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I live in an aprtment complex. this is the 1st issue. my son who never plays with the kids in this area decided a few weeks ago to start playing with some of the kids. my hubby has thought that maybe I was too ridgid with Ryan and not let him play with other kids.. i have always let him play outside my apartment and never allowed him to RUN FREE.. like the other unsupervised kids here. well last Monday he was caught by management playing with a lighter in the woods with the other kids. I grounded him for a week, and he is never allowed to play with these kids ever.. these kids are unsupervised kids and have issues.. worse than my son! well my question today is why if you know that your child has some pretty severe issues (emotional, ADD/ADHD Bipolar, aggressive behaviors) you would let you child run free around a pretty big apartment complex and not expect him to get into some sort of trouble? I was against my son playing with these kids but my hubby thought it was not fair that I did not give him a chance.. can I ask what is wrong with parents that they would not check on their 9, 10 year old and not know where he is in an apartment complex where cars come and go. this is not an neighborhood where a bunch of kids play. this is a complex where college kids speed up and down, people come in and out? do these people not worry that something will happen to their child. these kids that are running about are not children who have instincts to tell a predator.. I am a firm believer that if you put 5 boys together who have a whole range of emotional etc issues you are going to get some trouble... you will forgive me if I am going on and on.. my son was the only kid who was grounded.. these kids were back at it the next day.. even after they got a visit from the property manager.. But I knew I did the right thing because my son learned a hard lesson.. but you can imagine how he felt knowing that his mom was the only one who made him own up to his bad behavior.. then to make matters worse the child who has some severe issues was in school the next day telling anyone who would listen to him that my son was starting fires where he lives.. ne neglected to tell the others that he was the one who stole the lighter and he was the one who was throwing rocks at some asian children who live a few buildings over. I told my son not to worry about what this bafoon said to the other kids because no one will take him serious being that he is so unbalances.. i feel bad for this kid because he is so out of control that no one cares for him.. but my son is upset this this child will not keep his mouth shut.. its a no win..

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Running around an apartment complex is not playing. But I will say that after reading the circumstances and then your comments about "what kind of parent. . ." left me a little bewildered. The other parents may be thinking the same thing about you, after you allowed him to run around these kids.

Honestly, I don't know what the alternatives could be in an apartment complex. I was raised in the country where we did things that were structured, swimming in the creek, riding bikes, walking to the cemetery. All other times, we were at someone's house with an adult present. I stayed with a sitter (not completely supervised, we had private play time) until I was 12.

i think it's important to know who your kid is hanging out with. unsupervised play can definitely lead to major problems....i'm not saying that you should be out there supervising every minute of play, but you should be within visual sight of the kids. my kids were not allowed off of our block until they were in 5th grade.call me overprotective, whatever....when you have a kid who doesn't use much common sense, you have a right to make certain that they are trying to use that which they do have.......my son has hung out with a kid who is just like you describe~unsupervised and never gets punished. if the kid does happen to get punished, the mom "takes it back" the next day. it has been a hard lesson for my kids to learn.when faced with this situation, i've told my kids that i agree i don't think it's fair that he's not punished & i don't know what's wrong with a mom who will not punish her child. i tell them that i worry what lesson this is teaching this kid~that there are no repercussions for wrong actions. i don't expect my kids to be happy when they get punished, but i do expect them to try and learn from their mistakes.
it is terribly frustrating being in contact with parents who won't discipline....this kid swung a pick ax at another kid to hurt him, and the mom just laughed! can you imagine? the mom is always saying:"not my kid..." ....the kid took a swing at my NT son..no surprise, my son tried to hit him back. NT son ends up knocking the kids cell phone out of his hand...mom calls later furious that my kid broke her kids cell phone. it must be nice to have a kid who's always innocent.

thanks for the input.. You must think that I am an ogre. when I say run about an aprtment complex these children are getting into some prfetty serious trouble. going into vacant apartments, running about hallways, throwing rocks at pur foreign residents and going into woods that are very unsafe.

We do take my son to either one of his grandparents houses where he is allowed to ride his bike with the other kids, and plain old be a child. he spends the whole summer at my moms house where there are other children. and truthfully these kids don't cause the same kind of trouble that the kids here do. there is nothing for the kids to do here.. its sad..

As what kind of parents these people are.. Sorry that some of you were insulted with my comment. BUT I am a firm believer that I need to know where my 9 year old is.. this is a very busy place. and I don't agree that a child can be snatched by someone he knows better than a stranger. I don't agree with this at all.. i think that there is a lot of things going on that we don't know about that child predators watch kids and know which kids will not be noticed to be gone for several hours because parents don't check on them.

I guess it might help to know what I do for a living. I live in an aprtment complex because my job is part of where I live. I work for the main offices of a large apartment complex owners thru NY State. I know what happens that gets swept under the rug. I am first hand to know what children do. and I know too much about the family situations that are bad. because the reputation of these folks follow them and their children who get into toruble often. some past landlords give us 1st hand knowledge of troubled children and we decline their move in. So yes maybe I am too protective of my son.. But I know his limits and know what goes on behind so called closed doors.

Basically what I was upset with is that my son was the only one who was really punished for starting fires when the other 4 got off scott free.. its hard for him to understand these things..

here is the other my son is clueless when crossing the road. he runs and negver looks.. we have been trying to teach him for as long as we can remember and he still does it. he is so gosh darn impulsive. and this is why I shelter him too much. because I know what he will do..

My kids never wanted to play outside with other kids, they thought the other kids were stupid. maybe you could get together with the other mothers and arrange supervised activites for the kids. Another issue comes up, how easy is it to manipulate your child into doing things, does he question what he has been told or asked to do, is he gulable?

When my kids were small we would play The What If game. What is someone told you to do ........, what if someone approached you offering sweets....... what if a lad asked you to do........ This game helped them think about situations before they happened, it gave us time to explain the dangers, and we didn't hold back the horrors of what some nasty man or lady might do. What sort of trouble and who would be hurt if they carried out something a lad or girl asked them to do. When they were very young they had a problem imagining how someone else would feel about a given situation, so the What if game helped there to.What if someone threw something at you how would you feel? etc.

Also does your son understand that Nt kids with problems or not don't think like he does, they are not rational like he is and would lie to save their own necks. That they find pleasure in getting others into trouble. I am not saying that all Nt kids are like this because I know they aren't, but these lads sound like they are.

Why not try a martial arts club, he will learn disapline, he will get confidence and build up his self esteem. and make new friends. With supervision.

I like the scout and martial arts ideas from other posts. Also I think you could invite one boy to come play with your son at your apartment. While having the boys at your house (one at a time) you could get an idea which boys your son gets along with. And which boys are probably the trouble makers.... not that theres anything wrong with that LOL

I know that in large groups my son does things that he usually wouldnt do alone. He once played with matches with my nephew and nephews friends. We talked about how he felt it was wrong and that next time he would say something like "im feeling sick, i need to go home" or something else like that. I dont think he understood that he could leave.

you know he does not seem to miss that he played with these kids.. I do think that he at one time wanted to play with them. but he seems to know now that the price in the end was not worth it. he has not begged to play with them, or begged as some would to run about with them. truthrully I would not want these children in my home even for a supervised visit. not because I think they are that awful bad but like i said these parents never seem to know where these kids are. and i really don't want the responsibilty of this child and something happens. do you understand where I come from? these kids run about and parents never check on them. they could be at my back yard in the complex I live and the mom or dad never shows up to check on them.. i have a 2 way radio that my son wanted for christmas and he was really good the few times he played with the other kids and checked with me so I knew where he was. he was never ever allowed in someone else's house. but these kids thought nothing of coming into my house and play video games.. I had to send one back to his home.. like I said we all learned a tough lesson.. my son does go to either grandparents houses where he is allowed to play and ride bikes with a few other kids.. most of them he thinks are stupid so I know where the stupid comment comes from... lol but he is allowed to be a kid.. when he wants to be that kid instead of a mini adult who knows it all...

I'm 20 with AS and my parents were afraid i would start the house on fire... i played with fire because i was bored. I would recommend if u want your kid to play indoors to get him involed with video games... make sure to pick games that are best played with a group such as Halo 2. stay away from MMORPGs like world of war craft. if u shelter your child and keep him away from others he will not be learning social skills he will need to be successful in life. If u want him indoors then make sure he gets some time playing with others either at your house or at the house where u know the parent.


If your kid loves fire get him in boy or cubs scouts and let him have some safe fun with fire. Fire is a lot of fun and i have only gotten small 1st degree burns for playing with it nothing serous.