My neighborhood has a number of families with young kids, including mine, so play dates are frequent. One of the families has a 7-year-old son and a 5-year-old daughter, and they live right across the street from us (my husband, me, and our 5-year-old daughter).
The neighbors are okay, but their 7-year-old son has some unsettling behaviors. He put another neighbor’s sneaker under her bedroom pillow after being told not to go upstairs, and tried to trip their not even 2-year-old on another day (he admitted that that’s what he was doing). He continues to throw items at our wind chimes after being asked repeatedly to leave them alone, and he takes things out of our fridge and cabinets when he’s at our house. Most recently, he tried to give my brother’s dog a sandwich at my daughter’s birthday party after being pulled aside by my SIL and told explicitly not to give the dog any food at all (after trying once before).
There are a hundred other examples of varying severity.
I have two questions:
1. How can we politely but directly tell his parents that we’d rather have the two girls be able to play without him—he often tags along when the two 5-year-olds have a play date—and that we’re uncomfortable with him in our house because of his destructive and sneaky tendencies. We often don’t get in touch with them when my daughter requests a play date because we don’t know how to approach this. Secondarily, we are hesitant to make plans with other neighbors without also including this family, so we just don’t, and we feel a little trapped.
2. Is it appropriate to bring up our concerns about his behavior to his parents? It seems like he has a lack of both impulse control and empathy, and those two things are historically not a great combo. Ideally, he would be getting screened at school for behavioral issues, but their priorities are unclear. It seems like his parents are aware of the behaviors but they might just think he’s “not listening.” And we’re not sure how to bring it up if at all. On the other hand, maybe they are aware but don’t think others notice, and might do something differently if they know his behavior is impacting other people.
—At a Loss
https://slate.com/advice/2025/01/unsettling-neighbor-kid-care-and-feeding.html