could the pqrents of a bully be sued?

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We have neighbors that recently moved next door. They have 2 males of the approximate age of our 8 yo son. They have been extremely mean and I finally told them not to play with our child. When he goes to neighbors to play, and the meanies are there they continue to harass him. It really, really bothers me and I have tried to talk to their parents, The dad told me he was going to knock my teeth out if I kept saying his children are mean, Can I address this in any legal manner? I need to protect my child but don't know how!! Paul

he threatened to knock your teeth out. that's assault. he should go to jail.

Its not technically assault, but it is Terroristic Threatening and its still illegal.

I would say if the parent of the kid has threatened to knock your teeth out you should go directly to the police.
Forget about suing, that takes ages, costs money, and may not have a satisfactory outcome.
It is never okay the threaten violence.
You may not need to take action perse, but if you make a report to the police, especially if you have a witness, they can look into it, and usually will pay a visit to the person and at least warn them that further such behaviour may lead to unpleasant legal consequences for them.
You usually won't need to do more than that, especially if you're in a "good neighbourhood", most people are afraid a criminal record of any sort will restrict their freedom and liberty, and would want to avoid that at all costs, a knock on the door from the cops is scary.

Saying he's going to knock your teeth out is uttering a threat - it's a crime.

If their kids have ever gotten physical with your son, that would be assault.

You could try talking to the police. Even if they merely talk to your neighbors about what's going on, that could scare your neighbors into backing off.

I went to the "meanies" house- the only witness is the father's wife. I may have to wait until a crime is actually committed- but I hate to put Caleb through this. He is such a wonderful, peaceful child.

Dude, in cases like this, suing is ALWAYS the best option

I would proceed with caution, but I do think that any time your neighbor utters a threat, you should call the police and file a report. Documentation is critical. Believe it or not, threatening to hurt someone IS assault: http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/assault "a threat of bodily harm coupled with an apparent, present ability to cause the harm." A person doesn't have to actually perform the action for it to qualify.

However, you're in a difficult situation: this person is your neighbor, right? I assume you are both homeowners: this means that you need to be careful about escalating the situation into something worse, because it isn't likely that they will move away. (If this person is a tenant, you can also talk to his landlord about the problem, BTW.)

You might check if your municipality has some kind of community dispute resolution/mediation process - the police would probably know if you do. (for instance, there's this one in New York State: http://www.cdrc.org/content/view/about-us.html ) This might make it possible for you to set boundaries and keep yourself safe without making your neighbor angrier with you.

One of my neighbors got drunk one night about 1 AM and started shouting at another neighbor's dog. He decided it was my dog, and started screaming obscenities at my house. He ended up saying that he was going to kill our entire family, burn our house down, and eat us. Yes, at some point during all this, I called 911. During the 911 call, he was shouting loud enough from his yard that the operator could hear him. The lovely police came and made sure to pull up in front of my house with the lights on, so he'd know it was me that called. They went to his house and he told them it must be some other crazy drunk person. We pressed charges with the city court. They declined to pursue it. Nothing ever happened to him because of it. My kids couldn't go out in the back yard for months, because he sat out in his backyard all the time. He finally got a job and stopped being home all the time, so they could go play again.

Unless there are a lot of witnesses that are willing to go to court with you, then the cops aren't likely to do a darn thing with terroristic threatening between neighbors.

Also, every state is different, but I don't think any of them that can file charges against an 8 year old. In my state it is 10. The only thing they can do to an 8 year old is refer the family to counseling, so these "meanies" aren't legally committing assault. Legally, they aren't capable of committing a crime.

It's a good idea to talk to police - possibly at the station - rather than making a call first. Find out how they handle this sort of thing.

I live in a difficult neighborhood and have a very good relationship with our police department. I can call and know how to ask them to take care of an issue without identifying me as the caller (if it's a public crime.) Problem is, police work under constraints - they need a complainant in order to enforce certain laws, which means that you have to be willing to be identified (although lights and sirens to your house is something you can request they not do in many situations.)

make sure to record your encounters on video
you need solid evidence to do anything and video is very solid evidence

What your options are can vary quite a bit between countries and states of the US. The best bet might be to contact a lawyer to find out what you can legally do.

For goodness sake you have only two options.
Make sure your kids know to stay away from the troublesome neighbours, including kids, parents and any pets, or go to the police.
Going to the police will also mean option 1 anyway, as the cops will tell you to stay away from them.
Your only other option is to move, though I doubt that is a viable option.
Lawyer up if you want to, but it may take months, and in the meantime you may get your teeth knocked out waiting for an appointment with your lawyer!

We have considered moving and may. Seems like there is just such a breakdown of American families, though, The said neighbor is "retired" on SSD and states he can't work because of his back. He bought the house next door, a real fixer upper, and worked steady at least 12 hrs a day. He was on the roof, on his knees laying floor, under his truck repairing. He not only can he work- he's a workaholic . Really disgusting!! ! Paul

Not defending the guy, because a lot of people do play the system. My sister-in-law does it masterfully. She even has the school giving her kids stuff because they are "homeless". They live with her parents, and have for years. She also manages to draw SSI on her and her kids, and gets food stamps. She makes more money per month than my husband does working his butt off.

Here's the not defending the guy part. My dad is on disability (progressive diffuse schleroderma), and you will often catch him working like that. More often and for longer 18 months ago than now as it is a rapidly progressive disease, but I'm sure to the casual observer it looked like he was fine to work (his last employer thought for a long time after he stopped working for them that he was faking, you could tell by their attitudes). Now he looks terrible and pretty frail. He is still working, but it easy to tell by looking at him that he shouldn't be. He is a workaholic, and always has been. The worst part of this has been that he feels useless, so he goes out and does stuff anyway, even though by the end of the day he is utterly miserable and can't do anything but be in bed. Nowadays, it will put him in bed for a few days. Lately he will actually let others (my step-brother catches the brunt of this) do some of the work with him supervising (he can get pretty mean when he's hurting and knows how to get something done and can't get my brother to understand it). My dad was never very successful in school. He's smart, but possibly has some LD's that weren't diagnosed in 60's when he went to school. He's never had a job that wasn't hard physical labor. When he first applied for disability (he was in better shape then), they told him he could work--in an office environment. Kind of a double slap in the face. You can't do the physical work, and you aren't smart enough to do anything else to support your family kind of thing.

So anyway, not defending him, because I definitely know people fake it, and vague back injuries are a favorite fake, but sometimes workaholics can get hurt. It really doesn't take the workaholic out of them. It just makes them frustrated with their perceived uselessness and in pain. If they guy is anything like my dad, and always did the hard physical labor with no education, experience, or ability toward anything less physical, then he's probably feeling like a complete loser.

I imagine in such a situation that the kids are living in a very tense home environment, which may be behind them lashing out at the nearest convenient target--your son. What exactly did they do that got them labeled with the term "meanies"? I can't help but think it wasn't that bad, if the worst you have to say about them is such a lightweight playground pejorative.

The particular word usage is coloring my reaction (to the little boys, not the dad. It is never okay to threaten someone like that, no matter what your personal situation). There is a neighborhood kid whose parents thought my kids were "meanies" for about 4 years, which really annoyed me, because I had seen their son antagonize every other kid on the block and then start crying when the rest of them told him they didn't want to play with him, or blocked him from hitting them, or pushed him back after he pushed them, or just beat him fair and square at a game the whole group was playing, and then he'd run to his much older sister or his mom and tell them how everyone was SO MEAN and UNFAIR to him (I don't think he was lying on purpose. I think he really saw it that way), and they would immediately throw everyone out of their yard, or come over and complain to me or one of the other parents that our kids were just horrible meanies, and wouldn't hear it a bit when I tried to tell them what their sweet innocent little boy (who is small and a grade behind his age, but actually only 18 months younger than my middle child) could have possibly been contributing to the problem. All of a sudden this year the boy has really grown up and stopped doing that, and everyone is getting along again.

This may all be totally wrong. I can't help myself in situations of disagreement but to try to construct what the other person might be thinking.