Playing with the neighbourhood kids

Do your children play with the other children in the neighbourhood???

We have children on both sides of us and across the road, so I knew that Andrew would be out there playing with them, and I am fine with it. And now DLS has started they are out there later and later (like 8pm last night).

What time is too late for children to be outside playing to your??

For me with Andrew as it is cold here all the time (i'm not worried about the coldness); I think 6pm is late enough for him. Am I being a mean making him come in that early.

I have no problem with him being out there; the roads are very safe (but they play on the footpath and the driveway), and I can see them out our lounge window.

Not really sure what I am really wanting out of this post, other than do your children play outside? And how late are they out there for?

I don't know, we lived in "Retired Street" so no neighbourhood kids here!! When I was a kid, Mum insisted on us not going outside after dinnertime - that was her rule of thumb.

Well it's been ages since my girls were Andrews age and well we live in Auckland so sometimes the rule change because of location, That aside we live in a really nice street /area with loads of kids and they all know each other from school etc.
Anyway when the kids were younger I would let them play out side in the back garden or at someone elses house but not on the road, footpath etc (as we also have a few teens with cars around here IYKWIM ) until about 6ish then home for dinner and after that only in our garden until it started getting dark.
We finally started letting them go to the park up the road (no roads to cross) in groups of three or more when Alex was about 7ish. But still they had to be home again by 6ish.
Now we let then walk to the local shops 10 minutes away during the day, but never in the evening.
So not sure if I'm all off topic but yes we let them play with the neighborhood kids they seem to go between houses all the time during the holidays/weekends, some days we can have 10 screaming girls running around our house others it's blissfully quiet as they are at some other poor soles house but it's great and I love that there are so many kids around and they have heaps of friends and aren't sitting at home bored all day.

Awwww, I think it sounds so cool for Andrew (and you! he he) that he gets to hang out with his mates so often and safely, too. But if 6pm is home-time, I don't see why that's mean at all. That way he gets to see his friends a lot, and gets time to calm down a bit at home and hang out with his family before bedtime. Best of both worlds!

Wow that sounds so great! I hope we can live in a neighbourhood like that one day    I think 6 is reasonable- My kids are both in bed by 6.15pm so I would be really mean and have to have them in by half 5 to have them fed and bathed in time!