What age should children stop screaming all the time - WFH

[Cgko]

WFH 6-7 times a fortnight. Never had a hybrid job before.

Yesterday afternoon after school there were 3 girls wearing academy uniform - year 7 onwards running around and screaming.

Plus a couple of families who have around 6 kids between them spend all the school holidays if it’s dry riding bikes outside my home screaming. I say the oldest child in that group is 9.

How do ask the children not to scream all the time?

I wear a headset for telephone calls and Teams. I don’t want to wear it all the time.

Travelling to the office is 18 miles away each way and on days I don’t have an allocated parking space. Let’s just say there are 100 more staff on the books, than parking bays. Obviously about half the staff walk, use PT or cycle and probably about at most 70% of staff are working in the office. it’s £7.50 to park. Travelling on public transport is £12 each day and need to leave home an hour earlier and get home an hour later compared to driving.

All that said you are choosing to WFH and I'd have much more sympathy for a shift worker or sahm trying to get a toddler to nap.

OP might have neighbours who are shiftworkers or sahm or at home for any other reason. They will also hear the screaming.

We used to have a screamer in my street. My elderly neighbour wore a hearing aid. He had to turn it off when the screamer was out in the street because he found it so painful.

I don’t think screaming is normal children playing noise. Laughter, loud talking, the odd excited shout- all absolutely fine. High-pitched screaming, nope. One of my DS’s friends loves a good scream, literally high pitched, full-throated ‘I’m being murdered’-style screaming. I just say my house is a no-screaming zone when she comes over as I’m not subjecting the neighbours to that, and she doesn’t do it. So I think kids just need to be firmly told.

As a retired teacher, I absolutely love hearing children playing out. We used to live near a school and a pub. Loved the playground noise but when there were family events at the pub the screaming from children was off the scale!
I used to think if there was someone in trouble nobody would bother to respond as screaming seems to be the norm now. I agree with PPs saying some children aren’t told to stop.
Can’t be good for their vocal cords either.
No guarantees of quiet for WFH I know but I’m sure the screaming hasn’t always gone on.

These threads when a number of posters respond by that's how kids are, they are allowed to enjoy themselves, they can't help it, it's good for them to let steam off, and the rest are evidence that many parents do genuinely believe that it's OK for their children to be pests and expect everyone else to tolerate them.

It was not normal residential noise when I was growing up in the 1960s. Any kid screaming or making a lot of noise right beside houses and flats would have been asking for trouble from any adult, whether from their own family, a neighbour, a passing police officer or a random stranger. For this reason, we mostly played elsewhere, entirely unsupervised, which few parents would allow now. I still don't recall prolonged screaming.

She's not asking for a quiet atmosphere, just an end to the bloodcurdling screeches some kids seem to think are funny.

I was a 70s child and kids were always getting told off by neighbours for screaming.

It worked for a few minutes until it didn’t.

There is no given age, because children should not be screaming all the time. I have 2 DC (late 20s,) and they never EVER did the ridiculous, shrill screaming that some kids do these days. Neither did I - or my brother or cousins. Or the vast majority of my friends. It's substandard parenting that causes this, as no parent should be allowing their children to scream needlessly for fuck-all. As has been said, no child past 2 or 3 should be doing this.

The only kids I know who do this (and there are a few) have parents who don't give a shiny shite about their kids behaviour. Kids are off out, on bikes, and at the park 10 minutes walk away from when they're about 5 or 6. Not their problem when they're out of sight. And when they're in the garden, the shrill LOUD screaming is off the scale. It's horrendous.

You can try talking to the parents about it, but don't expect them to get the child(ren) to stop. They will say they're just having fun, and are simply 'spirited' children. 🙄 Children playing and laughing and shouting now and again is normal residential noise. The shrill, loud, screaming, and squealing is not!

A friend of mine has a daughter who had to go to the local library to do her A level course work. Next door there were 2 kids (7 and 9 years old) who lived there, and 2 others who were the childrens mum's sister's (age 2 and 3) who were there at this house 4-5 days a week.

The 7 and 9 year old screamed when they were off school, and the other 2 were there screaming when the older ones were at school, some days all 4 of them would be in the garden, bouncing up and down on the trampoline, and SCREECHING, just blood curdling screams for NOTHING!!! My friend's daughter couldn't concentrate in anything. (There's always a trampoline somewhere around with this kind of behaviour from children isn't there?!)🙄

There were 2-4 screaming kids outside in the garden quite often. There was non stop loud intense screaming every day that it didn't rain. My friend ended up having to put her house up for sale about a year and a half after moving in, as she couldn't stand the screaming any longer. None of her family could!

Good luck @Cgko I don't envy you.

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Squealing and shrieking is different, that is very much part of normal play for 7 and 9 year olds.

Different to screaming.

If you know the school, you can judge or find out via its website and policies what their official view is about behaviour when in uniform but not at school. If they make a thing out of expecting standards when travelling to and from school, then contact them and make your views clear.

Given how some academies are zealots over minor things for what I think are insufficient reasons, at least you can try. Don't expect anything to come of it, if by chance it does, good.

Of course it is inadequate parenting that is the cause, though at least not the kind who never think their child does wrong and drive in a large SUV about half a mile to and from school.

Assuming it is screaming.

I live near a secondary school and they all still scream often and my favourite one is the constant high pitched screeching laugher they do 🙄

I have three kids and they are all very noisy in the garden. As soon as they step foot outside the volume increases.

I try to keep them quiet and they will but get progressively louder.

Once again, poor parenting

My neighbours children scream constantly in the summer and I just don’t use my garden now as it’s so fucking annoying. Hate wearing noise cancelling headphones when it’s hot!

At my last house there was a girl who did it all the time. One day it started and I ignored as usual until it sounded different. Stepped out the back door to check just as she fell out the upstairs window, landing on the patio and breaking both legs. If I wasn’t so used to the screaming I could have got there sooner and put something soft down maybe

My sisters and I were not allowed to scream. It is a distress call, which is why adults cannot just ignore it. It goes right through you - it's meant to. My girls were not allowed to scream. If they did, we stopped what we were doing and went home. If they were in the garden they came in. It is a godawful noise. Screaming is not a human right. Children do not have to do it.

I don’t understand the screaming, I didn’t and my kids didn’t.

Like a previous poster said, kids generally stop when asked. At my daughter’s primary school, if you go by around break time when staff are in charge you’ll hear lots of noise including many happy squeals. Screaming and screeching is shut down. If you go before or after school when the parents are in charge the noise is unbearable.

Maybe I shouldn’t be, but I’m still surprised that people allow their children to make that much noise right outside someone home.

You pick your poison in a residential area. My neighbours are all early retired types (not families with young kids) that constantly have tradespersons in doing work. New driveway, new fencing, new en-suite etc all with accompanying angle grinders/ radio/ drills. Yesterday it was felling a huge lime tree that took about 6 hours so it’s weekdays AND weekends. I work night shifts occasionally and it’s hell trying to sleep. Can you not just go into the office extra early?

There was a screamer living next door for a few years (luckily the family have moved out now). The little girl would screeeeeeeeeeeeeam at any opportunity, happy or sad, excited or bored. Parents seemed oblivious to the noise. They just pandered to her giving her more attention the louder she got.

There was no escape from the screams from the girl. Then the family added a trampoline in the garden. Next thing, they got a yappy, reactive sausage dog which barked every time I did some gardening. On top of that, both parents were heavy smokers. Argh!

The only time I heard screechy girl being told off for the noise was when she was playing with her older cousin. Heard him saying, "Stop screaming!" I wanted to give him a round of applause! She was quiet for a while but not for long!

I celebrated when the trampoline was taken down and the family plus screechy girl plus dog left! 🎉

Why are these children ‘screaming’? Are they happy screams? We don’t get screaming children round here so I can only really picture normal high jinx noise!

What is the screaming about? Weird!

I have DC and always try to be mindful of those who don’t like our NDN who are middle aged and never had kids. The other NDN has 2 DC a similar age to mine and hers make so much noise. It’s great they play out so much I guess but they’re really noisy kids and it does grate on me occasionally even. It’s the shrieking for me… I know I’m a bitch!

I also WFH a couple days a week so in the school holidays it can be super annoying. You can’t really do much about it though short of wearing ear plugs.

Surely it’s for a short period, when they walk home, so not all day?

I would be looking at your sound-proofing- I can generally block out a lot of noise when my windows are closed. Summer can be harder. My own children are frequently told they’ll be back inside if they screech- it does seem to be a thing kids do.

To answer your question, I don't think it's acceptable for year 7 pupils to be screaming. If my daughter had screamed at that age she'd have been firmly told that it was not ok. Toddlers scream. Primary school kids do. High school kids? There's no reason for it.

Well I know when my 14yo is back from school each day as he and his friends congregate outside the garden in the street and the girls squeal and laugh etc that he's with. That's life. They're young and enjoying life🤷‍♀️