Screaming Child (ASD)

[BlackBean2023]

I feel I ABU but honestly, it’s driving me potty.

we have neighbours who have moved in three doors away who have a child of about 7 who I believe is ASD. He loves being in the garden and jumping on his trampoline - if it’s not raining, he’s bouncing!

however he is also almost constantly stimming vocally and it sounds like a constant scream. I’m not exaggerating when I say constant. It’s stopping us enjoying our garden, I can’t work from home with the back doors open as it can be heard on a teams call it’s so loud.

I know there’s nothing I can do, and I should think of his parents, but I miss the quiet calm of my garden in the sunshine

I'm fairly convinced our NDN's little boy who is 3 maybe 4 is ND. The noise he makes outside is just awful - I'm hypersensitive to noise and it makes me feel horrible. It's every evening and all weekend - we've had a lovely patio laid, spent a small fortune on new garden furniture and we can rarely use it.

We had visitors yesterday, and had to come inside as it was so bad. I am seriously considering a council report now as it's just too much. Their child's SEN doesn't trump our right to peace in our own garden.

You are so kind and understanding, but just be careful of your mental health. This sort of thing would drive a lot of people to distraction.
His needs don’t trump everyone else’s.

If that child is disabled and the noise is a direct consequence of that disability, their right to make noise does trump your right to quiet in your garden. If it is disability related and the child can't help it or needs to do it. The council cannot do anything. If they did it would likely be direct disability discrimination.

SEN and disability are not the same.

If it's bad for the neighbours a bit of sympathy for the parent wouldn't hurt. And solutions might be more helpful than bitching or being snide about it.

They've got to live somewhere.

So what's the solution??

Op plays System of a Down at 5am perhaps..... Because of course she's autistic/ASD/ADHD/ insert accordingly etc etc et and that's how she 'regulates'.

But no.

No, because we live in a civilised (or we used to?) society where we respect each other.

And no doubt someone will leap on saying oh, it's a CHILD making the noise.... But guess what?? That child will become an adult.

A lot of posters seem to think this a typical child making noise on purpose. ASD has become such a wide spectrum that many consider it meaningless - but if the child does have a severe mental condition then it needs to be looked at from that point of view not as if the parents could cure the disability if they really wanted to. Complaining to the council will not help anyone as they cannot cure disability either.

Please talk to the parents first

Is he not at school most of the day?

Yeah my severley disabled child will becone a seveley disabled adult
Abd your right we live in a civilised society and autistic children and adilts ,thats autism in all of its prsentations are a part of that society .

My son who is a teenager with non verbal autism and a severe learning disability, cannot cope with screaming and will self injure if someone does it persistently. He also sometimes makes loud stimming noises himself although not screaming.

We have always used give and take so if he has been noisy for a while, I bring him in for a while to give neighbours a break. It isn't reasonable to have someone screaming for hours on end outside and parents do need to manage this.

I really find it hard to understand why we never had children behaving like this when I was a child. You never heard them screaming, crying, bouncing on a bloody trampoline or anything but happy playing and laughing. How come SO many modern kids seem to have so much wrong with them?

Horrendous - I can only offer my sympathies. My current neighbour child screams like a banshee every second he isn't at prep school but luckily we live in a well-soundproofed new build block. My previous flat was a rickety ex-council flat above an even screamier child who screamed day and night, with their being so little soundproofing that it sounded like he was in the next room! I can't imagine the parents enjoy it very much either. Nonetheless, the parents really should figure out a way to mitigate it a bit for neighbours' sake.

They were probably screaming in an institution instead. Ah, the good old days!

Mines the same ,he doesnt like loud noises be can be extremely
loud himself.

But they could support him to find a way to regulate that doesn’t impact others? Not all the time, but sometimes. What if the other people also have their own needs? Some people are severely affected by noise (in fact a relative of mine has a neurological condition where she has seizures when it’s loud, but some people find it anxiety inducing or overstimulating).

I think letting the parents know that you are impacted is fair. They can do what they will with that information.

At 7, I imagine they have already tried that. They likely don't enjoy the noise any more than OP.

What if the neighbours are also autistic/WFH? Not even a whataboutism - I am/do both (and I know there's the Autism No True Scotsman Fallacy whereby any verbal adult with a job isn't autistic enough to have an opinion, but I rebuke it 😁)

Bullying disabled people into just going and hiding themselves away!
It scares me that you people walk amongst us.

Unfortunately lots of LD&A people are still warehoused in unsuitable institutional settings - very much not a thing of the past

Many families of disabled children have one patent who is unable to work because of all the extra support needed.
A house with no neighbours is likely unaffordable. They would probably love to be able to do this if it were within their means.

Unfortunately being well-informed about, and really understanding of, LD&A doesn't make someone able to tolerate incessant screaming - it's absolutely torturous.

Yeh but it isn’t a ‘we’ve already tried’ situation. It’s about trying other things - he likes bouncing, there are other ways to get that kind of sensory feedback. They’ve given him a trampoline, therefore this is under their control. They don’t get to decide that the noise is worth it for everyone.

Of course it is. Do you really think they've only tried the trampoline and nothing else in 7 years? They have likely decided that the trampoline works best to get the sensory feedback he needs.

What other ways would you suggest that you think they haven't tried?

I couldn’t cope with that noise and my dd who is autistic would have to leave my house if there was that kind of noise, very sensitive hearing. One person’s disability doesn’t trump everyone else’s right to enjoy their home. Keep a diary and after a week or so, potentially in conjunction with neighbours politely approach the parents explaining you cannot cope with the extreme levels of noise, that do understand that their child has a disability but could they please reduce the number of hours in total and also avoid extended periods in a row. If the reaction isn’t one of understanding despite being understanding and polite, then the council is your only redress