This is a bit long, I'm sorry.
I have an email friend in Canada (we met through a shared interest in a series of books). They have never owned their home but always rented. Anyway earlier on this year there was some scheme by the Canadian Government to help young buyers to buy their own homes and although there was a bit of a tight schedule to take advantage of the scheme they managed to find a lovely house owned by an old lady who had lived their for years.
They moved in about a month ago and there were many excited emails flying about and paint colours discussed etc. Now I have had a couple of emails in which my friend is quite upset. I answered the first with a 'cheer up' email saying that moving is a very stressful time etc and things will settle down. But I had another one this morning and I am at a bit of a loss.
Evidently there is talk about them. My friend has 3 boys, the eldest 16 (with all the problems that can come with that age, nothing major, the odd running away thing). Her middle boy is 6 and slightly autistic and her youngest is 3. Her eldest boy had a sleepover and his friend evidently told him the gossip. As far as I can see the neighbours are saying that the boys are running wild and tearing the house apart (not true). As my friend says with 2 boys of that age (the younger ones) they are always yelling and arguing and of course running about (they have hardwood floors so I suppose it sounds loud). They are saying that my friend and her husband are not good parents and now my friend is saying she has had enough and she is not going to talk to any of them. She is going to walk the boys to the bus stop and ignore them all. I think she might make things worse if she won't talk to them.
Have any of your ever had a similar problem and is there any advice I can give her? I have never been faced with this problem and I don't really know what to say. She says she wishes they had never moved at all, and I find that so sad because this was their dream, the house is lovely, the lake is at the end of their road, they look out over farmland and everyone seemed so friendly at first with the farmer even saying bring the kids over some day to see the animals.
I have an email friend in Canada (we met through a shared interest in a series of books). They have never owned their home but always rented. Anyway earlier on this year there was some scheme by the Canadian Government to help young buyers to buy their own homes and although there was a bit of a tight schedule to take advantage of the scheme they managed to find a lovely house owned by an old lady who had lived their for years.
They moved in about a month ago and there were many excited emails flying about and paint colours discussed etc. Now I have had a couple of emails in which my friend is quite upset. I answered the first with a 'cheer up' email saying that moving is a very stressful time etc and things will settle down. But I had another one this morning and I am at a bit of a loss.
Evidently there is talk about them. My friend has 3 boys, the eldest 16 (with all the problems that can come with that age, nothing major, the odd running away thing). Her middle boy is 6 and slightly autistic and her youngest is 3. Her eldest boy had a sleepover and his friend evidently told him the gossip. As far as I can see the neighbours are saying that the boys are running wild and tearing the house apart (not true). As my friend says with 2 boys of that age (the younger ones) they are always yelling and arguing and of course running about (they have hardwood floors so I suppose it sounds loud). They are saying that my friend and her husband are not good parents and now my friend is saying she has had enough and she is not going to talk to any of them. She is going to walk the boys to the bus stop and ignore them all. I think she might make things worse if she won't talk to them.
Have any of your ever had a similar problem and is there any advice I can give her? I have never been faced with this problem and I don't really know what to say. She says she wishes they had never moved at all, and I find that so sad because this was their dream, the house is lovely, the lake is at the end of their road, they look out over farmland and everyone seemed so friendly at first with the farmer even saying bring the kids over some day to see the animals.
