I’ve got a shouty child

[Sunflowersok]

I’m forever telling my DD8 to turn the volume down on her lungs. For some reason for the past year or so she’s turned from talking at a normal respectable level to cranking it up. She doesn’t talk ever, she shouts. She’s so bloody LOUD.

She’s downstairs at the moment with my DSD playing whilst I’m trying to work upstairs and she might as well be in the sodding room. I can’t hear DSD talk whatsoever because she’s normal.

Is it just mine?! I’m constantly nagging at her to keep the tone down or just keep her voice low but she will say one or two words And THen IT GETs LOUD AGAIN!!

I woke up from fright this morning at 5am
wondering what the screaming was on the street - it turns out her and DSD had gotten out of bed thinking it was the middle of the day and they were playing downstairs, but of course with her volume it sounded like a lot of shouting and screaming. Half an hour before my partners alarm went off she probably woke the whole neighbourhood up I was livid!!

So very tired today. Aibu to constantly tell her to keep bloody quiet?!

I feel your pain. My DD2 has a normal volume voice but the slightest little thing winds her up and she shouts and screams. She's a realy drama queen. I was on a Zoom call to some friends last night, sat in conservatory with door shut and I could hear her shouting and screaming (didn't go to investigate as it wasn't anything to do with me :)).

However, my brother and I actually have a naturally loud speaking voice. I don't notice if I'm talking loud and sometimes cringe after if I think I've been talking loud. Sometimes my DD1 will point it out to me (like last night on Zoom!) and I try to remember for next time but it's really hard!

Have you had her hearing checked?

I sympathise OP. My DD6 is the same. She also screeches and screams and all day I'm telling her to lower her voice. I apologise to my neighbours but they love her and say they like hearing her enjoying herself .

Oh I don't know but I feel your pain. Dd6 is a shouter AND a dramatic squealer. I spend all day begging her to keep the volume down. I have actually requested a hearing test (before lockdown) as I have mid range hearing loss. But my eldest DD used to be a shouter and isn't as bad now (she is a teen).

I've also done the olive oil thing in ears at bedtime recently convinced her ears must be blocked.

Mine is like this too. Hasn't grown out of it yet (15)

Gives me a headache, and it is embarrassing out with her as everything she says can be heard by everyone, even if she is doing her idea of whispering (still top of the voice by anyone else's standard)
When she is shouting in anger it can be physically painful to stand next to her!
No solutions I am afraid, just commiserations!

I sympathise. Both mine bellow all the time. They can't seem to help it. I tell them off for shouting and they say "I AM NOT SHOUTING!!! I AM TALKING NORMALLY!!!"

I am quite sensitive to noise and sometimes when one of them yells or squeals suddenly it makes my eyelids twitch!

Instead of telling her be quiet- which is always going to be quite tricky if she's excited, try playing games about controlling her volume.

So things like chinese whispers, 'mixed biscuits' (pick a silly phrase and take turns to say it in as many different ways as you can- loud/soft/sweet/angry/happy etc).

Do those old rhymes where you start very quiet then get very loud (jack in a box, small as can be, quiet as a mouse, then suddenly ... UP he jumps!)

She just needs to learn a bit of variety.

All 4 of mine are the same, the concept of "indoor voices" is totally lost on them. They also fight a lot, so there are deafening shouts/squeals/crying every 20 minutes or so.
I spend most of my time shushing them but find myself shouting at them just to be heard over their din which defeats the object of quieting things down!
Hoped things would calm down as they got older but they have just got louder

I hear you
In the case of youngest DC it was him, and only him, who was a shouter . Poor boy had ear issues though as a doctor discovered.

Ditto the hearing check. Also, my son is loud. I find that if I talk to him in a particularly quiet voice he drops his voice too. But that doesn't really help you if she's waking up before you or are trying to work!

As per a PP, has she had her hearing checked recently? About 100 years ago at primary school I had a lovely friend who was always in trouble for being SO loud. Eventually it was discovered that her hearing was poor and she needed hearing aids - her poor parents felt awful for constantly telling her off!

My 7yr old day is like this too & very dramatic. Soundtrack to my day seems to be shouting, screeching & screaming. Forever apologising to my neighbours & bringing him inside. Nothing wrong with his hearing (has been tested plus can hear sweets being opened in a 1 mile radius but not me next to him asking him to turn his Xbox off multiple times). D

The part about getting up as thought it was middle of day made me

You know what I never thought about her hearing.

I’ve never had reason to question it I always thought she just raised her voice in
Competition to be the loudest in the room!

Yep, I have a child who is exactly like this. I find it pretty difficult to cope with. I am forever shouting “shut up” which doesn’t help. His voice is just booming. He’s really little for his age (12) and people are very shocked when he speaks. He’s also very intense and dramatic so it is just non-stop screaming, sobbing and shouting. It really, really gets to me. We can just be sat at the dining table having a normal conversation and he is pretty much shouting directly down my ear. My four year old also seems to be going this way! My husband and I have very quiet voices so I have no idea how we’ve managed to create such loud children.

@PrincessHoneysuckle it didn’t make me , no, it did not!

After my DP ‘had words’ with them about it they came back in the room at 6am to a police and woke me up again, I pretty much told them both to sod off and apologise after my alarm for work had gone off

A police *apologise

@Hmpher I feel you

She’s hurt my eardrum once just being next to me on the couch

I have 2 friends like this in their late 40's....being with them both is painful as they just shout over each other...i always end up with a headache.

Urgh, we have a shouty/ screamer. Middle child, doesn't behave like this at school. Yes, we listen to her, they all have 1 to 1 time. She also struggles to play with the other siblings.

I would definitely check her hearing.
Also what is her breathing like, especially in a night? Is she an especially snotty child.
Sorry to sound odd but my sister had no volume control as a child. Was constantly snotty and snored like a train. It turned out that she had hugely enlarged adenoids and removing them solved all of the problems.

Also had to laugh at a previous poster saying everybody can hear their child’s whisper. I don’t think mine understands the concept. He often makes judges comments when out and about (which I’m constantly telling him to stop because it’s rude) and he pretty much shouts it for everyone to hear. It is so embarrassing. We live on a bit of a rough estate and walked past a few people on a walk earlier this week. My son waited until they were about six feet away and then shouted “that’s that woman who had her kids taken off her”. I just scuttled away and told him to stop bloody making comments about other people all the time! I really worry about him getting into fights because he seems to have no idea that he is shouting these things for everyone to hear.

@Sunflowersok 😂