I mean really screaming, not just talking. Screaming loud enough to be heard from a distance. Or running around, not just walking, but running like a mad thing.
In the last couple of years, I can recall only two such instances. Once, in a Wendy’s, two little girls were running around the tables. After they bypassed us twice, Mr. Rilch and I moved to a table outside of their orbit and life went on. The second was at a Ruby Tuesday’s. Two little boys were making fart noises with their mouths, while their dad offered direction and encouragement. We’d only just sat down, so we asked to be moved to another table, and life went on.
So how often do you hear kids giving piercing shrieks, or running aimlessly? I don’t mean how often are you annoyed by kids; I mean, how often do you hear screaming or see running?
Yesterday in the lobby of the Columbus Museum of Art. There was a play area. I’m not sure if the kid hurt himself/herself or was just upset, but the scream was piercing. After the second scream, apparently the problem dissipated because everything returned to a normal noise level.
Just last week, at work. I work in a medical center but was under the impression that the child was not the patient, at least judging by the location they were in. He was screeching a little ways down the hall, around a corner where I couldn’t see what, if anything, a parent was doing.
I saw running in the hall at work today. A woman had 4 children, oldest perhaps age 6 and going down from there. She was allowing them to run ahead of her down a busy hallway (and around corners in it, out of her field of vision) that leads to a major “intersection” of the buildings at the medical center I work at, and near the top of a stairway. The kids could have tripped an elderly person, been run down by a team with a crash cart speeding off to a medical emergency, fallen down the stairs, etc.
Yesterday at Bob Hope Airport. I don’t mind crying babies. What I do mind is fake crying four year olds. Screaming at the top of their lungs like they had just had their foot cut off when their mom won’t let them have a second soda with their lunch. It seems like poor child raising skills.
(what the hell happened to i before e except after c? -see their
Last night, standing in line at a restaurant, I had the “pleasure” of watching a 50-ish father and his three kids, approximately 18, 16, and 12, hitting, kicking, and yelling at each other as we waited. So I guess it’s not just small children that are annoying.
A few months ago at a store. The screamer in question was a toddler in a stroller. He seemed perfectly happy and content, but every few minutes he would let out a crazy sounding, high-pitched shriek. It was really so loud as to be alarming. I was worried he had Tourette’s. Although the sound of his scream made me practically jump out of my skin every time it happened, I sincerely thought he had some sort of affliction so I was more sympathetic than annoyed.
THEN, the mother of this toddler got to the front of the line, and started to berate the salesperson for something. The mother started all of her sentences with a high-pitched shriek of a word, as in “WHAAAAAT do you mean, I can’t return this used item I bought four months ago without a receipt? WHYYYYYYYYY not?”
The toddler had been perfectly imitating his mother’s voice (although just the sound, not an actual word). I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
What should the mom have done, given the kid the second soda? That would seem like poor child-raising skills to me. Sometimes a 4-yo is going to scream when denied his own way, that’s just how they are. The only way to cure it is to never give in, and even then it takes a year or two. A 4-yo doesn’t think rationally, and doesn’t remember the last 50 times that screaming for TV resulted in no TV for the rest of the day. (I know, because my 4-yo, a pretty good kid mostly, fails to remember that on a weekly basis.) The automatic reaction to frustration at that age is to scream, no matter how good the parents are at their job.
So, my story: Probably about 8 months ago, I was working at the library, and a mom was trying to check out books, carry a large baby, and get her ~5-yo girl out the door. The kid did not want to go, and was screaming like a stuck pig. The mom would drag her out, and the girl would pull away and run back in, screaming the whole time. The mom was very handicapped by the baby, since she was unable to pick the kid up football-style and haul her out of there, but I think she was mistaken in trying to check the books out too–I would have left them all there. (Actually I did do that when my oldest daughter pulled that at 3 or 4. It still took a couple of lessons before she realized that bad behavior = no books.) Still, her main problem was pretty intractable; she only had 2 arms.
A few years ago, at MarineWorld. And I get out a lot. I don’t know why I don’t hear that much screaming. there are lots of kids around here, where I live.
I miss screamimg kids, and I’m old. Guess I’ll go hang out at Target. Maybe I’ll buy a bag of outdated halloween candy and take it to work tomorrow. Now I’m sad.
Peace,
mangeorge
For what it’s worth, my child does that simply to get a rise out of me. He doesn’t even change his expression. Just opens his mouth, shrieks, then waits. If I don’t react (and I try not to), he sometimes does it again. He generally only does it when he’s tired, so if he seems tired and it’s not absolutely necessary to go somewhere, we stay home.
Sometimes they do stuff like that just to get a reaction, even if it’s going to be a bad one. Doesn’t sound like the mom was helping, though. You described that really well, by the way.
The last time I heard a random kid shrieking his head off was sometime last year when I was walking through the grocery. I had my then five-month-old kid with me and someone else’s kid about the same age was screaming bloody murder. The mom had her hands full so she couldn’t pick him up out of his car seat. I think he must have been sick because she was trying to decide between infant motrin and tylenol.
All the time. I work in a drugstore, so a lot of them are sick and cranky to begin with, and I can understand that. There are also those parents who think store = free babysitting, and let their children run around destroying things. :mad:
And then of course there are temper tantrums at the checkout lane when a kid wants some candy or toy and the parent says no(and a lot of times the parent ends up giving in and buying it, anyway).
Yeah, there are a lot of kids in my community too, and I honestly don’t know whether they don’t scream, or I simply tune it out. The two girls in Wendy’s got on my radar because they were right up on me, but as soon as I moved away from them, I stopped noticing again. Perhaps it’s because there’s a lot of noise in this community in general. Construction, road work, we’re near the airport, police helicopters buzz us on a regular basis…I guess, assuming there are screaming kids, they’re just another noise, and they don’t register any more than the approaching planes.
No. Maybe raise nice polite kids. My nephews are 4 and 8. Never. Not. Once.Have they ever made a scene in public. They never pout or throw fits. They have never been spanked or yelled at either. If they want something they ask for it, if they can’t have it they are told why. End of issue.
A child has a total meltdown on the bus at least once a week. It’s still less offensive than the teenagers using the filthiest language you have ever heard in your entire life. I have the same bus schedule as the kids going to and from school. Horrible.
Back at two years old or so, no “terrible twos?” Hmmm. Did they go through that?
I didn’t believe in the phenomena at first, till my own angels got there. So I did a little research. Result? Yep, it’s real, and part of growing. Establishing limits is part of it. So is identy developement. You might notice that they can be super sweet at the same time.
It usually ends by four or so. Some kids are more so, and some less. If a kid doesn’t act up at all, it can be a sign of a problem.
That’s all I remember.
Yesterday, at Wal Mart. I needed light bulbs and the screaming kid and his mom were (luckily) on the way out as I was going in. I would have turned around and left without bulbs if they had been heading in.
Did they go through that?