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Speak to the kid and then speak to the parent. If you let it go unchecked, the next time they will be pulling your Christmas wreath off the door (or wrecking other seasonal decorations). That is what happens which kids are not given boundaries and guidance.
^^^^^^^^^^^^This! Seriously, a mockery? It can't make a jerk of someone. You either are a jerk or you're not. But seriously, how does it make a mockery of you, or your child? It's a harmless prank. At least they didn't leave you a flaming bag of dog poop. Lighten up.
Actually, it can make a jerk of someone if the intent is to have a child, whom you are not friends with, come outside and look around bewildered and searching for whomever rang the bell. In fact, the kids had their cell phones out when I caught them, which to me means the possibly they wanted to record my child if my child came out when the bell was rung. And with social media, it's pretty easy to pass around a video of someone you aren't friends with, being pranked and made a jerk of. It's not actually someone laughing WITH you when you aren't friends with them, it's someone laughing at you and your expense. A child seeking out whom rang the bell, to be ran away from. Growing up ring and run was done to people you wanted to taunt or mess with (but at least cell phones were not around to be involved, to make a jerk of someone by passing around videos of the incidents). And when it's a peer whom you could be hanging with but you aren't hip enough for them, then tell me how that isn't an attempt at making a mockery of someone not in the clique or included in on the "fun"?
It's being laughed "AT", not being laughed "with" in some cases. And the use of social media always adds to the possibility that jokes will be "passed" around, always at the expense of the person being made a mockery of. I don't doubt social media could have been brought into this, this particular group of kids have various social media accounts (as stated by my child).
Actually, it can make a jerk of someone if the intent is to have a child, whom you are not friends with, come outside and look around bewildered and searching for whomever rang the bell. In fact, the kids had their cell phones out when I caught them, which to me means the possibly they wanted to record my child if My child came out when the bell was rung. And with social media, it's pretty easy to pass around a video of someone you aren't friends with, being pranked and made a jerk of. It's not actually someone laughing WITH you when you aren't friends with them, it's someone laughing at you and your expense. And when it's a peer whom you could be hanging with but you aren't hip enough for them, then tell me how that isn't an attempt at making a mockery of someone not in the clique or included in on the "fun"?
It's being laughed "AT", not being laughed "with" in some cases.
You said that you don't allow him to answer the door anyway, so the point is moot.
Don't open the door. Don't go outside and give them any kind of payoff for this trick. You could keep your ears and eyes open for any problems with these kids at school in case you need to escalate it there. But if nothing happens when they ring your doorbell, they'll quit doing this.
Didn't you say it's happened only twice in several months?
And honestly, your son is not a child anymore. He's an adolescent, and he will have to know the best way to deal with PITA bullies himself. I understand your protective instincts, but if you don't keep your own emotions in check, your son could easily follow your lead and internalize this when it isn't necessary.
Well, I know that as a kid it's one thing to play practical jokes or whatnot on each other. Sometimes friends, sometimes not.
Now if we were talking about vandalism or a fight then that's a whole other animal.
But for ding-dong-ditch, contacting the other kids parents....is an extreme escalation.
If you escalate this very very minor thing, it could look really bad starting with other kids thinking your kid runs to mommy and other parents being leery about having their kid interact with yours for fear of what an argument or minor fight between the kids might turn into.
Quote:
Originally Posted by BirdieBelle
You said that you don't allow him to answer the door anyway, so the point is moot.
Don't open the door. Don't go outside and give them any kind of payoff for this trick. You could keep your ears and eyes open for any problems with these kids at school in case you need to escalate it there. But if nothing happens when they ring your doorbell, they'll quit doing this.
Didn't you say it's happened only twice in several months?
And honestly, your son is not a child anymore. He's an adolescent, and he will have to know the best way to deal with PITA bullies himself. I understand your protective instincts, but if you don't keep your own emotions in check, your son could easily follow your lead and internalize this when it isn't necessary.
Both of these.
Ignore it. Don't give them any "reward" for it and they'll tire of it.
You haven't given any real reason you believe these kids are intent on "mocking" your child. Is there history there or more to the story than you're sharing? Kids do dumb things - not always with ill intent.
We had a person in our subdivision go through this for two summers. This is a golf course community, and the houses that back up to a golf course, have short wrought iron fences. That makes it easy for kids to jump over.
Anyway, his house happens to be pretty close to the lake that the course winds around. So kids were jumping his fence, crossing his property, and jumping the back fence to get onto the golf course to fish in the lake. He reported them, one for trespassing his property and the golf course, but no one was able to physically catch them and stop them in the act.
This group of kids started ding dong ditching his house, at all hours of the day and night, even as late as 2-3am. That's pretty dangerous, as gun ownership is quite common around here, and if someone is ringing my doorbell that late/early, I'm answering the door with a gun, as I imagine most homeowners around here would.
This all came to light on our community page on Facebook, and some of the parents of these boys were actually defending their actions! Saying that he deserved it for calling the cops on their kids for trespassing, saying they weren't bothering anyone, etc.
The sane adults in the community group really let this one woman have it, and finally, she got that it wasn't "harmless" and her son and his friends stopped doing it. For awhile there though, they were really disturbing that homeowner. He has a nephew that lives with him too who is like 3 years old, so these late night door ditchings would wake him up because the dogs would start barking, etc.
Parents should be made aware of what their kids are doing. While once or twice may be a harmless prank, it can very easily turn into harassment and if they do it to the wrong house, they may end up shot, and no one wants that to happen.
I remember doing that with friends. We were aged about Six to nine years old. It was mostly done on a dare. On May first we would leave paper baskets filled with flowers that we picked when we rang the doorbell and ran off. Children were free range in my youth.
All of my sons went through a phase of this between 10 and 13, at varying degrees.
With my youngest, the friend group often had sleepovers, and sometimes they would do this kind of thing. The ding dong ditch was taken care of one night when a homeowner called the police, and the police brought them all home. They were traumatized enough to cut it out.
Besides, once we found out they were doing it to random homes, all the parents talked and we stopped the boys from doing it.
I would have talked to the other parents if we felt targeted or if it was too much.
And I can attest that ding dong ditch is a million times better than having your yard TP rolled by scholarship baseball players. That got old REAL quick and stopped when we made them all come over and help clean up early on a Saturday.
I was just talking about how toilet papering someone's yard seems out of style, when we were teens in the 70's smashing pumpkins and TP trees was really common. I always wondered how you got toilet paper out of a tree 40 feet up.
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