Advice please - shrieking getting me down!

[Gilli]

My No4 (dd2) is 17 months, and has just started a terrible habit of shrieking at the top of her voice. She seems to do it when she's cross, when she wants something, when she doesn't want something, when she doesn't want handling (i.e facewiping, hairbrushing etc)and when she wants attention. It's driving me mad, and I have tried ignoring it, saying 'no', saying 'shush' and other equally ineffective ideas. None of the others did this, and she's the first one I've been at home all the time with, and I keep thinking it must be something I'm doing wrong. Anyone else had this problem?

just a thought - your household is probably quite a noisy place with 4 kids so maybe she thinks the only way to get herself heard is to shriek? To her it's probably no worse than the sound generated by all the others talking...I only have two kids but the older one never stops talking and the younger one has learnt to just talk more loudly and more quickly than him (she is in fact the only one of us able to get a word in edgeways!) as she is pretty assertive. Before she could speak she used to shriek, cry or squawk to get attention as he was constantly chattering and in retrospect it invariably worked as we couldn't stand the noise, so maybe the answer is not to give her attention when she does it if you possicly can, but maybe to walk out of the room and count to fifty? Good luck...

Myy dd now 22months shrieks and has done since she found her voice! Everyone tells me it's a girl thing. Have you got any other girls that can disprove this theory?

probably just because she can't communicate very well yet. My 4 year old non-verbal autistic ds1 shrieks a lot. If its just a complaint (actually he's doing it now becuase the adverts are on) then I tend to ignore it or just say something like "it's the adverts" and leave it at that. If it's because he wants something I tell him to "show mummy". And if it all gets too much and I feel myself getting wound up then I leave the room, and go back after a couple of minutes.

I heard DD's nursery teacher yesterday afternoon calmly telling a couple of shriekers in the classroom: "Inside voices, please." Amazingly, they just started speaking quietly. Of course it could have been that she was the teacher - probably wouldn't work for me. Mine shrieks constantly. AAARRRGGGH!

My pal in America told me about some theory which supposedly gets little ones to quieten down. Very simple, but effective - you quietly (but audibly) repeat their name over and over again. Obviously only really works if child having prolonged screaming/crying episode. I tried it with my son and it did seem to work. I still have to get it to work on my husband though....... :0

My ds (just turned 2) is also a no.4 and definitely the noisiest of the family. If he gets too noisy I put him in the loungs (it's got a gate on) and retreat to my kitchen/sanctuary.

Oh how I wish someone had a solution to this. DD has recently developed into the most awful shrieker. I am assuming it is because she isn't able to talk and it is a mixture of frustration and an attempt at communicating. It is making social occassions very difficult as it really is ear splitting. I tried Jampot's suggestion earlier and while she stared me at in fascinated silence as I repeated her name, as soon as I stopped she started shrieking again at an increased volume. Ho hum.

Oh how I wish someone had a solution to this. DD has recently developed into the most awful shrieker. I am assuming it is because she isn't able to talk and it is a mixture of frustration and an attempt at communicating. It is making social occassions very difficult as it really is ear splitting. I tried Jampot's suggestion earlier and while she stared me at in fascinated silence as I repeated her name, as soon as I stopped she started shrieking again at an increased volume. Ho hum.

I don't think its just a girl thing. DS1 (nearly three) has just discovered the joys of shrieking. He doesn't do it all the time, but when he gets going its just terrible and seems to last a lifetime (I think its probably about 5 minutes at a time.) Yesterday my neighbour (we live in Malaysia, where people are a lot less reserved than in England) came over and asked if I was beating him.....