What type of house do you live in - kids' behaviour (neighbours)

[Belledan1]

Do you think if you lived in a detached house,(currently live in semi/flat/terraced) your child would be more well behaved and do as they are told? Are you in a detached house, do your kids follows the rules?

I don't want this to be a parent thrashing thread, I know if i was stricter with my teenage child when younger could have perhaps nipped some of this in the bud. DC very cheeky and defiant to myself and DH, good outside for others. Live semi detached, Had issues with DC not doing as told. Neighbours complained one day of noise they can hear. (Yes i know i should not have shouted). They have 2 kids now so get some noise back. But it does make me very conscious of punishments now and think if I was in a detached house i would be more strict and not perhaps let some behaviour go. I was just wondering if some of the people on here who seem to say their kids do as they are told and follow routine have no neighbours??

I know exactly what you mean OP, the type of house makes a huge difference. We've really lucky to live next to noisy neighbours (noisy in a good way - loud talking and laughing rather than loud arguing) which makes me feel much less self conscious about my kids' noise!

My parenting has nothing to do with the type of house I have

Hell yes! I have 4 DC and have lived in a flat, mid terrace and semi whilst bringing them up. I used to let a lot of behaviour go due to being conscious of noise and try to placate them to shut them up when I should have just left them to get on with it. They know I’m a soft touch but they haven’t turned out too badly. Now we’re in a detached and I can let rip at them if necessary and let them do the same and things are much less stressful. Older ones are door slamming, stair stomping teens with electric guitars, loud music and gaming rages so not sure how we’d cope if we were attached to another house. I definitely would have not backed down so much if we lived in a detached house when they were little.

I'm in a masonette and my kids are not too bad.
You don't have to shout to hold a boundary.
Let the kids do the shouting while you stand there calm and inplacable.

They stop the shouting in the end when they see that it gets them nowhere.

I recently moved from a terrace to a detached with a 2 year old and really understand what you're saying. In the terrace, keeping quiet is the priority so I tended to give in more. Here I can let them have more of a tantrum

I dream of living in a detached house away from my neighbours. We currently live in a semi and the walls are thin.
When 3yo DS was born in summer, whenever he would wake in the night for a bottle we would hear the NDN slamming their windows and complaining about him crying.
When he was 18 months he had a bad time with croup so would constantly be crying as it hurt. They started banging on the walls and shouting abuse at us. I ended up sleeping downstairs with him so he wouldn't disturb them.
We then got into a horrible cycle where he would wake in the night crying and expect to stay awake and go downstairs to play. He couldn't understand why he wasn't allowed. No matter what we did, he would scream the house down. We tried so hard to keep him quiet as we were very conscious of disturbing them and getting abuse. This lasted for a year and nearly broke us.
Now he's older he understands more. We are seeing light at the end of the tunnel. We do have the odd time when he is ill where he will scream at night again (hurts when he's throwing up etc), and they bang on the wall within minutes of him making noise, but most of the time if he wakes in the night we can sit with him and he's happy to go back to sleep.
Btw, these NDN are no saints. They constantly have dogs over that belong to his parents for sleepovers with their dog, and we have to listen to hours and hours of the dogs barking and whining whenever NDN have gone out. Parties once a month, fire pit underneath my sons window at night when his window is open (not saying they can't have it, just would be nice if they could warn us so we can shut his window), constantly slamming doors, the husband doesn't have any volume control, NYE party every year till 5am where we are stuck listening the Grease karaoke, TV on loud against the party wall.

I don't think shouting has any affect at all. The kids just get used to it and ignore it.

Hilarious!

No kids here yet belle

But when I lived in a terraced house and me and DH had an argument I used to put the Hoover on so the neighbours couldn't hear what it was about.

I'm sure parenting when you know you're being listened to makes you try to find the quickest solution for quiet so you don't make enemies of neighbours, compared to knowing you're not overheard and can let them tantrum on while you follow through.

I live in a detached house and tend not to shout at children. They tend to do better with 5 bits of praise for every negative comment.

That's the thing though, all kids are different. Some kids deserve need to be given five negative comments for every bit of praise they get.

As long as no one has neighbours like Boris J's last ones - they recorded BJ and his girl friend's argument through the wall!

I lived in a terraced house when my older three were all tiny and I was incredibly self conscious. The NDN on one side also had a baby so they understood and didn’t mind the noise but on the other side lived a middle aged couple, they were not so understanding. They actually used to get the power tools out sometimes when DC were crying as babies ffs. I felt like I was constantly on edge with them, it was such a relief to move out. The walls are paper thin in terraces.

Yes. My kid was a twat until we moved in with my sister violet, who had a Mercedes and room for a pony.

We live in a flat with a baby (who luckily is a good sleeper) and a loud 4 year old. There's a lot of 'get down from there' 'stop squashing your brother!' 'inside voice!' etc.
Luckily for the man next door its quite an old block of flats with thick walls so I don't think he can hear us! We never hear his tv or hoover.

We chose a ground floor flat on purpose as in our last flat I was paranoid about DS playing loudly.

Living in a decent sized detached house makes it easier that normal family life does not disrupt the neighbours and gives the DCs more space to expend energy.

I don't have to worry that when my 9yo is melting down much like a 3yo that there is someone struggling on the other side of the wall, I can just get him to a safe space and let him burn it out as he needs to. When the weather/ lockdown has restricted our opportunities for getting out and active for the last 9 months, it helps that there is space for the DCs to bounce around and have active play.

It's not a magic solution, but parenting would have been tougher with constant awareness of an unwilling audience on the other side of a wall.

With shouting, you do sometimes need volume for attention, but it has little impact beyond that point. Once you have attention, quickly dial the volume down to normal. Another option is to approach, touch a shoulder and talk quietly close to the ear.

Always challenge rudeness. My 7yo is having a phase of exceeding cheeky, and venturing towards rudeness, not a habit we want to keep. We're being quietly firm about correcting and trying again with the desired behaviour.

Thanks for your comments and to people who understand what I am getting at. I am sorry people have had really horrible neighbours experience. It is very hard if your child has issues to parent like a normal child. Take care. x

We live in a flat, I don’t shout as I’m not a shouty person, my son has tantrums, but he isn’t a screamer etc. I could scream my head off and my neighbours wouldn’t be able to hear me, unless I was on the balcony.

Surely if you are in a detached house you get away with more noise so you are less inclined to worry about telling your children to regulate their volume and be more mindful about jumping, kicking balls and shrieking if you lived in semi ot terraced? Makes no sense.. strictness have nothing to do with housing type.

Limitsup. Not sure if you find my thread hilarious or a post on here. But I can assure you its far from hilarious. I suffer with depression and anxiety over this and even had sucidial thoughts in past. As i said i am getting help for both me and child and am grateful child is not naughty outside the home. Lockdown has not helped.

I do get your point. I’d have been so stressed as a parent in a flat or semi worrying about all the noise my children made but being detached I just used to let them run wild pretty much.

Sorry I didn't mean to be insensitive Belledan1, i was just nonplussed as to why the behaviour of children would be influenced by house type and my first reaction was surprise (and it was late last night and I wasn't using my filter). I have resolved to read the thread properly now and be open minded

Thank you. I will admit I did not explain myself properly in my first post what I meant xx

I think I understand where you’re coming from but I have to disagree with it and say YABU because good discipline doesn’t have to be (I would argue it definitely isn’t to be honest) loud and shouty. I guess you think that people in a detached house are more free to shout at their kids and therefore would have kids that are better behaved - but in my experience shouty parent = not well behaved kids. I mean shouting on a regular basis as a form of ‘telling off’ - you can do that without shouting. We all lose our temper from time to time obviously.

But surely it isn't about the parent being loud and shouty to discipline their child but about avoiding children having loud tantrums where you would normally stick to your guns and say "no, you can cry and scream all you want you cant do x", you do not feel able to follow through with that approach as the screaming and crying from your children will result in neighbour complaints so you capitulate much sooner than you would have were you not worried about your child disturbing the neighbours

You can actually shout more in a detached house as you don’t have to consider neighbours hearing you!