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?

They are forced to stay still, keep quiet all day at school and at home unless they live in a detached. Some kids are more screamy than others and need to have sometime when they aren’t being shhh’d. FWIW one of mine was screamy and no amount of telling them not to helped. They just did it when they were running around, I’m not a soft parent either.

Every single one of you would have screamed/ shouted whilst playing outside as children. Regardless of what your parents said.

Extended screaming matches definitely not OK. But releasing energy viscerally, shrieking or shouting while running is one of the joys of childhood.

3 doors to the right of me there is a family with 3 children. Play outside lots, lovely to hear.

3 doors to the left of me is a family with 2 children. They would scream from first thing in the morning to last thing at night. Genuinely unpleasant to be outside, on top dad shouted at the top of his voice non stop about their play ‘pass them the ball, now back again, go get the ball’ Now they are 15/12 they have generally stopped. But my friend lives next door and says it’s indoors still from 6am-11pm. Some people have zero regard.

when I was a kid, if we got too loud we would be told to ‘pipe down’, it’s normal to be taught to be respectful of the neighbours.

Screaming is for when you're in peril, just saying.

We have a family near us whose children could be in real danger for all I know!

I have noticed a lot more screaming going on in the last couple of years. Even my DH has noticed and he's not normally aware of stuff like that! We've both said to each other "What the hell is it with kids screaming these days?"
I never screamed, even playing tag as a kid. Nobody did! It goes right through you.
To me, that's not normal playing!
We went for a pub meal a couple of months ago, there was quite a large family in, with grandparents, siblings etc and a few kids. A couple of them, possibly 6 or 7 year olds, were tearing round the pub, just screaming. And not one of the adults pulled them up, even though they were doing screaming circuits past their table! If we hadn't ordered already, we'd have left.

There is a huuuuge difference between shouting and screaming at play.

And as a veteran of many, many playground duties, screaming was absolutely stamped on.

Laughing and shouting - lovely

Have to admit, mine doesn't full on scream, so I'll just pray that he doesn't start😂

And let adults be adults in the summer when they are having bbq’s and parties in the garden when these kids that are being kids are trying to sleep

With added loud swearing, drinking, smoking and music (added bonus for sweary lyrics).

I'm sick of these parents who think the world revolves around their badly behaved and poor parented kids.

One day a little girl is going to scream because she is being attacked and because everyone is used to kids screaming now as part of play then she is going to be ignored. Think about that next time your kids are screeching and disturbing adults.

In the meantime I'm looking forward to loud, late nights of partying in my garden and to fuck with any neighbours kids sleep

There is no need for them to be screaming.

I don’t think they should scream but one of the down sides of wfh is that you are working in a residential, non-office environment and there will be domestic noise.

Sadly a lot of people don't really care about other people much. They allow their children to scream loudly, bounce balls against other people's houses (and cars sometimes), play in other gardens, etc with no care as to who they may be disturbing.

See also the current threads about people who think they are entitled to feed other people's animals and encroach on other people's land.

I swapped my windows for extra sound proofing & now I don’t hear a thing if they’re shut. Could you invest in really good double glazing ?

Yeah it sounds pretty annoying. Why are they screaming ?

I always told mine to stop screaming but wasn’t so bothered when they were out in the garden during day time hours. They have to let off some steam. I’m sure you probably screamed when you were a child too but I agree it’s bloody annoying!

Kids can be loud. ZERO need for screaming. I cannot understand parents who allow such inconsiderate noise. I've watched it happen and I don't understand how oblivious parents can be to their own children

Yes I did. Once. My mother was straight outside, told me off, and took me back indoors.

YABU. Totally acceptable and normal in the middle of the day. Kids are noisy.

I'm kind of at the point where I'm glad to hear kids are playing outside instead of on tablets. Sad but true.

Omg. I'm so with you.

I don't WFH, but all of summer is perpetual screaming in the street by the kids. When one fell and really hurt themselves last year none of us (I don't have kids but we're a nice little community here and I was in the garden) noticed because the screaming is always there.

Loudness is understandable. They're kids.
Screaming is inconsiderate and I used to tell mine to stop it.

🙄