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?

Kids when they play together get progressively louder and in my experience there is nothing you can do about it. If you tell them to quieten down, minutes later they are back to the same volume. I guess the parents think, as they are outside playing its fine.
Do not believe for a second your kids weren't loud when running around outside playing! Especially if they were with other children.

It's pretty antisocial to let a bunch of children scream for so long.

They need to be taught that they live in a fairly densely populated country and they need to be mindful that there are lots of other people nearby who don't deserve to hear them scream like this.

Poor parenting. Bringing up kids who think they are the centre of the universe and can do as they please with no regard for anyone else.

Anyway, my ds is a gamer and says that you can get noise cancelling headphones with a microphone that will filter out sounds other than your voice. Perhaps they might be a worthwhile investment for you OP.

Same with our son. We bring him in usually but when it’s a weekend and I hear other children playing from four/five houses down, I leave him to it.

I had neighbours with 2 girls that used to do this, irritating as hell..tried my best to ignore it and grit my teeth best I could but I thought the little gets were going to crack me. One day when they were being particularly irritating, I heard a neighbour shout to them "would you just shut the hell up" - it did work, and it was nice to know it wasn't just me that couldn't stand their incessant screaming 😂

So you are ok with shouting, balls being kicked, running around.... calling out to each other, singing etc?

Next door scream so loudly all day in summer my garden isn't usable and I can't have the windows open
And yes it genuinely is on and off all day, sometimes up until 10pm

Oh god let them play

As a child I used to get in big trouble from my Dad for screaming unnecessarily. His argument was always, ' If you scream for no reason how will anyone know when you really need help'.

I always think of that when a murder has been reported and screams were heard but just ignored by the witnesses thinking it's people (generally women and girls) messing around.

There is absolutely no need to scream for no reason.

Kids are capable of enjoying playing without constantly squealing. And parents should be capable of teaching kids about consideration for others

I wonder as parents we almost don't hear how noisy and annoying our own kids are but find others noisy and annoying.

I have a friend with kids in teens now but she's always complaining about other parents letting there kids scream and just generally noisy. She will say she never let her dc scream etc

He dc were very noisy and both would scream and never knew gow to talk normally juat scream at eachother.

Just a thought

Me too 😂 it just wasn't allowed. It's a horrificly irritating noise by design, definitely only should be used in emergencies!

Kids playing outside make noise shock.

OP I could have written your exact post. In the summer and school holidays it was also from 8am to 10pm with some older girls who were 7-11 years old. I counted 13 screaming outside my house one day.

I moved house. Hoping that my first summer in my new home will be a bit more peaceful.

I am 56 and, as a child, my mum would never allow me to scream, so the irritation of hearing children scream is nothing new! If I did, in play, I was told, in no uncertain terms, that it was not acceptable and you only scream in an emergency or if you are genuinely hurt.
I carried that rule forward with my 2 daughters. They knew that screaming was unnecessary and 'not the done thing' and, so, they never did it.
They are both now in their mid-20's, no children yet, but they cannot tolerate screaming children so I feel sure that the rule will continue!
@OhmygodDont has nailed it...bring the children in if they insist upon screaming. They will soon learn!
And yes, it is anti-social!!

My DC always had to come in if they were screaming. Didn’t take them long to work out how to be able to play outside.

I wonder if you live on my street as we have the same shrieking on the trampoline a couple of doors down. I really like hearing children play - laughing, singing, even shouting all fine and really nice to hear but that high pitched screaming and shrieking is so unnecessary and unpleasant. I can't hear it when I work from home, but it really does spoil my enjoyment of my garden. It's impossible to sit out with a book on a sunny day without getting your eardrums ruptured!

these kids range in age. I think it’s reasonable to expect parents to try to stop a 7 year old screaming but a 2 year old is a different proposition. Mine are 6 and 4 and I have a rule they come straight inside if they scream but when they were 2/3 they wouldn’t have understood that.

It's only for 45 mins?

Totally agree that there's no way to stop a toddler from shouting at the least convenient moments!

But I'm assuming that if he was constantly shouting, you wouldn't stay in the same spot outside someone's house or the café or wherever else you might, or you'd at least try to distract him.

These girls are much older and could definitely stop squealing. And parents should be intervening.

I've noticed it increase in older girls at school.

I try and rationalise it that they're confined so much, in cramped accommodation, at home where parents are working, in classes, high pressure schooling thanks to the government's policies, and add in a couple of Covid years when they weren't allowed out to play, to sing or to do much of anything at all and the usual female socialisation of be quiet, sit still, don't stand out, don't run around or play football like a boy, be a nice, quiet girl, etc, etc, that they're getting out a whole load of stress once they're outside and sticking two fingers up at the Patriarchy whilst they're at it.

And noise cancelling headphones really help.

Why don’t we stand outside your house and scream for 45 minutes?
I get it OP. Hearing children play is lovely but incessant screaming is not.

There's a difference between needing silence and being at all able to talk on the phone.

If someone can't make a phone call indoors the person outdoors is making far too much noise. Very different from a little background noise here and there.

It's at home time.... in the middle of the close.....for 35/40 minutes

The mums are just chatting.

I used to tell my children that if they screamed they’d have to come inside where they weren’t allowed to do it either.
I find it odd that so many parents don’t seem to mind. Maybe they filter it better than I do!
Noise of children playing and having fun is great, but high pitched screaming doesn’t seem great for anyone.

We have children near us who scream incessantly in summer. I have no problems with children playing, calling or footballs coming over.Children need to play outdoors.But I cant stand the screaming.
Last autumn I went and said, “Stop screaming, there’s no need to scream, you can play and have fun without screaming.” It worked for a while.I shall do it again if needs be, or perhaps I will scream back every time they do🤣.