Need advice on loud child!

[SophieB0012]

I just wondered if anyone has ever found the volume button on their child??

I have a wonderful 6 year old DD. Shes fun, kind, thoughtful and generally very well behaved especially at school. My only issue is her volume. She talks a LOT - and when I say a lot I mean pretty much from the moment she wakes up until the moment she goes to sleep. There is always lots of things going through her little head which she likes to verbalise no matter the situation and she has absolutely zero awareness of how loud she is. If she's playing with her brother she shouts and screams and laughs all at the top of her voice. If she's playing by herself it's the same. In fact it's pretty much the same whatever she is doing.

I feel guilty even writing this as I should feel so lucky to have such a happy girl but this is where the problem comes from. I don't want to stifle her. I don't want her to think me and my DH are trying to dampen her personality or make her feel embarrassed but there are times when we have to tell her to quieten down and she just does not get the message. Bath time and bed time are the worst - we have a house behind us with a young baby who I know have trouble getting it to sleep as I've heard the crying and no matter how many times I ask her to quieten down she just forgets within seconds. At bedtime when we tell her it's time to start winding down again within seconds she's loud again. My husband also WFM so there are times she has to be quiet if he's on a call etc and it's the same then.

Now I'm actually trying to put it in to words it's hard to explain. I don't feel she's being naughty or doing it on purpose. When I remind her she always says sorry and that she forgets but I could ask her 20 times in a row and she'll say the same thing. How can I reduce this without going overboard with punishments? I don't want to be the mum who punishes her child for having fun it's so confusing!! I just need to get it into her head that sometimes we all have to be a bit quieter and to get to a point where she listens the first time I point out she's getting too loud

Is her hearing ok?

I'd make sure you're giving her clear and positive instructions, maybe 'be quiet' is hard to do/remember if she's not aware of how loud she is. I'd try giving her a clear and positive instruction e.g. go and read quietly in your room.

Also make sure you're speaking to her just below the volume you want her to speak with.

Have you got any concerns about her hearing? She may not realise how loud she's being.

First thing I'd suggest is getting her hearing checked.

Thank you - 3 replies in a row saying to get her hearing checked is making me think I should definitely get her hearing checked! She does also often say "what?" after I've given her an answer to something she's asked me. It would make sense if she had an issue with her hearing.

I'm glad I posted this as it's something I just wouldn't have thought of!

No advice but you have very accurately described my DS5. Its constant noise, ALL THE TIME. DP and I have been speaking about it and we don't think he has any awareness that he's making noise at times. I don't think we have a hearing issue but following for any other suggestions!

Could also be ADHD. Often have a volume control problem and talk constantly

I do believe I may have undiagnosed ADHD myself. Lots of time management and procrastination issues from me so that's also a possibility! She does seem to have a very very busy little mind

What is she like in school? Are the teachers concerned?
Does she get plenty of exercise to burn off that excess energy 🤣🤣🤣 I can just imagine what she is like - my son’s pal is the same. Sweet kid but so noisy.

Not in the slightest! Had her report last week and it was brilliant.

She's so sweet and so funny but sometimes I.Just.Need.Quiet. 😂😂

My ds is 5 and a half and exactly the same. He doesn't have any hearing issues or adhd ect..he is just a loud child.

If you find out where the volume button is let me know!

She sounds just like my DD. Chatted non-stop and is so loud. Still like that today, but no ADHD or hearing loss...it's just her. She's now in a job where speaking loudly and clearly is very important. But my goodness, there were days where I thought I was losing my mind. I did my best to remind her that her voice and the volume wasn't something everyone could take 24/7 w/out making it seem like she was somehow defective. It worked...she knows she must modulate her voice at times, but uses it as her strength in her line of work.

I'm sure your DD is fine, it's just her personality. I wouldn't try to pathologize it or she'll feel bad about herself.

As a reminder for her to keep the volume down, why not use the bouncy ball noise thing on a tablet/laptop. They use this in my daughters class (just Google it). If the balls start bouncing too high, there is too much noise - so a visual aid rather than a nagging mum/teacher! My brother (and now my nephew) always was told 'indoor voice!' Good luck

My DD was the same, we found out age 5 that she had Glue ear, she had 70% hearing loss in one ear and 40% in the other. She had several sets of gromits over the years but was also diagnosed with Auditory processing disorder. Before the gromits she was so loud that sometimes I would cry with frustration. After she had them fitted she constantly told everyone to be quiet!

My mum has been trying to reduce my volume and get me to talk less for over 60 year, so far no good 😂. I want to talk less but I am quite anxious because I worry about my talking and that seems to make me worse. I have worried all my life about my personality and talking, I said this at work one day (some years ago) and my manager said “ think of it as networking, wherever in the world I send you you come back with a contract” a male colleague said “ if you were my daughter I would be so proud of you, you are bright and friendly and put everyone at ease”. Yet still I talk and worry.
My own daughter is a talker too. I have never tried to stop her. She is kind, funny, academic, a very successful business woman but mostly she is confident and happy to be who she is.
Your daughter sounds fabulous. No advice other than enjoy her!

Let me know if you work it out, our son is the same, only has loud, and if I tell him to be quiet it lasts until the end of the sentence and the next one starts just as loud!
I find having boundaries helps like saying your brother is in bed if you can't be quiet I will have to leave you. Then I just say sorry too loud, night night and leave him.
The trick is to put him in control of the consequences, if the only consequence is me saying be quiet then there's no reason to listen, if the consequence is no chatting then he will be quiet either way, it's his choice.

Can you interest her in doing a quiet activity? Would she do a dot-to-dot book for example, where she has to concentrate. Or a jigsaw puzzle. Can she ever play quietly, like with a dolls house, or lego?

Can you play a game with her

how quietly can you talk to me, and then try and talk back even more quietly and then you try to out quiet me etc. Give the quiet voice a name, like indoor voice.

then if you have fun playing the game and she gets the concept and is able to use a quiet voice, then have a set time of day when you put a timer on and both of you use indoor voices for 5 mins. Both have a treat at the end to celebrate as ‘its hard’

then try for longer than5 mins

then when you are somewhere that needs an indoor voice, try explaining that you both need to use your indoor voices while there because xyz

practicing a skill when there is no stress and you can make it a game is the best way to solve needing the skill in the future

Definitely get her hearing checked, my DD has glue ear and talks very loudly when it's bad, the only way I've got her to be quieter is to say that she's currently talking at volume 8 and I would like her to turn it down to whatever volume is appropriate, she always reduces the volume for a while.

My daughter is like this. She ended up needing grommets for glue ear but we didn’t realise she had a hearing issue for ages as it developed over time so we had just got into the habit of speaking louder / making sure she was looking at us when we were speaking etc and she had learned coping / masking strategies.
The grommets made a huge difference to the volume, but unfortunately not the constant need to verbalise every thought she’s ever had 😂

We used the bouncing balls app at my school. The louder the children get, the more the balls bounce. It's a good visual reminder to keep the voices down.
We also stressed the difference between indoor voices and outside voices.
Playing classical music/children's gentle songs also sometimes help. Encourage her to listen to the melody/words etc.

My neighbour has THREE very loud children that seem incapable of simply talking to each other instead of screeching but then again, their mum is very loud and always moaning at them. That's probably just learned behaviour sadly 🫤

If hearing is ok and nothing underlying, I’d just add that a good way to not make her feel bad about her voice/ personality etc., perhaps is not to teach “be quiet” but instead teach “be quiet for a few minutes while mummy is on the phone”, or “while we are on the bus” or “ok we’re in the park, let’s be loud and stomp like dinosaurs” or whatever. So put as much emphasis on when to be loud and you do on when to be quiet.

I think my DD came out of the womb talking, and she hasn’t stopped yet. She even sleep talks. She is going to university in Sept, so you only have another 12 years of this.

My five year old DD is a self-identifying talker…. She announced a few days ago that she really likes talking. With us it’s the continuous noise and needing answers regularly than the volume though.

Even my eight year old (who we used to define as a chatterbox before we met a real one) works out games with her that involve silence for multiple minutes at a time just to give her ears a
break.

i wouldn’t change her for the world! But would occasionally like to have five minutes peace and quiet.

Try audio books with headphones.

It can teach them to become comfortable in their own silence.

I have 2 kids, loads of my friends have kids, kids are loud. You can always tell them to be quiet, give them an absorbing/quiet activity or put them in a separate room to temporarily muffle the noise.

BUT I have/had a friend whose daughter was just off the scale loud. She just has an incredibly loud, booming voice. Totally dominated every conversation, every situation. Her mum really pandered to it and treated her like all her opinions were absolutely fascinating (to be fair this woman is hugely loud as well, the type that makes people stare in public because of the volume and dominates every conversation just monologuing at top volume and talking over everyone else!)

It was honestly so awkward and in the end it just made spending time with them draining. We have distanced ourselves massively. We’re not quiet types at all - we have loads of rowdy, semi-feral kids (and adults!) in our lives - but these two just took the cake, the worst loudest unaware people I’ve ever met!