AIBU to think there's a limit to 'normal child noise'?

[yelyah22]

I'll start by saying OF COURSE I know that children make noise, and that at 5.30pm on a sunny weekend evening they're bound to be playing out. I also know I live on a street of terraced houses so there's precious little garden space and we're all quite tightly packed, so a certain amount of having to deal with neighbours' noise is unavoidable.

But the kids who live opposite me are currently ROARING like ...dinousaurs? Not sure what they're playing, but it's very very very loud and they've been doing it for about 3 hours now while the mum lies in her front yard on a sun lounger with her headphones in.

They do this a lot - I get that they're children and they're playing, but when they're screeching for hours on end surely you'd tell them to keep it down a bit after a while? Their neighbours, who were also sitting out the front on their bench, have just gone inside and shut their windows and next door to me just leaned over the wall to get a parcel and rolled their eyes when the screaming intensified, so it's not just me. I'm just trying to enjoy the tiny bit of front yard I have and do some work out here and I can't hear myself think!

Full disclaimer: I do not have children, evidently. I would pay a very large premium to live on a street where nobody had children. But I try to be understanding because I know they need the space to play and explore and have fun, and living on a terraced street with no garden means that they will be playing directly outside my house. I'm not an ogre - I am v friendly about being run into with scooters, caught in water gun crossfire etc, always make sure we have sweets in at Halloween for them. But Christ I'd be mortified if I had children and they were disturbing the entire street for hours on end. Or maybe I wouldn't, who knows!?

AIBU to think you should tell your children to be quiet if they're being extra loud? Or am I being a clueless non-parent and this is the price you pay for living somewhere that isn't a smallholding in the middle of nowhere?

The problem is made harder by the noise level maybe not being as annoying for the parents. I do try to get my 2 to keep the noise down and bring them in if they are screaming but I probably let them get away with a level of noise others may find offensive if they are just playing....

No YANBU I would have told mine to stop and if they didn’t they’d be taken inside.
They need to consider others.

Can you chat to the mum and ask to keep it down a wee bit? Honestly, I'd say YABU if you've not expressed that it's a problem (giving that it's quite a nice Sunday afternoon). Maybe plug in some headphones or something like the mum, if you've asked and nothing's changed or it's just that irritating! x

sorry, *given whoops!

A level of noise is acceptable, but personally when my dc have friends over in the garden/ hot tub I cannot stand the screaming/ screeching etc. They're warned if they don't keep it down they'll be in, and most of they tine they can adjust. They're 7/8.

Unfortunately I think this is part and parcel of living in terraced houses. I couldn't get excited about it - children playing is less annoying (to me) than building work, late night parties, screaming arguments etc. Which are also pretty common when people are living on top of each other. Can't you just put some headphones on?

I've put headphones in now and hopefully it won't be too long before they're inside (they're only small - maybe between 5 and 8?). I also am being a wuss in that I wouldn't dare ask the mum to have a gentle word with them because she's terrifying and once shouted at our next door neighbour calling him a 'rude prick' for accidentally getting water on one of the kids when he was running next to the neighbour's car while he was washing it haha - she's not the most approachable!

I really don't want to be U - I know it's partly my problem (I am quite sensitive to noise anyway so I know my tolerance for this is quite low and that's my own issue, not theirs!), but given that a few other neighbours are also a bit eye-rolly about it I felt like maybe I wasn't being a drama queen. Maybe I'll start washing my car every time they get too loud ;)

(I should add: you can definitely still hear them through headphones! But it's less annoying. Funnily enough next door has been enthusiastically powertooling at all hours while they do their house up to sell and that doesn't annoy me half as much so maybe I'm just a joyless witch hahaha)

I think ‘normal kid noise’ shouldn’t be awfully excessive. Noise like bikes/scooters rattling, kids laughing or shouting to each other is fine. Screaming/roaring for three hours I wouldn’t be happy with. There’s no need and it’s not very fair for neighbours.

I'm a bit of a wuss when it comes to neighbours too, OP. You could always pop a letter through the door or something? Though if she's terrifying it might not be the best idea. I could suggest just popping past and saying "Can you keep it down a bit, kids?" But that has the risk of confrontation too.

Build an underground bunker, is my advice!

I tell mine they can make noise in a park, but not that loud (as in, deffo no fucking annoying roarung sounds etc) in our garden as otbhr people are trying to enjoy their gardens too.

I always tell my kids to reign it in, and tell them if they can’t, they will have to come inside. They can be loud. I also try and give the neighbours “breaks” by bringing them in.

Hahaha sharpie our old house actually had a boarded out cellar with electricity and it was PERFECT for noise cancelling - maybe we should move back...

Although the neighbours there were about 80 on each side, so there was much less noise and much more judgement about whether or not our hedge was the correct level of tidy hahaha!

@yelyah22 Alternatively go full on witch and lock them in the cellar . I'm joking of course!

Do you have a big strong scary man in tow who could ask her politely to keep it down? Might be a little regressive, but is also usually effective! x

I thought this forum was called 'mumsnet' because it is for parents?

I lived in a terraced house once similar to what you are describing. Our neighbour used to reverse down the road (it was a one way street) one lane only while chatting to his friends on his mobile phone.

I had a toddler then and it always terrified me for the kids sake, just in case one of them dashed in front of his car or something.

I spoke to the neighbour one day about it, and he refused to see he was doing anything wrong and became aggressive.

A couple of years later they had a baby themselves and his behaviour changed. Guess he gained some empathy.

I've heard kids 'roaring' before as you say in someone's garden. One time I made the assumption that they were deliberately being annoying. Then I found out that one had special needs and bounced up and down on trampoline roaring for a few hours and it helped him.

After that I had more empathy with the parent(s). Not saying this is the case, but with a small garden there may be limited opportunities for the kids to let off steam.

Call me tolerant but I would much rather they did that than shoplifting, doing drugs etc....

Just a personal view.

It's a common misconception that MN is for parents only. There are many users who have no children, whether because they're currently expecting, TTC, haven't been able to conceive, or because they don't wish to have children.

YANBU, OP. Frankly, what's "normal" for one person isn't for another. If it's loud enough and been going on long enough that you've seen multiple people on your street visibly annoyed, you're not over-reacting.

Strange how the frightening, unapproachable parents are so often the ones with children running amok, screaming, and/or terrorising the neighbourhood.

This is asked on every post by a non-parent @greengreengrass14 so I'll give the standard answer - this is just an interesting forum mainly used by women. I didn't realise you had to reproduce to be allowed in ;)

And I get being tolerant because you don't always know what's going on, hence why I haven't said "AIBU to attach water balloon missile launchers to the front of my house and fire them every time a child makes noise above above 10db"...

...but these are just noisy kids who are not often supervised in their playing in front of people's houses/around their cars and I think that, notwithstanding any other issues, if I were their mum I'd probably ask them to be a tiny bit quieter instead of jamming my headphones in and letting everyone else deal with it.

Like I said, I'm not an evil crone who would like to ban children and I get that living in close quarters with other people means you'll get noise, I was just a bit at the end of my tether with the mindless sreeching today. I get enough of that from my cats hahaha!

Also, while I would also rather they were not out drug dealing or whatever you said, I don't know many 5 year old drug dealers so I don't think those are the only options - ear splitting dinosaur noises or selling a bit of crack for pocket money

There are playing noises and there are screech and screaming noises. Our middle DC is a loud one and the neighbours are lovely about her (although usually laugh to themselves when she has loud meltdowns about things like not wanting to get older. I’m not sure I’d be as friendly as them if I was in their shoes. We do our best to keep the noise down and the kids are told if they don’t stop screeching or screaming they will have to come indoors. It’s not perfect but I’d expect that as a minimum.

Yeah that's kind of what I thought anothermother - you can't stop them screeching etc altogether, they're kids and god knows I was a loud child haha, but a gentle reminder occasionally would be the norm I'd imagine!

It'll be winter soon anyway, and they won't be outside for hours cos it'll be chucking it down here in Manchester as is our usual state of affairs between October - March, so I think I'll cope for a few more weeks haha :)

You are being extremely understanding OP frankly. I have two DC who are mildly obsessed with dinosaurs so I confess roaring competitions are quite regular in my house. Key point there...in my house (I have asked my neighbours if they can hear and no they can't....both sides have loud barking dogs whereas we have a silent dog and two short velociraptors). Outside though I do not allow them to do that and they know screeching is the fastest ticket inside ever.

I fully admit on occasion , because I am so used tot he dinosaur noise if I am in the kitchen or whatever it may take me a second to register it and tell them to knock it off if they are in the garden. If we are in the house I join in.

Look I love my two little velociraptors but noone else signed up for permanent Jurassic noises so I try to be considerate. No screeching , no roaring competitions in the garden or the street. I really don't think it takes a lot to keep DC in check , I mean honestly I am far far from mum of the year and my DC can be borderline feral lately so if I can make sure they aren't noisy then it can't be that hard. Ds1 is asd as well but , with the exception of an actual meltdown which mercifully seems less common in public these days, he still responds to some level of boundaries and I have absolutely in the past physically carried him in.

I think my DC have a right to play quietly outside and you have the same right to have a reasonable level of peace.

Pp there are no rules about having to be a parent on this site and think on ....there are people who are on this site with fertility challenges that would be very upset with your comment so might be worth being a bit more sensitive in your wording.

A limit? My neighbours would disagree🙄.

There is a huge bloody park over the road with two great kids playparks yet our neighbours prefer to have their children play in the street instead - running up and down the street screaming their heads off, screaming, screaming... thump, wahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

I have children and I find it fascinating how other people deal with their own children. I'm lucky as ours are rarely loud. Birthday parties and such I warn the neighbours and apologise in advance. Or in retrospect if we've had a bad day.

Today I was in the loo and heard a neighbour dad screaming, so i looked out of the window. His 8 year old son was dragging his 5 year old sister around who was shrieking. The Dad started to stamp his foot but did not intervene. The mother shrugged her shoulders and shuffled into the house giving baleful looks at the scene. I was really shocked. I'm not a large person but I would, personally, have split the fight and put the children in their rooms. Almost every day we have to listen to these children shrieking and the parents yelling but nobody does anything. Its infuriating. Its particularly sad as the same child (eldest of three) is the name yelled all the time. I think they are reenforcing him as the bad child and it exacerbates his poor behaviours. Literally from 6.30am most days "child's name, stop, no, behave, you are getting a punishment etc". Sometimes I step out and shout back "it's 6.30am behave YOURself" to the dad. The Dad has never had the eggs to speak about it to us. The 'naughty' child is NT btw. He seems utterly normal and decent everytime I've interacted with him. It's very sad.

We have big age gaps so never really had sibling rivalry, more things like stupid plots where furniture got broken or rooms got messed up, entire stocks of icecream eaten, internet fiddled with. Obviously we dealt with them.

Situations where little ones are hurting themselves or each other, or people around them are for me, a no go, we have to take control and protect our children and the people around us. YANBU!

@yelyah22 do you live on my road!? There is one child in particular who roars all the time, it drive us INSANE. I don't have children either - maybe we need to band together and form a street where there are no children, no scooters and no one is allowed to roar
Seriously though it is so annoying; parents seem to be deaf to the noises their offspring produce. Very irritating indeed.

@Shinyletsbebadguys you sound amazing; I wish my neighbours were this considerate. Mine just ignore their kids and let them run riot outside screaming their heads off

We had 4 Dc who were little at the same time, and a late one who is now 13. None of ours have ever been allowed to make a stupid amount of noise in the garden. Playing yes, but screaming, screeching and roaring no.

We've found that very few people seem to give us the same courtesy and we currently have 3 girls over the back from us who scream for hours every single time they are outside. The eldest looks about 11 yo so they aren't toddlers who don't understand. It is so rude of the parents to expect everyone else to put up with the racket, doubly so if they are putting on headphones and ignoring them.