Heh. My 6 month old (boy) has started doing what the baby book terms “squealing in delight.” Delight, my ass. I’m contemplating ear plugs. Unfortunately, he’s too young to understand the concept of inside quiet voices.
(It is really cool to see him starting to vocalize and hysterical to see him laugh so much that it turns into squealing, but ouch!)
As far as the OP goes…
In our old neighborhood, our neighbors on one side had 4 kids, 3 of them girls. Their ages ranged from about 4 to about 10. They’d play outside all afternoon and I wouldn’t hear anything from them except their normal voices, maybe a little shouting every once in awhile. Then, that family moved out and another family moved in with two girls, about 6 & 8. Those girls shrieked ALL THE TIME. It drove me absolutely insane. It was like they were just standing out in their backyard squealing for no reason, just to piss me off.
So, I definitely think this is learned behavior. My theory is that if parents aren’t really loud yellers, screamers, carry-onners, then the children will be pretty calm, too. I’ll see how this theory pans out as we raise our family.
I agree with everyone who said that the father’s behavior was fine and that he’s probably dealing with an ongoing issue (and is losing his hearing in the meantime).
Its difficult for me to say, given the facts presented. Yes, it does appear to be an ongoing issue. But where was the playground? If its in a development and 100 feet from someone’s house, those kids are expected to keep it down.
Playgrounds by me are in Parks where there are usually 10-20 acres of land. If kids can’t be kids there, then where exactly can they be? Like it or not, a certain amount of screaming is required for kids to grow up and park playgrounds are perfect places to release all that pent up “No you can’t!” energy. If someone standing next to a playground in a park is complaining about screams and shreiks, my question would then be what were they were doing there in the first place? Shakespeare’s best read under a tree, not a merry-go-round. And if your dog needs a walk, I’m sure he/she would much rather the wooded section of the park anyway.
I agree with this entirely. But having had two children who each went through a screaming stage, it seems to me that there’s a possibility you’ve overlooked–that it wasn’t the fact she was loud that was the problem. If the screaming was her way of dealing with a disagreement with her playmates, it doesn’t matter if she’s ten miles away from town in a park surrounded by an impenetrable Cone of Silence. That’s not the way to deal with your friends, or express frustration, or find a way to agree what to play, or whatever. We don’t know what the situation was, but since we don’t, and since, as Lynn says, the father seems in all other ways to have behaved as he should, it’s entirely likely he had very good reasons to do as he did.
I agree with that it sounds like daddy had for whatever reason laid out the rules in advance and was being consistant in his behaviour. (OMIGOD they bleached the smilies?! : )
I was keeping an eye on a pair of 2 year olds at a meeting the other day, and they managed to just screech continuously, egging eachother on wit the screeching. So be honest I couldn’t help but laugh, they were out of control and having a ball (they are both usually very good, and had been good for aaaages at this boring meeting and I had taken them out to let them run around and blow off some steam, so it was appropriate).
In this case, it appears to be exactly that way. No arguments about her or her father. I just posted on behalf of the rest of the kids on the playground. Not all of them scream to deal with friends or frustration or not getting their way. Sometimes, just sometimes, having fun during a game of tag will do. And barring the child having a behavioral problem (which is definately not the majority of situations) this is normal.
Get ready to be surprised. We’re both pretty quiet, but DangerGirl is nearly incapable of stopping her steady stream of chatter (even if she has to whisper because we’re in the library). She can yell just fine. Luckily, she’s not a serious screecher (yet), and if she tries it we’ll squash it as best we can. But she is plenty loud.
(irony-related pause relating to poster’s username)
Really loud screaming can be an annoyance to other park users if even they’re not “standing next to” the playground. People go to parks for all sorts of reasons, including quiet strolls, reading, relaxing etc. If you’re near a playground you can expect some noise, but for a parent to draw the line at very loud sustained screeching sounds like a responsible thing to do.
This dad actually sounds like one in a thousand to me - someone who is willing to take the time and trouble to effectively discipline a child and help it grow into a pleasant and responsible adult.
I only wish there were more of these parents in theaters and restaurants.
By the way, talking loudly in all settings, appropriate or not, screaming at 5000 decibels when someone tells a mildly amusing joke or habitually sneezing with explosive amplitude are not examples of healthy uninhibitedness, but are evidence of rudeness and being out of control. Adults who do these things likely were not raised properly.
Well, the answer to #1 is - Yes, six-year-olds can control the shrieking. Ever since we were old enough to understand (approximately 3 or 4 I believe, possibly younger), the children in my family are sternly taught that screaming\shrieking is only acceptable when someone is hurt, going to be hurt, afraid, etc. As a six-year-old girl, I got told if I didn’t limit my screaming to emergencies only. Which I think I did.
The dad was being very reasonable, I think.
IMHO, the whole point of the no-screaming rule is safety, really - when parents hear a scream, they come running. The people who lived next door to us long ago annoyed the shit out of us, as they allowed their little girl to routinely scream her head off. Which was a stupid, stupid idea, as it was impossible to tell the difference between her ‘I’m having fun’ scream and her ‘I’m dying’ scream. Fortunately, all that happened was that the parents didn’t know when she skinned her knees or something similar until she came running into the house.
My mother and I have a hearing problem that makes certain frequencies of sound, particularly higher frequencies, louder to us and often very physically painful. Now, when I’m going to a movie I know to wear earplugs, and I tend to avoid playgrounds, but as has been pointed out, parks are used for many different things and if I’m sitting on a secluded bench reading a book I’m not going to appreciate having my eardrums pierced.
I try not to swear around children, and I appreciate it if children don’t shriek around me. And that father was dealing with the situation exactly right, especially if it’s an issue that’s been discussed with the little girl before: he tells her that if she shrieks she can’t play, and then he follows through on it (too many parents threaten and threaten and never get anywhere because the children know they don’t mean it).
I think the dad did a great thing. To me, squealing is NEVER acceptable - unless in an emergency, as other posters have stated.
The whole notion that squealing is acceptable in certain environments has me baffled. Oh, it’s a park, so that’s ok? Get bent. Kids who perfect their squealing in a park have no problems with demonstrating their talents in a supermarket, mall, library etc. To hell with that!
That dad had clearly laid out the rules before going to the park, and the kid knew the consequences. She did it anyway, so he took her home. Tough shit! She will think better of it next time, and EVERYONE is better off for it.
I’ve also seen the “tandem” squealing described in someone else’s post - where one kid starts squealing so the second one joins in. Then when the second one stops, the first one starts again - almost like some sort of contest between them. Cute? You can get bent some more. It’s not cute, it’s ear-piercing and it is unacceptable!
This dad is teaching his little girl what is and is not acceptable. Good on him.
And that father was dealing with the situation exactly right, especially if it’s an issue that’s been discussed with the little girl before: he tells her that if she shrieks she can’t play, and then he follows through on it (too many parents threaten and threaten and never get anywhere because the children know they don’t mean it).
And that father was dealing with the situation exactly right, especially if it’s an issue that’s been discussed with the little girl before: he tells her that if she shrieks she can’t play, and then he follows through on it (too many parents threaten and threaten and never get anywhere because the children know they don’t mean it).
I thought that bit deserved some extra repetition. One of my aunts would threaten, and scream, and threaten some more, and rarely followed through with it. Every now and then, though, she’s explode and beat her kids. Predictably, her kids were illmannered and acted up more often than they were pleasant to be around. They all tended to whine, as well.
I’ve seen this in other families, as well. It’s just that I frequently babysat my aunt’s kids, and otherwise associated with them, so I got to deal with them a LOT.
Your parents let you go outside and scream as much and as loud as you damn well pleased? The kid needed to understand that shit isn’t appropriate, period.
She’s in a public place where tons of other people are going to be annoyed by her. I think screaming might be the #1 reason I’ve spent my youth hating the idea of having kids. I hope parents are aware that it’s the most fucking irritating thing in the world. Even worse is when some jackass IGNORES it and lets his or her stupid child shriek all they want and expects everybody else to be quiet about it. I’m glad at least this one dad wasn’t like that. Maybe the world’s eardrums have a snowball’s chance in hell after all.
That’s just stupid. Kids need to have fun, and they also need to learn to think about other people. Otherwise, they turn into inconsiderate brats, or into people who think kids end up in therapy if their parents tell them not to randomly scream in public. We’re not talking about a baby here. ‘Poor thing, her daddy told her she couldn’t wander around all day screaming up a storm! She’ll never become a well-adjusted adult now!’ Saying no to your kids doesn’t make you Hitler. Someday when we have a kid or two, the first thing I’d like them to be is smart. A close second is quiet, at least when I’m around.
I helped raise my nephew for the first two years of his life, and I now have a two year old daughter. My kid is 10 times more vocal than my nephew ever thought about being. She’s going to learn that squealing/screaming/throwing tantrums is not an acceptable way to express herself. I hope to make a reasonably considerate human being out of her.
I saw a program a couple years ago, (I don’t remember the name of the show)where they took some young kids of both sexes and put a barrier between them and their mommies… the little boys would first try to find a way to get past the barrier, and after trying a few times, would get frustrated and cry. The girls would go right up to the barrier and start crying for mom to pick them up.
Might I recommend that you stay away from childrens’ playgrounds, then? I could see if you were talking about an otherwise quiet, pastoral place, but childrens’ play is regularly accompanied with loud screeching and outbursts of noise. It’s what kids do.
If it were repeated, I’d agree. But this little girl screeched once, and she’s a small child – a demographic not known for a.) impulse control and b.) memory skills. There’s no reason why she couldn’t have been given a second chance.
Screaming is obnoxious, to be sure, but in a play situation it isn’t likely to be dangerous. Absent dangerous activities, I think it is hasty to punish a child for a first instance of misbehavior, even when they’ve been lectured about it in the past and the issue is persistent, there is still value in warning before punishing, especially for training young children and helping them learn control. I also wonder how the little girl will ever learn how to play without screaming if she’s never allowed a chance to try it after being given a reminder. Yes, she’s a child, and yes, she can learn, but that doesn’t mean that the process can (or will easily) proceed without remediative instruction from time to time.
I look at it like a person being trained to make pizzas – he’s never going to learn how to make a good pizza if he’s made to stop work and go home every time he uses too few pepperoni, instead of being reminded “You need more pepperoni, there, please.” and given a chance to continue working?
My father may have the rest of you beat. Apparently, when I was a little girl, he had all the kids in the neighborhood convinced that there could be no screaming on our side of the street. I’ve never screamed, myself, and, when I went off to college and roomed with other women for the first time, it came as a tremendous shock to me to realize just how much some women scream. One roommate seemed to do it everytime you told her someone had called her.
I’ve got sharp, sensitive hearing. Hearing kids screaming and shrieking is painful for me, I’m afraid. I’ve learned to realize that when a child screams I need to pause to get the context before assuming danger, but I’m not sure that’s a good conditioned reflex to have. I also remember an incident years ago when I heard someone screaming as if they were being murdered. Fool that I am, after calling the police, I threw on shorts and a t-shirt to see what I could do to help (I say fool because, realistically, what could a short, unarmed, barely dressed young woman do? ). It turned out the woman who was screaming was doing so because she’d broken up with her boyfriend. She was in serious emotional pain – she later threw herself in the canal across the street – but the noise she was making led me and some other people to believe she was being physically attacked. The other people were rather freaked out by the whole business – they’d been watching a horror movie at the time! :o
My kudos to the father for handling the situation well, at least from what little I know of 6 year old girls.
CJ
Will you recommend that many of the rest on this thread stay away from playgrounds as well? You’ll notice—a whole lot of us don’t think loud screeching is acceptable, even by children.
“Outbursts of noise” is not what is being talked about here. It’s a loud and long scream.
It’s not as likely, not if they’re taught properly. Read the rest of this thread. Long annoying screaming is not something that kids must do.
You don’t know what went before with the dad. Maybe her memory skills will be improved next time, when she realizes that one lound and long screech will get her an immediate trip home.
:shrug: Is it so terrible to take the kid home? The kid is not being beaten or refused her dinner, she’s simply being taken home. From the sound of it it appears that many “warnings” have been given and they’re not getting through. One could consider taking her home to also be a “warning.” She’s not getting slapped around or grounded, she’s just being taken home, for crying out loud.
I doubt this is how it worked in the case of this kid (of course none of us really know). It sounds like it’s an ongoing issue where many warnings, many explanations and many elaborations have been given, and they aren’t getting through. And, lest there be some confusion on this point, I don’t think that learning not to scream is nearly as complicated as learning to make a pizza. Learning not to scream is really a one-step, simple concept: DON’T SCREAM LIKE A LITTLE BANSHEE. I don’t think it’s rocket science. I don’t think kids need to take extensive “how not to scream” lessons.
I agree, there may be more going on than meets the eye.
A few years ago, their were several litle girls in the neighbourhhod that seemed to get a kick out of screaming the high-pitched shrieks that only little girls can. It became a weird game with them, occasionally they’d all scream together. Other than being highly annoying a few residents of the neighbourhood and parents became concerned about the “crying wolf” effect.
There is usually a noticeable difference between one of those shrieks and a real scream of danger, nonetheless - there were a lot of adults who were getting sick and tired of going out to make sure that nothing was happening. It was fraying nerves.
So the children were warned by their respective parents and told that, while an occasional “squeal of delight” is okay, screaming and shrieking at the top of their lungs was not.
When they started screaming again, the parents came out and it was end of playtime, just like in the OP.
So there’s no confusion, the little girls in my neighbourhood were getting in trouble not for hapy squeals, but for long, drawn out screams and shrieks. So many neighbourhood non-parents (me included) would end up trudging over to the playground to make sure no one was being murdered.
It sounded like they were playing, but was still bloodcurdling enough to demand urgent attention just in case.
)
(they are both usually very good, and had been good for aaaages at this boring meeting and I had taken them out to let them run around and blow off some steam, so it was appropriate).