[Icemaster]

You're asking rhetorical questions Souk, we're already there. If we're not around or unable to supervise, they dont play together - very simple. They dont go up there and play, period - whether we're there or not. Not after this latest demonstration of Darwin-like tendencies. Knowing that the neighbor kid doesnt want to come to our house to play very much (we're "too boring..." - duh....we dont Car Surf or take 8 year olds to Metallica concerts...), that just wont happen. His choice. He plays by my rules or not at all - very simple. It has to be handled the right way, if I were to draw an absolute I gurarantee that I'd have a kid who wanted more than ever to go hang out with him - no better way to drive them together than to try and force them apart. If it's made so inconvenient that they dont want to make the effort, then the desired result is acheived on their terms so to speak. It's how my parents should have handled me....

Truth be told, their kid and my kid have probably sought each other out a grand total of 3 times this summer, we've been guiding my kid away from their kid for a while now.

We made a conscious decision a couple of years ago to keep the other family at arms length cause of similar parental philosophical differences - all of the activities that the kids engaged in were either supervised by us or we were along to participate. That's how we know that we dont want them hanging around.

They're not bad people, just stupid (yet, strangely, she's the CFO of a local college...). And when their stupidity has the potential to impact me and mine, the wall goes up.