To wonder why boys

[HereBeFuckery]

Are so unbelievably noisy? I'm at a soft play, and it's loud, as you'd expect, it's half term and it's pissing rain, so busy.

There are four or five boys aged I'd guess between 7 and 12, and they are so so so loud, I can hear each of them individually, and distinctly, over the general racket. I have nicknames for them: Rapper Jeans, Nearly-At-Bumfluff-Stage, Stripy Top, Sweaty in that Football Strip, and the possible fifth although he may just be a hanger on, Future Marine (buzz cut, looks mean). Stripy Top isn't inspiring me to a better name.

I have my headphones in and music at max volume, and I can hear every howl.

I'm the first to jump on 'don't pigeonhole kids' behaviour by sex or gender' but this is so noticeable. It's a kind of mid-register howl or rage-scream. Is it hormones? It makes me jump every time it happens. The girls shrieks (which are plentiful and loud), are drowned by these boys.

I've noticed it a lot this half term - at a party, at the park, at a different soft play, but this is the most pronounced it's been. I'm forever telling DD to keep her volume appropriate to the situation, and I've not seen any of the boys making this weird primal noise/shout told to keep it down. Is it just the old 'girls must be quiet while boys take over the world'? Should I encourage DD to howl along like an adolescent gorilla?

DH is noisy in a way I can't fathom - like he has no idea how to moderate his volume, he stamps and makes noise without meaning to, but this is something different.

To be clear, it's not the volume exactly, or I'd be happy to be called a pearl clutchy idiot for being here. It's the noise itself. Like an intimidation tactic or something, like a predator would use to scare prey. It's so weird. And it's giving me a fucking headache.

Opposite in my household. My DS’s are quiet and almost always well behaved, my DD’s can be incredibly loud and shrill- deafening at times.

Not all boys are noisy and some girls are awfully loud.

I don't think boys are naturally louder than girls but I do think that are plenty of parents that will tell girls to be nice and quiet and don't tell boys as much because "boys will be boys".

I've run a brownie group and help at a beaver group which had no girls one year. I have lost a certain pitch if hearing (lighthearted) from the girl group, who seemed to scream a lot. So id say both were noisy. The boys moved more on average though.

I think my title's a bit misleading. I don't mean 'all boys are X', I mean what the fuck is that noise that they seem to make, at the kind of second half of primary/pre-teen age? Why is that noise so awful and intrusive? Is it designed to be?

I have three boys and don't notice that they are particularly loud.
My eldest is quite quiet.

Kids arnt supposed to be quiet at soft play.

I went on a school trip and it was the girls who shrieked in the most awful way, it was hell. Never knew how shrill kids could be! The boys were loud, but lower pitched.

Their voices could be breaking which makes them wobble, high pitched one minute and deep the next with sqeaky in between. They have no control over this.

Off the point, but I thought soft play would be for toddlers.(my children and grandchildren are grown up). Don't older children go to the park and climb trees anymore?

I think you notice what you're not used (and by that, immune) to. I only have a son and girls always seem far noisier to me because I'm used to a particular type of sound.

Soft play is perfect for older boys up to around 10-11 ish. Climbing, slides etc as long as they stay in the older section.

Mine do this on the Xbox, especially oldest who is 14, he has no concept of how loud he is and gets quite mardy with me when I ask him to keep the volume down because screaming at the pretend FIFA players doesn't make them play better

I had girls, not boys, but I always preferred to take them outside to play. I’m autistic, and the awful noise level at indoor play centres was intolerable. At least the racket dissipates better outside, and it’s healthier to be out in the fresh air (and hopefully sunshine, although as I live in Scotland, it was more often splashing through puddles in wellies!)
I think most kids screech when they’re having fun, OP. But outdoors, it doesn’t bounce off walls and ceilings and reverberate to the same extent. I’d either get industrial earplugs or take your DC outside.

You’re at soft play. If there was ever a place for this kind of behaviour, it’s soft play.

As an aside, I have one of each and my son is no louder than my daughter.

In fact, wait til you host a sleepover for a group of say 6 girls around the age of 8. They screech and squeal at everything.

Because they’re allowed to?

Girls tend to be shushed and told to quieten down when their play gets rowdy.

Boys doing the same are met with a shrug and “boys will be boys”. Because boys are naturally loud and boisterous.

I was at soft play the other week and there were some 3-4 year old boys running riot everywhere almost knocking over my little girl. Loudly farting and throwing things around.

My nieces of the same age never behave like that, if they did their parents wouldn’t allow it.

My brothers were pretty wild. I think it’s groups of boys which can sometimes get out of hand! And like a PP has said, the ‘boys will be boys’ attitude.

I've noticed that after a certain age (3/4-ish) the noises boys and girls make while running around playing are different; Squeals and shrieks from the girls, bellowing and loud grunting from the boys. Don't know which annoys me the most tbh. Soft play is horrendous though - the noise, that sweaty, sour smell, damp socks and trousers...ughh.

Bloody hell - 12 year olds at soft play.

Yes boys are clearly louder and far more annoying than girls based on your very scientific study of five boys at soft play and others at parties you've been to.
And small girls never fart or throw things around Well not a PPs nieces anyway who are clearly sugar and spice and all things nice (unlike her beastly brothers, who were wild!!!)
Here have two of these and stick one in each ear next time you see a boy headed in your direction.

Give me loud boys over screaming /screeching girls any day!!

I think my title's a bit misleading. I don't mean 'all boys are X', I mean what the fuck is that noise that they seem to make, at the kind of second half of primary/pre-teen age? Why is that noise so awful and intrusive? Is it designed to be?

@eddiemairswife it's pissing with rain, hence people preferring to be indoors.

IME, girls of around 8 years old seem to scream a lot, at ear-piercing pitch, which doesn't seem to happen so much when they are younger and which they seem to stop doing by about 10.

I didn't notice anything particularly about boys in the age range the OP describes, but in early teenage-dom (13-15) they seem to develop a loud baritone which they use mainly to opine about everything that is wrong with the world.

Obviously I am wildly generalising!

My 14DS has an absolutely bellowing voice. I am forever reminding him we have neighbours. I genuinely don't think he hears his pitch or volume.

12 year old in soft play!?!?

Here its under 10s only and usually the kids there are infantschool age or younger.