I agree 100% percent!
There is playing loud, then there is that shriek that hits something in my brain. A wailing baby is the same way. I think such sounds could be used as torture.
We’ve always had a ‘No Shrieking’ policy in the Smith household. It applies to kids visiting to play in the yard, sleepovers, etc. My daughter had a bunch of girls overnight a couple months ago, one of which is notoriously obnoxious and a screamer (she’s going to be a handful when she’s a teenager, but that’s for another thread). Within minutes of arriving the girl started ramping up, and my wife had a pow-wow with them, the thrust of which was “have fun, but if I have to listen to screaming the party’s over and you’re all going home”. They were all very well behaved after that.
I didn’t say it was too young to learn better. I said it was too young for them to get it.
They don’t think of themselves as shrieking. It’s simple impulse in an uninhibited play environment.
Kids in a schoolyard have their teachers immediately standing over them. That’s not an uninhibited play environment. We can have the parents follow the kids around the neighborhood during playtime …because we all know the SDMB has never had a Thread complaining about Helicopter Parenting being a herald of the downfall of society.
You tell a 7 year old girl not to shriek when she’s out playing with her friends, she’ll agree not to. When she comes home, you ask her if she did any shrieking, she’ll say no- because she honestly believes she wasn’t shrieking.
I really thought the OP was going to be about teenagers when I read the Thread title.
“Teaching” a 7 year old girl not to shriek (without getting into tactics designed to break her as a human being) would be like teaching the rain not to be wet.
There are lots of neighborhoods that do not have kids or are not conducive to neighborhood outside play. These are the neighborhoods for people who don’t want to hear 7 year old girls shriek.
And I say this as someone who does not have kids and does not want kids. So this isn’t “Why does the grumpy man not appreciate my free-willed snowflake?” bullshit.
I work nights at a hotel. We get lots of wedding groups. They get drunk.
When they come back late from the bars, they walk through the hallways yelling their conversations at each other. They truly do not get that they are being as loud as they are. They’re with their friends, they’re having a good time, they are (as they see it) in an uninhibited play environment.
These are all people who have been taught not to be loud late at night while other people are sleeping- but in this circumstance they don’t get it.
This shrieking has absolutely ruined the beach for me anymore. I keep thinking someone’s being eaten by sharks or caught in the undertow.
Three years olds know and recognize the difference between loud, uninhibited play and shrieking. Open your eyes and look around, other children refrain from doing so because their parents have taught them it is unacceptable.
You know who doesn’t ‘get it’? Parents who can’t be arsed to parent. Simple observation would confirm your child doesn’t do this at school, or others people’s home for only one reason, it is not permitted there.
If you can convince yourself that they aren’t participating in any ‘uninhibited’ play in those places, or that their play is somehow diminished if they can’t shriek, then there’s nothing to discuss, I feel.
(Are they allowed to spend an afternoon in the yard ‘uninhibitedly’ playing drums on the metal garbage cans? )
But I truly thank you for the insight, into the thought process, that people who think this is okay, go through, it’s very illuminating.
(Y’know for all of the people who always think, when they are exposed to this, “What the hell are his/her parents thinking?”) I know I’ll never need wonder that again, at least!
It’s all part of that very special ‘damned if you do, damned if you don’t’ aspect of parenting according to the Dope (and to be fair, out in society at large).
And while we’re at it, HEY you kids, OFF THE GRASS!
Be glad you didn’t meet my middle brother. Whenever he went whistle, my poor canary would get such a fright he ended up bellyup on the floor of the cage, gasping.
I tend to consider shrieking children as an unavoidable fact of life. Doesn’t bother me that much. I find it lively, in fact.
On the other hand, if DIY, lawn mowing, home improvement, etc…, especially on the week-end, was severely restricted and buying a drill or a hammer required a license (granted only with extreme caution), I would be much happier. 
To be fair, Minnie Ripperton’s whistle register is wonderfully done:
Here’s a thread from 2013 that asks about little girls screeching.
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=490790&highlight=screech
Seriously. My parents taught us that shrieking and screaming were only allowed if we were hurt or in serious trouble and needed adult assistance RIGHT NOW. They told us that if we screamed, they would come running, and if nothing was wrong when they got there, there would be hell to pay. This was reinforced with the story of “the boy who cried wolf.” It was a lesson that was very effective and I plan to use it with my own kids.
This. ^ It worked on me.
I’m beginning to wonder if parents are not hearing it because of hearing damage from iPods.
The wife and I spent a night in NYC this year in a hotel right above a nightclub. From about 11:00pm until 4:00am, young women were screaming like this. I’m not talking about small children - these women must have been 21 (or faking it.) Unrestrained, top of their lungs, someone is ripping my liver out with hot tongs style, screaming. I now know how a person could be killed in the street in NYC and nobody comes to help. That screaming could just be a young, drunk woman having fun and who would want to restrict her fun?
I love it; it’s the sound of unmitigated joy. My daughter knows the difference between an inside voice and an outside voice, and has since she was a toddler. But if she and her friends are playing outside I see no reason why they shouldn’t be allowed to make noise. We used to live one house down from the neighborhood pool, for heaven’s sake. The noise was deafening.
It seems to me that if you don’t want to hear children playing you have chosen a neighborhood with too high or low a density. You want to live either rural or highrise, not suburban.
I wish the real estate business would cotton on to this. Every neighborhood should have a rating for its specific noise profile. Of all measures this one is the most likely to make people unhappy in their homes - why are we not addressing it?
So…do you ever tell your kids to stop? Do you address it at all?
This is weird but…there’s a show on now called “Master Chef Junior” - a cooking show featuring kids - and at the beginning of the show they open doors and the kids come running out. The youngest contestant is an 8-year-old girl. I think there’s also a 9-year-old girl. Anyway in the last episode I watched, when they open up the doors you hear shrieking and then a girl saying “Why am I shrieking?”
I think it clicked for her right then 
Girls do it for fun. With little boys (I’m talking 5 and younger), it’s usually rage.
In my opinion, they should know the difference between bloodcurdling scream and just having fun. Anecdotally, my kids are very familiar with the notion of occasional, joyful yells vs. bloodcurdling screams. And both are well aware that the latter is reserved for times when someone is bleeding or being kidnapped.
Out of curiosity, what time was it, anyway? My 8 year old has to be inside by dusk generally and in bed by about 8 to 8:30. He’s probably an outlier with his friends, but he turns into Mr. Hyde when he doesn’t sleep enough. He’s a lot like me: screw with his schedule and you don’t want to be around him. Though I guess around the holidays most parents are a little more lenient with bedtimes.
To be fair everyone was a perfectly well behaved child when they were younger so it’s hard to relate. 