Hopscotch - "anti-social behaviour" ???

A group of youngsters has fallen foul of the law for playing hopscotch.
West Midlands Police community support officers asked parents in Spring Street in Halesowen to remove chalk markings after complaints about them.

Several children were involved in the games resulting in several markings on the pavement.

Police said they were also investigating complaints of anti-social behaviour. But mother Lisa Mangan said their action was "extreme".

Kids have been playing hopscotch for decades, but now it's "anti-social behaviour". Is the world going mad ? No wonder the kids get bored, when they can't even play the games that their parents and grandparents played !

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/west_midlands/5233262.stm
http://www.shortnews.com/shownews.cfm?id=56040&CFID=5868345&CFTOKEN=52727314

 

True some 60 year old designs gardens type needs to get out more, but if they complain, understandable. Is it different to chalk a road as opposed to a wall? Saying that, I personally don't care enough if this happened outside my house to tell my family let alone get on the phone

Can't blame the PC lot though. Labour have virtually sold/concreted every field. And then people complain about kids loitering on the streets Can't take without some giving

 

People often say that they love to hear the sounds of children at play. As long as it's not outside their house.

 

I have an 11 yr old brother, who regularly plays out with his mates and I live round the corner from a primary school

Since the school was here before the estate, I presume I won't here any of the neighbours complaining (there are a lot of retired people aroudn here )

 

Its even worse for me, as the bloody ice cream van stops right in front of my house for the whole street full of screaming little s

 

I love to hear the children running and shouting and screaming........


They don't know I'm using blanks. (TY Emo Phillips)

 

I guess i was one of them horrible kids,

Used to play football against this guys wall...always chasing us away...of course we went back...

 

Oh dear

 

...sorry

 

When I was a kid, we used to go "scrumping" for apples in an orchard close to my cousin's house. If the farmer was around, he would fire his 12-bore, and I'm sure it was well over our heads, but we never hung around long enough to find out. I'm fairly sure that this would not be tolerated these days, but we're still here to tell the tale.

 

I can see both sides of this:

- some people go way to far when it comes to complaining about children doing essentially what kids do - play.

however

- chalk marks all over a pavement are not particularly nice - especially if they happen to be all past your house instead of theirs.
Parents don't seem to consider the annoyance kids can be to others ... don't stop kids playing football, but playing it every day against someones living room wall might drive them a tad insane.

A friend of mine was once told by his neighbour that two local girls where playing outside his house all the time and constantly walking on his garden and over his flower beds / low bushes.
The parents of said children's was response was something like 'They are just playing'
The old chap in question was too timid / polite to do anything about it, so he has to cover the cost of replanting and sorting out his garden all because a family down the street are too thick to realise what manners are.

If it had been me it would have been a different response ..

.... well play infront of your own damn house and dig up your bloody fathers flower beds then.
.... or I will bury him under them.....

 

Chalk marks wash off very easily. I'd rather see them than spray paint any day.

 

Spot on ,

 

Green Sleeves? I hate that frickin' tune

 

Exactly, no one complains with the local water board walks around spraying blue paint around all it's outlets all over my street.

If people don't like kids playing innocently (which this is) then don't have kids (cos I'm most of them do), or would they rather they were down the local skateboard ramp smoking crack..?

In the early-mid eighties when I was 8-10 years old, I & all my friends would disappear on our bikes for 8 hours a day in the summer, aslong as you were home for tea everyone was happy. Today is unneccesarily different for nothing other than the press courage everyday life now has, then kids can't even play hopscotch near home.

 

Amazing really. We moan at kids when they spend 10 hours a day stuck in front of a computer game, and we tell them to get out in the fresh air. They go out and draw a few chalk lines in the street, and they're warned by the police for committing a "minor offence". And we wonder why they grow up hating authority !

 

yup, that along with Oranges and Lemons and O Sole Mio

 

personally i think this is stupid......

ok if they painted them on or drew over the whole street then fair enough it might be a different situation, but this is just going too far.....

 

If I bought a house in a street with lots of families with children, and I had children myself, it would be daft to complain about your average childrens games.

If this is purely a case of someone complaining about kids playing infront of their own homes or those of their friends, then it is ludicrous.

However, if I spent alot of money on a property and time and effort makeing it look just how I wanted it ... and then a family moved in further down the street and the kids came playing directly outside my house and chalked up the pavement regularly ... then I believe I would be perfectly reasonable in complaining.
Chalk marks might wash off, and as long as it is on or directly infront of their propererty, it wouldn't be a problem.

..... but as I said, if it is my house, and not theirs, no matter what anyone says about kids being kids, and It'll wash off ... it shows a complete lack of respect for other peoples property .... and exactly what are children going to learn about responsability and other peoples property from this ... that It'll wash off ... it's no big deal. Spray paint comes off you know, it's only a wall.



I don't think I'd have such a problem if the average parent out there now adays weren't complacent, safety obsessed, ignorant and socialy challenged morons who will threaten anyone that tells off their kids as though they were some sort of derranged paedophile.
.... I regularly see parents telling their kids not play near their stuff .... their car, or their windows ... but woe be tied the poor sod down the street with football marks up the side of his car telling little Jonny to sling his hook.

 

Since when did you own the pavement outside your house ?

 

Wouldn't the solution be for the council to create little areas in these streets with the games painted on the floor for the kids to play there??

It doesn't need to cost £3million, just a small square with barriers around and the games and the problem's solved.

 

Part of the value of the property I bought was the environment and the view.

I am quite happy to support the right of people to park anywhere on the road they live - regardless of who's house it is infront of because as you pointed at - the road and pavement belongs the to the council ... but I would be pretty miffed if they parked infront of my house 'instead' of theirs.

Just the same as if people in the street decided to leave their bins out all infront of my house ....... I am sure plenty of people would get upset about that.
It is a matter of what people find unsightly or a nuisance ..... and if it happens to be right infront of where you live, when there was an option to do so elsewhere ( like infront of their own )

 

I think it would be simpler if people had to have licences to have children.

Maybe even take a test.

 

Disputes over parking are the most common causes of problems between neighbours, which is really silly considering that nobody has any rights to the road outside their house, and parking in the road is technically an offence (obstruction), unless it is in a designated parking area. Similarly, you have no rights at all to the pavement outside your property.

 

You bought the house and land, not the environment around it, although I can see what you are saying.

 

Valuers take into account the environment to value a house eg. superb view over a valley, or the sea etc.
Also having "tags" all over the walls on your garden wall (street side) or on the pavement will affect the value of your house as people would be less willing to purchase it.

 

Hmmm. I should have worded my previous message a little better because I intended to say that one does not purchase the view as such, although of course that is part of the value of the house itself.

I know my house is worth more than what we believe it is worth because we are surrounded by what I would call some unsatisfactory sights and people. (Not being snobbish here!)

In our case, for example, our house would probably be worth even more if it was sited in a nicer neighbourhood!

 

Yes yes, some people need to get over it. The children got a slap on the wrist, it's over

Alas, I'm wrong. The police involved also wanted to stop more serious crime Talk about prejudice. Anyone young enough (that is born when/after Thatcher stopped being PM) must be a yob or will become one. It's almost like the residents want the girls to start lobbing bricks. Then when they're taken away they'd be happy

This is about hopscotch drawings. Not under-age drinking or mini-motorbike riding. Stop reading so much into it and going off on a rant about property values. I think some need to do more reading about the sort of person they are to forget childhood doesn't have times for things like that (propery valuations et al that is)

 

With regards car parking I had trouble with the neighbors when had visitors, the visitors always parked at front of my house, what’s more on the payment, so possibly causing damage to them, blocking the pavement, and possibly causing people to walk on my garden. If people are having large amounts of company I do not mind, they have to park somewhere, but don’t think the front of my house should be the first choice. I have had friends up the road miss popping in, seeing a car outside thinking I had company and did not want to intrude.

I may not own the road but there is common curtsey, if you don’t like your view spoiling, is it all right to make your problem someone else’s? Same with children some parents don’t mind what there children get up to so long as long as they are out of there hair.

Ethics you missed the magic word that excuses every deed its not just its the magic only “there just playing” it usually “there only playing”, “there only having a bit of fun”, “there only kicking the ball against your wall”, “there only running across you garden”, shame the old chap could not say “yes and I’m only smacking you one in the chops”.

 

I remember a case when I was about 9. I do not live in a large house (three-bedroomed), but one of my neighbours once had a go at me when I was playing in front of my house but she could see me (i.e. I was feet away from her boundary).

I was not near her windows or making any noise, but she said to me, “Go and play by your own house!”

My response, politely, was, “But I am playing by my house!” She stormed back indoors and did not say a word! It was strange because she was friendly with us! However, she did have some bad days because she had/has MS, so I guess that was why she became a little angry.

That was the 1980s! Goodness knows what it’s like for some today! However, it probably works both ways because we have some young people who are more badly behaved than many years ago and also because some adults have a slightly authoritarian streak that wants to punish all and sundry.