Stonebow, it appears to me that dragongirl was thinking of reporting her neighbor for using a belt on her own son, not for threatening to use the belt on dragongirl’s daughter.

Worth considering, IMHO. Having been on the receiving end of that sort of punishment at that sort of age, I sure consider it child abuse, regardless of what the law says.

13

I am the only one who thinks this is perhaps just an expression the neighbor bitch uses, said purely for effect, and not literally an expected consequence of flower bed intrusion?

14

I thought that until I read about what she did to her own kid.

I think I would tell my kids that they should not go back to her house. Chances are, she would not act on this threat. Still, I worry about the mental stability of a person that threatens other people’s children. Sounds like she may have some serious mental problems. I would invite her kids to come over to your place until you are confident of her mental and emotional health.

15

whipping your kids with a belt is ‘child abuse’? holy shit!

16

Yup. If you want to vent your rage, get a punching bag.

17

Years ago I had a girlfriend, and her neice came to visit for a week from interstate. The neice was about 11 or 12 years of age if memory serves me correctly.

It didn’t take her long before she made friends with a similar aged girl from down the street. And before I knew it, I had two 11 year old girls spending a lot of time in my home during the day while I was at work.

Those of you who know anything about hi fi will appreciate the following little story (and it gets to a relevant point by the way regarding the Opening Post). I had a really super duper expensive turntable - literally thousands of dollars worth. The girls bought a typical teen magazine which offered a floppy 45rpm 7" record to play - you probably remember the type. While I was at work, they decided to try and play this bit of junk on my turn table, and in doing so, trashed a $600 moving coil cartridge.

OK, no big deal - no one was hurt and it was only a material thing which could be replaced. Anyways, I didn’t find out about this until AFTER the neice went home. I went to play some vinyl about 2 days later and I saw the damage to my beloved turntable.

So what do you do? The young girl from down the street had become friends with my girlfriend and was still popping in… so I politely asked her if she knew anything about the damage but she denied any knowledge.

OK, fair enough… not much you can do… So I talked it over with a cop… a real senior sargeant who I’d known for years. I explained “Look, I don’t want any money or anything… I’m just upset that this has happened and this young girl still pops around even after the neice has left, and the other day, I was the only one home having a shower and this girl helped herself into the loungeroom and sat down waiting for my girlfriend to arrive home and man, I could have walked out from the shower naked etc… it’s making me feel VERY uncomfortable…”

So, the cop advised as follows “Well, you don’t have any proof or a confession so you can’t go making any accusations but you CAN go down the street and talk to the girl’s father and ask him to stop his daughter coming around to your home now that the neice has left.”

Which I did…

And the father accepted my request graciously. But then, about a day later, he must have quizzed his daughter about WHY I would have done such a thing and she told him about the turntable incident. Next thing I know, I was getting accosted by the father and being given a real earful for being such a crud of a human being etc. and such a bully etc .

I just looked at the guy, let him rant away for a minute, and then said to him “Fine, you’ve said what you wanted to say… but the bottom line is that your daughter STILL isn’t welcome here in my home… you can go now…”

So? In hindsight? The moral of my story? I copped hell from my girlfriend for being such an uncompromising asshole. I copped hell from my neighbour down the street for suggesting his daughter was involved in some damage in my home. I copped hell from the neice on her next visit. And I STILL had to spend $600 fixing the turntable!

With hindsight, would I go about things the same way, again? At the risk of upsetting the peace with neighbours and all that sort of thing? Well, I was in the right… and it’s not as though I made any threats or jumped up and down like a psycho… but it has to be said… my motivation was as much about “getting even” as it was with stopping the girl from down the street visiting my home in future. And as such, I deserved the flak that I copped.

In that context, the flowers in your neighbours yard are a bit like the moving coil cartridge in my turntable. Sometimes, in the presence of kiddies, things get broken or trampled on - but nobody really gets hurt thankfully. I should have just kept my thoughts to myself and repaired the turntable and never said a word to the father down the street. Maybe… his daughter DID help herself inside my home while I was in the shower so that was pretty close to the limit of acceptability.

The thing is… even though I tried really REALLY hard to go about things the right way, it STILL blew up in my face. Harsh words were exchanged. My advice for now, would be this…

Ask the neighbour for a nice quiet chat away from the kiddies, after they’ve all gone to sleep one night. Explain why you feel such discomfort about hearing what you did about the “threatened use of the belt”. Explain why your kiddies were so distressed about it. Don’t emphasise why it was wrong… merely concentrate on how discomforting it was for you and your children. Then, put the ball in your neighbour’s court. If your neighbour is cool, they’ll apologise for overstepping the mark, and possibly a greater relationship can be made. Try and avoid harsh words. They’re very hard to heal in a neighbourly relationship I’ve found.

If the neighbour gets all righteous and pompous, don’t lose your cool. Don’t get harsh. Merely say, “Well no hard feelings… I just wanted you to know how I felt…” and then walk away.

THAT is when you go home and ring the Welfare Department about your neighbour abusing their children with a belt.

18

Two words: Weed Whacker :wink:

19

Her precious garden would be ground-zero mulch and I would stand in the ruins of her petunias until she came toward me with a belt.

“I dare you, bitch.”

Betcha dollars to donuts she runs and hides…then calls the cops. At which point you deny it all, place thumb on nose and extend four remaining fingers…wiggling.

If the cops show, THAT’S when they learn about the threats against my daughter.

“Officer, I never touched her tulips. Maybe she’s just worried I was going to call you in for the threats she made on the neighborhood children. You may want to search her house for a belt and a heavily dog-eared King James version.”

20

This is the bit that makes me laugh.
But before I go any further I would like to clearly point out that I think the neighbour was wrong to threaten the child.
No question.

Many of the neigbhourhood kids play in my driveway. I have skid marks up and down my cobblelock from their skateboards. I have had broken guttering where I saw one of them kick a football against my garage wall and I have a bicycle scratch on the side of my car.
Sweetie papers and drinks cans are regularly strewn around my drive and I routinely have jammy fingerprints and grubby nose prints on the outside of my windows.

I have asked and asked and asked and asked and asked them to play elsewhere.
I have asked their mothers keep them out of my garden.
One mother said
“Why? They are only little kids, what damage can they do?”
When I showed her the broken guttering, which I had seen her own little darling smash with his football she smiled and said
“My Jason didn’t do that”
I had watched him do it, but she was never going to believe me because I have no children, so therefore am marked out as a child-hater and an unnatural liar, apparently. Someone who is patently not allowed to say anything at all about children.

So while I know that no one ever thinks their own child is involved in any kind of antisocial behaviour, someone’s children are and I really don’t want anyone’s kiddiwinks in my garden. Thanks very much

Would I threaten violence on any child?
No
Would I be violent to any child?
No
Because I do not want to fall out with my neighbours and be seen as the batty old bag who lives in the corner house.
So that is why I have to spend my time and my money cleaning up and repairing things after them, while the neighbour in the OP has succeeded in her quest to not have children in her garden.

I would like to reiterate:
I think the neighbour was wrong to threaten the child.
No question.