To ask to stop your children ‘play’ screaming?

[JediKnightingale]

I live in a cul de sac where we have around six families with small children (weirdly, all girls - not relevant I know) that range from ages 2 - 7. They all walk to school together with parents and at home time they congregate in the middle of the close. Mums chatting and the entire gaggle of tiny noise machines run around screaming for absolutely no reason for about 30/45 mins depending on the weather. During the holidays or at weekends they can be out there for hours at a time.

I and quite a few others work from home in our road - my home office is in the front part of my house and I literally cannot take or make phone calls due to the racket. Normal play noise is absolutely fine but WHY do parents put up with this stupid screaming? When my 3 were small I would never have allowed it but it doesn’t seem to even register with these parents.

Do you let your children play scream and if so would you be put out if you were asked (nicely) if they could play WITHOUT THE SCREAMS?

I'm completely with you OP. In the Summer holidays the kids in my road are out playing from 10 in the morning until 9 or 10 at night. The groups change and they're in and out, but someone is always screaming. I teach online and it's really stressful having to listen to screaming for 12 hours.

Speaking as a fellow remote worker, your inability to take phone calls is a you problem.

YANBU. I live next door to a screamer and we have very thin walls. We tried to move house as it's doing our head in but the market is really slow so we gave up. I now just wear noise cancelling headphones whenever she's in the house (4yo, rarely at nursery, screams for every emotion, has been screaming every day since she was born).

Screaming is unnecessary. Things like a warm-up in Reception PE or a school disco bring out the screamers but I stop them all, tell them that's not what we do and they stop. I don't let my own children scream and shriek in the garden either. You can have fun without it being painful for others to listen to!

This. I don't love my kids running around and screaming but they are children and they are outside and when they are outside they get to run around and play with their friends and for whatever reason laughing and letting out screams as they run is what they do on occasion. We expect respectful behaviour when we are indoors in a public space but children should be allowed to let energy out when they are outdoors and frankly, children should be spending as much time outdoors as possible.

You should look at why you are hearing so much outdoor noise inside and remedy that, or move your office to a different part of the house.

YANBU at all. Drives me insane - I had a rule with DD that unless there was a serious scream worthy emergency that it was absolutely unacceptable behaviour

I agree OP! I can't stand it when kids scream when playing, it's so unnecessary. Laughing, talking etc all fine, but the screams... I always said to mine to stop it, as no one wants to hear that (including me!).

They should all have a lesson involving reading "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" - because if something nasty was actually happening to them (kidnapped, fallen down a well aka hurt in an accident, eaten by wolves.....) no one would run to help.

"Letting off energy" and "not screaming" are totally compatible. Running around, shouting, laughing, fine. Screaming is not (unless there is severe disability involved).

Kids enjoy doing plenty of things that they shouldn’t do - that doesn’t make it right or ok.

The high pitched screaming is awful. There's no need for it. Ruins any enjoyment you have going into the garden. General loud noise from kids I can cope with. Nice to see them happy and enjoying themselves.

Near my house there is a long back garden that ends about 8m from the front of my house. At the bottom of that garden is a giant enclosed trampoline. Every single dry day after school, and longer on school holidays, there are girls on the trampoline screaming. It's more than normal excitement, it's like one of them decides to express her enjoyment by screaming loudly instead of laughing and the other joins in.

I keep thinking she will grow out of it but it's been quite a few years now and she looks about 12 and no sign of stopping.

Today they have a much younger child also on the trampoline. I hope this child is not being inducted in how to scream.

When I take calls at this time of day people can hear it and it affects my concentration.

In fairness that trampoline is probably the best investment that mother ever made. She gets to spend several hours a day not having to have her screamer kids indoors!

My son is autistic and verbal stims a lot. He has very low comprehension and wouldn't remotely understand me trying to stop him. Trying to get him to be quieter is impossible. I remove him from the situation but again, he wouldn't correlate that's because he was making a noise. I appreciate this isn't the case for all parents but for us it's really challenging and draining.

YANBU. Having done a Sainsbury’s shop to the accompaniment of piercing screams from two girls of about four and six, I feel your pain. Unfortunately they reached the checkouts the same time as I did and carried on screaming. I tried to quell the older one with a ‘teacher’ stare but she looked me in the eye and carried on. Mother ignored them.

Just to add that this goes on for 2-3 hours a day

Ah is that the issue?

My kids get told off every time they scream. Laughing and being loud and having fun is fine, that awful screaming is not. Same at softplay.

I hate to say it, but it's nearly always girls that do it, seems like a learned behaviour to me. Not necessary

Kids should be allowed to play out during the day making harmless noise.

It's not always harmless noise, though. My elderly neighbour wore a hearing aid and he couldn't tolerate the noise through the hearing aid when a couple of children used to regularly scream in the street outside. He had to turn his hearing aid off, which meant he couldn't hear his wife speaking to him or watch television.

people didn’t work from home and we didn’t restrict 2 years of children’s lives away from socialising etc ‘back in my day’ either.

i hate screaming kids as well, it’s piercing but you can’t change society/generations without a bit of kick back.

YANBU. I can’t stand it. Told a (9 year old) girl at my DC’s school to quit it and that it was unacceptable after she made my eardrum ring (squealing at pick up time).

Totally agree with op

Any screaming from my two and they are told

I cannot bear screaming children

Oh dear my happy screamer is 26 now and a totally sensible young woman. They grow out of it. Never once crossed my mind to curb the kids excited noise whilst playing. Maybe that’s why our garden was a popular meeting place.

Move your office to a different part of your house if you are that bothered.

Told a (9 year old) girl at my DC’s school to quit it and that it was unacceptable

^

We need more of this.

Scream back out the front door SHUT THE FUCK UP YOU LITTLE SHITS!!
Bet they’ll stop congregating there 😁

YABVU.

You can, and should, either move to a rear part of the house for that short part of the day, schedule your calls in all the other hours of the working day, or get yourself an appropriate set-up with noise-cancelling earphones for your benefit, and the type of microphone that is designed to be used in call centres so that your voice is clear but the background noise can barely be heard, for the client's benefit.

If you require absolute quiet for phone calls all day that can't be solved in this way, your job shouldn't be offered as WFH, and you should be in an office that facilitates that.