Kids screaming in garden next door!

[WorkHardPlayHard1]

So for the 5th time this Spring/Summer, the kids next door are playing happily and very loudly in the garden next door directly into the open door of my kitchen.

I really like the adult neighbours (their parents) and really don't want to fall out with then.

Any suggestions of how to approach this as can't bear the idea of a full Summer of screeching kids! They are 10 and 7! 😬

If it wasn't for this family being mainly girls, I'd think you may have lived near one set of my ILS.

They didn't have a year-round bouncy castle (just 3 months one year, so it could be used for 2 of their children's birthday parties), but a lot of the rest applies. They had a house in a 0.5 acre plot on the edge of a village, but on a quiet day you could hear the screaming on the other side of the village. They also had very bright garden lighting so that they could play outside until late in the evening. But they were "just being children", and ILs wouldn't make any effort to get them to quieten down, even when the vicar approached them because the noise was disturbing weddings and funerals. Any suggestion from the family that they might actually be incredibly noisy and that their neighbours might have a point is dismissed out of hand.

They pissed off so many people that when their kids started at the village school, they rarely got invited to play dates and few kids accepted their invitations, and there was such a lot of opposition to their extension proposals that it took several years and a huge amount of money before they finally got planning permission.

They moved from there 8 years ago, but still go on about how vile that village is, and how vindictive, unfriendly and up themselves the people are. They are utterly lacking in self-awareness and consideration for others.

And this sums up the attitude of selfish neighbours. It's my house, my garden, so to hell with everyone living around. I'll do what I like.

We have screamy children next door. I haven't said anything as their Mum is very nice and they are genuinely lovely, polite and friendly children. They just get carried away when playing and are prone to absolutely ear-splitting shrieking (which you can hear through closed windows). As in, help-I'm-being-murdered type screaming.

However we have grinned and bore it because she is otherwise a very good neighbour and with each year that passes, the kids get a little less deafening! I like hearing them playing, it would be lovely if it could be without screaming. But it won't be forever.

Have you tried closing the kitchen door? 😬

I am slightly bemused by all the instructions to move.

You have to love MN and its extremes.

Any thread asking about luxury holidays, or spending a bonus on a nice handbag, is met by torrents of criticism about tone-deafness during a cost of living crisis etc.

Yet people are also simultaneously expected to have the means to be able to up and move to a detached house in acres of rural landscape with no immediate neighbours.

Where is the posts about people moaning about kids PLAYING and making noise in their own garden? I can't see any. Do you mean the people talking about kids screeching? How is that playing? People like you seem to forget that most of us are parents who take responsibility for our kids and teach them how to respect people's spaces. Then there's the likes of you...

I have never allowed my children to screech in the garden. We live in a terrace and others want to enjoy the nice weather w/o my own children dominating the airwaves. It's just consideration. I'm not talking about playing and laughing, but screaming and shouting.

We had a party at my sister's house a few weeks ago. There were 6 kids. We all had fun on the swing ball, the trampoline, football etc, but 2 of the crowd were just too loud and their parents didn't do anything.

Well said!

Kids that age can play without screaming. Mine like to make a lot of noise but pipe down if i remember to tell them.

I wouldn't mind a neighbour saying something nice to them about not needing to scream when out in the garden.

My kids are now all grown up... next door has quite young kids (6 through to 12) and I like hearing them in the garden. I can see that long term screaming might get a bit on the nerves but generally I think it is a nice thing to hear kids playing in the garden and I am very happy to send the balls back when they come over. As an "empty nester" be aware that sometime soon you will have silence. I do not like silence.

Why should my kids’ enjoyment impact others negatively though? It isn’t me doing me, it’s my family slotting into a civilised society and my children understanding that their enjoyment shouldn’t be at the expense of others.

We do actually have neighbours who don’t like the sound of kids playing. Unluckily for them, they live in a suburban area surrounded by families - who are all very considerate might I add. As long as my kids aren’t screeching, screaming and banging a ball constantly, my view is they should suck it up somewhat. I think that is a very balanced view. If they want silence then they are in the wrong area, and in fact I would argue their constant pressure washing and leaf blowing is probably more anti social (and worse for the environment).

A PP said re her children she “encourages them to laugh as loud as possible” Why? Just to be extra annoying and fuck everyone else? Kids need to be aware of their neighbours and to acknowledge the world doesn’t revolve around them. They need to be told to pipe down. I honestly don’t know who people think they are and why the fuck do the parents themselves want to hear it all. Bizarre

You're speaking completely hyperbolically about children playing. It's not anti social behaviour, it's not illegal, it's not anything out of the ordinary. It is far more selfish to expect everyone surrounding you in life to occupy absolutely no space in the world so that you do not feel their presence. It's as much the children's neighbourhood, space and world as it is yours darling.

I am responding to your comment that children can do what they like at 11 am in their own garden. Children screeching for long periods of time may not be illegal but damn sure it's anti social and their parents need to intervene.
Not sure where the hyperbole comes in. Are you sure you have the correct word?

Ok so what would you do if you were this parent then, genuinely open to opinions on this…
boys of 3 and 6 years old, eldest has ASD both are loud kids, they talk loudly, cough loudly basically they are just loud voices. (Youngest is NT but has learnt how to talk this way because of big brother being with him 24/7 in lockdown as he was at the age of learning to talk basically!) Whenever they play they chatter to themselves and each other off an on and it’s quite loud, not shouting but loud speaking and if in the garden I tell them every 3/4 mins as the volume rises to keep it down and this pattern repeats the entire time they play out. I feel I have to but they get upset as they feel as though being told off continuously just for playing and using their normal voices which happen to be loud! Their dad and Nana are also on the spectrum and loud people so we try but I’m sure our neighbours hate us when they are in the garden but it it what it is. If I don’t intervene the volume just stays the same but they never stay quiet more than 2/3 mins before they rise up again so sometimes I feel like there’s no point and just to leave them be, they are never outside before 9am or after 7pm though as they go to bed at 7pm.

I agree with this. Children out playing during the day and making normal level noise with the occasional shriek is fine. But children screaming constantly, kicking balls up against neighbours walls over and over, or still out making noise late at night is annoying and inconsiderate.

What's ironic is that many parents of those' children are just children' and outraged that others might complain at the unpleasantness of the noise their kids make are often those who send their kids in the back garden for hours whilst they hide in the front room for a bit of peace and quiet!

It is far more selfish to expect everyone surrounding you in life to occupy absolutely no space in the world so that you do not feel their presence. It's as much the children's neighbourhood, space and world as it is yours darling

Oh the irony.

When my kids were little, I would always tell them if their noise levels went up. I didn’t want to listen to screeching any more than my neighbours.

Playing noise is fine, screeching is just awful.

Sadly, your neighbours might be oblivious or selfish or twats.

Why do people insist that children don't screech and scream?

Some really do - our previous set of small boy and slightly less small girl neighbours, the girl would scream, over and over. Proper ear bleeding, blood curdling, 'i am being murdered' top of her lungs screaming/screeching to see how loud she could do it (I assume).

Ten times worse when her girl cousins were round as they would then compete (yep, 'I know, lets see who can scream loudest'... 'ooh, I can scream for longer, lets see how long we can scream for'...)

More tantrums and dramatics if she was playing with her brother, either because he'd got what she wanted or from him, because she'd pushed him over/thumped him etc - slightly less irritating.

Possibly worse was the over loud performative parenting from Dad, who only had one game.. football, where he would shout GOAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLL over... and over... and over...and over...

And they were outside ALL the time, unless it was absolutely heaving down, they were outside (because as I finally found out, if kept in they broke stuff. Multiple TV's, mirrors, windows, household stuff..) Even when it was damp and freezing cold, they'd be out.

It can be horrible to live next to, particularly in my case where I work from my dining room next to the patio doors, need the doors open in summer or we'll all melt and I cannot work elsewhere or out of the house.

I understand tolerating normal day to day noise - right now I can hear the other next door telling her relatives a tale of what happened today - I now know this tale off by heart pretty much as shes told it to four other relatives over the phone already (not hyperbole at all!). I can hear someone revving a twat-car over the back in the new build estate, at least two people have music going, someone else is mowing their lawn...

And the former neighbours now live half a street away and I can STILL HEAR DAD AND THE KIDS right now (albeit, if the wind direction changes it'll be a lot fainter... fortunately!).

Indeed. We’ve got a weekend dad where we live. The mother drops them off on a Friday and basically we “have them” all weekend running round throwing stuff everywhere in the street whilst he’s indoors.

I just yelled over the fence at my neighbours screaming kids to shut it, used their names , and they did. They can laugh and carry on as much as they like, but standing on the trampoline screaming, no. It's fine, just yell. It's language they understand.

Well op kids are kids, the weather is beautiful, it's healthy to be outside.

Did you not play outside as a kid?

Read the full thread?
Yes, I played outside as a child. If I screamed, a parent would come out and say "scream once more and you'll be inside, you're annoying the neighbours and me"....

Yes my last house was like that. 6 kids next door shrieking from dawn until dusk. I loathed the little shits.
Parents couldn't care less and they were constantly after their sodding ball.
I moved far far away and my new house is a row of four with elderly people only no kids.
Its absolute bliss. My previous house was supposed to be my happy ever after home but they basically shoved me out.