The bad kid on the block

[Ziggyzaazaa]

OK....I have a problem and I am upset and need to vent. We have a neighbor that lives in the same 4 plex apartment as us. The mother is an alcoholic obviosly. She displays it to everyone outside her portch falling over sideways on a daily basis. She has an 11 year old daughter, an 8 year old son and a 10 month old baby. The 8 year old son is a complete terror. One day my 4 year old was outside in the backyard (a forbidden place according to me) well he was back there with the 8 year old boy. The boy had a rusty axe. A real axe. Probably about 5 or 6 pounds. I looked at my son and he was in tears. The boy had the axe in the air and was telling the little kids he was going to get them. There were two other little tots back there too.
Then at 10pm at night he came to our door and knocked and when we opened the door he screamed and was wearing one of those masks from the scream movie, blood and all. My boyfrind ripped the mask off his head and yelled at him for scaring people. I dont think his mom was too happy about that. Before we knew how bad of a kid he was, I let my 7 year old spend the night. Well about 8am saturday morning, my boyfriend went for a drive up the street and saw the mother of the child and the 11 year old daughter jogging. So I run upstairs to thier house worried aboutr my son, and I find the 8 year old boy and my 7 year old son all alone with the 10 month old screaming its head off in a baby seat. I took my son back home and the mother showed up pretty quickly afterwards so i had no time to call the cops.
She has about 3 different guys come to her house on a weekly basis and my 7 year old asked me if he was gonna have a new daddy also, because that womans child told my son that he has new fathers all the time. I was horrified. I told my son that they are not making the right choices and that he should not listen to them.

Im so mad, that kid is such a bad influence on my child and hes constantly knocking at my door and dementing my childrens brains. I tell my son that hes not allowed to play with the kid and he runs outside and openly announces to the neighborhood that he cant play with that boy. So now I look bad....Im just looking out for my childs safety. Anyways Im mad. and Im at my witts end. Dont know what to do about this family so close to home.

Anyone got any advice?

Thanks for listening

[Justawoman]

The mother is an alcoholic obviosly. She displays it to everyone outside her portch falling over sideways on a daily basis.

If you knew this about the mother and still let your child go over then there is not much advice anyone can give you. All I can say is NO is a correct answer for adults and children to hear. Eventually this mother will ask you why you don't let your children come over. Then you can tell her she is irresponsible. But by no means do you need to be nice to spare anyone's feelings. I wouldn't even let the her children in the same yard as mine. They are obviously unsupervised and probably neglected when she is drunk and maybe even when she isn't drunk. You probably need to file some kind of complaint with Child Protective Services just to cover your rearend. Isn't it unlawful not to say something when you think children are in danger?????

[Alec]

I understand your concern.

It isn't your job to be popular. Do what is right, and explain it to your son. If he doesn't understand or doesn't agree, then too bad. Your job is to protect your son physically and emotionally.

You also might want to tell him why it is inappropriate to go around the neighborhood telling people about it. He's old enough to know that that was wrong. Ask him how he would feel if he heard someone else saying the same thing about him.