The presumably 3-year old girls across the street have been shrieking at God knows what for hours, on average about once a minute, in warbling wails that last a few seconds (until their little lungs run out of air, I bet), and hitting what must be High C or something.
It’s not even dark, and they’re not a nuisance otherwise, and rarely even in this manner (although maybe I miss it while I’m at work).
If your daughter thought every slightly less-than-desirable thing required a wailing shriek, what would you do? She’s outside, she’s not being dangerous or playing in the street. Is this an issue to address, or a matter of “pick your battles and she’ll outgrow it”?
I imagine that my brother with the four kids (and who is an ex army captain) would never tolerate that amount of pointless noise. I kind of side with him, as I think kids as old as I bet these are can definitely understand the idea of not flipping out all the time, and I think it sets up a personality for the future that can’t deal with a reality that doesn’t bend to their wills.
Three-year-olds? Good luck getting them to stop, they don’t usually realize they’re doing it. It’s like explaining to your dog that he shouldn’t be barking. When the squealing gets on my nerves too much I try to distract them with some other activity but squealing and shrieking is part of the gig if you have girls that age (FWIW: I have two girls and a boy, the oldest is 6). There are too many battles to be fought with them in a day to worry about a harmless one like that IMO.
HongKongFooey, do you really think that they don’t comprehend it? I’ve worked with plenty of preschoolers, some just days past their 3rd birthdays, and the vast majority understand when you tell them to use “an indoor voice” so they don’t seem too young to understand volume issues. They do get loud, but will usually tone it down if you point out their loudness - kind of like many of our coworkers.
The neighbors’ kids are a lost cause, but I’d do my best to impress upon my own kids the fact that screaming alarms adults because we worry that they’re hurt. Maybe I’d throw a telling of the boy who cried wolf in there to make the point that we don’t want people to ignore us (because we’re always loud) if we really do need help. I already know I’ll be uptight as a parent, so without a doubt YMMV.
They understand what you’re telling them maybe but not why, not if they’re outside having fun at least. It depends on the situation too of course, if you’re in church you need indoor voices and you need to keep reminding them. Playing outside, they’ll quiet down for a bit but the volume will keep creeping back up. If they felt they were being that loud they’d stop on their own, they just get excited. If you have a neighbour who works nights and is asleep during the day it makes the volume battle worth fighting but if it’s once in a while, middle of the day and they’re playing nicely, I don’t bother.
There’s a huge difference between children getting loud while they play, and children shrieking or screaming. One is acceptable behavior (within limits) and the other needs to be curbed. Three year olds might not understand that all the time, and they might need a lot of guidance on the matter, but it has to be done. It’s one of those things you just keep doing until it actually sinks in. I agree that you have to pick your battles, but this is one I think everyone ought to pick, if only because children have to live in civilization, with other people.
Agreed. Once a minute shrieking, even if outside (maybe because it is outside), deserves the investment of energy it takes for redirection. Three year olds need a lot of redirection, but you got to start somewhere- 3 year olds become 4 year olds, 4 year olds become 5 year olds…
True enough. I shouldn’t have said I don’t bother, it seems like I spend the whole day shushing. It’s more that I don’t think it’s worth getting too stressed about. I had mine at a funeral home today, watched them like a hawk. Tomorrow they’ll be in the back yard, the frequency of shushings will go down. I live across the street from a playground, kids are LOUD. It’s not the same kids every day who are loud. If the kids in the OP were doing it every day it would be an issue to deal with. One day? The parents might very well have been trying to get them to calm down and were unsuccessful, maybe not, but those days happen once in a while.
My smaller girl is three and a half and has only just cottoned on to how to do the “quiet voice”. Up till about a month ago, if I had to take her anywhere she really HAD to be quiet (like past her brother’s room while he was napping) I’d carry her while whispering a continuous stream of chattering in her ear - because if I let her get a single word in edgeways at all it was going to be LOUD! IME 2-year-olds are the worst shriekers. Not all of them, but lots and lots.
In a perfect world, every parent of a toddler would live right by an enourmous football field where they could be taken daily to shriek their little hearts out like demented banshees. Unfortunately in our world of close-built houses and inadequate sound-proofing, the noise pollution does tend to escape.
My sympathies to the OP. I don’t know anyone who likes Ear Piercing Toddler Shrieks. I hope they’ll be better tomorrow
If a 3 year old doesn’t want to shut up, she isn’t going to shut up. Comprehension is really neither here nor there. It’s self-control. They get too excited and they can’t easily calm themselves down.
Ha ha ha. Another non-parent who knows exactly how she would handle her hypothetical kids. Do you think real parents don’t try this kind of thing? We’ve told our 3-year-old (and the 9-year-old before that) a million times that “screaming is for emergencies”…yadda yadda yadda. It’s in one ear and out the other. When they’re really wound up, there isn’t a fucking thing you can do about it short of constant physical restraint (which is fucking exhausting).
All you can do is try to keep them from bothering other people with it, but if you think they’re going to listen to your wonderful, wise lectures and your illusrative stories, you’re living in a dreamworld.
You have my sympathy. I was stuck on a 9.5-hour flight from Barcelona last August, with a little girl who never stopped shrieking. Even my noise-canceling headphones weren’t much help.
I’ve always wondered how the human race survived when it’s young kept advertising “Hey lions! Here’s a helpless little snack.Come eat me!” Seems like something that would be selected against.
I was wondering something similar the other day. Not just with kids but adults when startled yelp, or scream if they’re in an accident. It doesn’t seem like a predator would be fazed by the screaming so it must have been intended to summon help (??? just a WAG) With kids the playing shrieking is quite different from the actual emergency-need-to-go-running screams. It’s also interesting how parents can usually identify their kids so easily out of a group of shrieking kids. I used to think it was bullshit but I can pick mine out quite readily.
What’s even more amazing is that caveparents didn’t get fed up and send their shrieking kids into the lion’s den.
Three-year-olds get their squee on because they’re learning how to control the sounds they make. It won’t happen overnight, but with a little work, it will eventually be event-appropriate. You can teach them how to whisper, too. They like that just as much. Patience, Grasshopper.
I know that I had some success with noise control by telling my daughter “Sweetheart, if you don’t stop making that sound, Mommy’s going to give you away.”
