Shrieking child next door ALL DAY LONG! WWYD

How do you know what her conversational English is like if you haven’t spoken with her? Or do you mean you just haven’t spoken with her about this particular issue? If so, you’ll have to wait until the dad is around. I don’t think it’s fair for them to be branded as terrible, selfish parents if the issue hasn’t even be raised with them.

If the Op can't get it sorted with the parents, then usually recording it is the next step...and LONG recordings to demonstrate the length of time it goes on for.

Nobody is criticising children with diagnosed ASD, or their parents (at least I’m not), it’s people who instantly pipe up with ‘he/she is probably autistic!’ or even worse, instantly speak as if they are - ‘it’s very hard if they have ASD…’

It’s reached a point on here where, in every scenario, the default assumption is the person being discussed has autism, unless there’s rock solid evidence they’re not (which is impossible on an internet forum).

It’s getting out of control and prevents any kind of discussion about virtually all human behaviour, because the instant ‘diagnosis’ at the start of the thread makes virtually every comment thereafter ‘ableist’.

These days it probably would be classed as a serious disability..
Met a teacher I’d not seen for 20 yrs and she said the standards of behaviour generally have fallen dramatically.
She had her grandchildren with her, at a cafe and their behaviour was impeccable. ( one a toddler who played quietly and nicely with another toddler.

She says so many people aren’t doing basic discipline with their children, seeking diagnosis instead.

What has changed so fundamentally in the last 20 yrs?

Can a disability be ‘severe’ if the only symptom is shrieking?

Well, for starters I would expect the parents to constantly tell their child to use his silent voice. If he can't patents should not let him outside. I'm serious. My oldest ASD spoke/screamed so loudly I would not let him out in the garden. And I would close the windows. I went outside with him everyday to different playgrounds so he was happy and the neighbours were happy. So when our neighbours said "he's a child" as a response to their child being outside wailing at all hours (not ND but lazy parenting and rude neighbours) it really made me p.o. thinking of all the efforts I'd done not to disturb them before they had a child. Our other neighbours were happy though and we were all relieved when they left.

If anyone's behaviour in my household negatively impacted the lives of my neighbours', whether that be a child with an underlying condition which meant they shrieked all day, or my partner awaiting a capacity assessment that was prone to leaving the home partially dressed, or my newly graduated teenager wanted to have a one off party until 1am, I would talk to the neighbours.

Really? I sure as hell tried with my kids and they did learn.

And if the child was then diagnosed with a severe disability which was then essentially that underlying cause, what then?

If my child shrieked all day long and could not be calmed I would take them to the GP. I don't think you need to reason with them, but if playing with them, repeatedly telling them not to be so loud, bringing them in the house etc didn't stop the shrieking I would be concerned there was an underlying cause.

The only time one of my kids screamed so loudly I had to close the windows was when he was delirious with an ear infection. I did tell the neighbours the next day (it was at night) and of course they understood.

As tenants, could you have a word with the landlord? The screeching sounds far and above what would be deemed ''acceptable''.

Detached houses would be wonderful, but even a friend who lives in a detached place surrounded by fields has a neighbour over the field who had children that shrieked - and the sound carried.

That high pitched alarm sound is like armour piercing bullets.

I'm sure some parents are deafened and have poor hearing so are immune to the screeches.

So for the people saying it’s not acceptable, that the neighbour needs to do something, exactly what do you expect someone to do about a child who has no capacity to be reasoned with? Genuine question.

Because while it absolutely is understandable that a child who literally screams all day would be a serious frustration,if there isn’t a solution then there isn’t a solution, and it does come down to the frustrated person to find one which works for them.

You can still hear if you’re not playing music but it takes the edge off.

If it's that bad OP could keep a noise log and go through the council. But I don't expect anything would ever be done about a noisy toddler. Whether it is "acceptable" or not, if home is noisy she can't work there.

*the father never seems to be present.

I'm not dense. It's not acceptable for a neighbour to cause that level of disruption all day long.

You need to firstly go and find out what the issue is.

If this is a child with severe SN for instance it’s possible that you won’t be able to do anything.

My parents had an issue with a child at the back of them throwing rocks over their fence into the garden There was a real risk of damage as they have a greenhouse and a conservatory which, if they were hit by a rock could do some serious harm.

My mum went round to speak to them,and it transpired that this is an 8 year old with severe SN, non verbal, unable to be reasoned with, and at the time this was lockdown when he was out of his SN school and completely disoriented with the garden bein the only place he had access to.

The woman was a single parent (the fathers need seem to be present) and really wasn’t coping.

In time they removed all the rocks from the garden, and the child still screams (he’s twelve now) but he’s back in school and spends less time out there. But there needed to be understanding, not judgement.

If someone had a screaming baby for instance nobody would be saying that the parents need to deal.

In terms of advising the OP to go back into the office, a residential home is not an official workplace, yes sometimes it is possible to work from home, but if the house or the environmental factors make that difficult then you don’t work from home.

This is the stock response to this scenario. I’m quite sure the parents find it extremely difficult but this is about OP’s comfort. I don’t find it acceptable to say “others have it worse so I’ll shut up”

@Bearbookagainandagain which is why I used the word similar.

I wonder at what point the council noise control would become involved? Probably wouldn’t do anything as it will be seen as a child playing but a visit from them may get the parents to address it. Shrieking would certainly be above acceptable noise levels.

Except it's not actually the same, because in OP's case the kid is 2-3 years old!

We're the same, and had my son wake up in the middle of the night screaming for an hour not being able to understand what happened. at one time. I would try to take him to the other side of the house, downstairs as far of the shared wall as I could. But the neighbours probably still heard.
He will randomly stim in the shops by clapping and vocalising. I used to feel bad about it and being judged, I dont give a crap now. We are very lucky though because people.
We developed a very thick skins over the last 7 years.

I had a similar situation - new tenants rented the house behind us, gardens back on to each other. Mum, nan, and 2 young girls similar ages to mine.
The kids were wild. Constantly in the garden shouting and screaming. Never doing anything at a regular volume. Always ignored by the mum, but the nan did at least try to keep them quiet.
They then went through a stage of having friends round daily during the holidays, which meant hearing their friends all day long too. They were so loud and so repetitive that I actually knew their friends names better than the names of my own children's friends! It was honestly such a level that we couldn't enjoy our own garden during the nice weather.
Covid hit, I began WFH. Things settled a bit as they had no visitors. When they announced we could have garden visits during lockdown my heart sank.
Things returned to normal, with the added stress of me attempting to work through it also.
There was one day when the noise was honestly 8am - 7pm, non stop.
The next day I took my laptop to work the furthest I possible could from them, and it was still unbearable.
I kind of lost my cool, went to an upstairs window and called out to the mum, asking if they could keep it down a bit. Explained that the noise is a crazy level, I'd heard it all day the day before and I didn't want to spend all day hearing it again. She responded that they were kids, and I said 'yup, I'm aware - I have 2 of my own and I don't allow that level of noise from them, we have neighbours'
She didn't say much, but it did get a whoop from our other neighbour 🤣 the nan came round to talk to me, I explained that I was super close to calling their landlord and she apologised.
Anyway, since then - next to nothing. And the odd time there is a lot of noise it's not an issue, because it's no longer all day, every day.
No one expects silence from their neighbours. Just a bit of common courtesy.

My son is the same age, doesn't have any special needs, and screams/screeches/cries all day long. Whether he is tired, excited, happy, or not happy... It seems to be his natural response to everything. It drives us bonkers, and on top of it his little sister has now started to get into screeching competitions... for fun!

We do feel sorry for the neighbours, but there nothing we can do more than teaching him not to do it, calming him down when he is having a tantrum, and telling him again and again to calm down. It will take time for him to understand, but it will pass eventually. Under 3 is still very very young.
What we can't do, which would be very efficient I'm sure in the short term, is giving in every time he wants something.

By the way, an idea for you, our neighbours got a puppy... "in retaliation" (he said that as a joke, obviously).

This sounds very similar to my nearly three year old.

He likely had additional needs, but we're stuck on the very long assessment waiting list for now so I can't say much more than that.

There's not really anything I can do about it. I constantly try and encourage quieter noises, but his receptive language understanding is poor enough that he has no real idea what I'm on about. And at the same time, his speech therapist is very keen for me to encourage noise-making as his range of speech sounds is very poor.

So whilst I want him to be quieter for the sake of neighbours and good manners, it's very hard to encourage low volume whilst also simultaneous trying to encourage him to make sounds.

Ultimately, I'm not going to hinder his development for the sake of my neighbours. Sorry!