my neighbours kids never stop screaming!!! Driving me insane

I'm afraid you are going to have to bring back the slap.  What has changed in the last hundred years where kids were educated to be seen and not heard?  The psychologists have brain washed the whole of humanity that giving a child a slap is a bad thing.  They tried to stop child abuse this way, but they have gone overboard.  Parents agree with the psychologists because it is too hard to do the duty of educating a child.  As a result the child also feels unloved, uncared for and insecure and will scream and scream as a result.  They are very intelligent, and know that they should be getting a slap.  Today children have no respect for their elders either, because they know they can do whatever they want as they have weak adults around them who do nothing.

Give a toddler a slap on the plastic pants to give it a bit of a shock when it misbehaves, you don't need to hurt it, and you won't have an out of control child when it gets older.  

 

 

        

Holy God, really? It's that simple is it?

I will consider a gentle slap when my son has done something really bad or dangerous but to imply that a lack of physical punishment could lead to a feeling of not being loved or insecure is ridiculous.

I was also brought up to believe that respect is earned and not just a right when you are older than someone. Age most definitely does not result in a more developed person when it comes to social responsibilty and I often find that people older than myself are bigoted and predjudice in a very outdated manner.

Rubbish.
Children who scream and throw tantrums do it because the discipline has not been made stern and consistent enough. Children are not stupid. And this has nothing to do with taking a course. It has to do with raising 4 kids, in two different families, and by watching how other kids behave, in the mall, at school, at preschool, and watching how their parents handle them.

Some people say "He's impulsive", "He's just excited", "he's only a toddler, so being quiet isn't important to him."
It's the parents' job to MAKE it important to him.

So, what should the parents of these unruly neighbor kids be doing?

First, the offended neighbor needs to tell them. He doesn't say if he has or not. Otherwise, they probably have no idea that their kids are bothering him.
Second, we really don't know for sure if they are just playing in the backyard and letting out an occasional yell or squeal of excitement. This neighbor could be unreasonable, and what he thinks is "constant screaming" could be little more than the sound of kids playing.

But assuming they really are screaming brats....

I suggest:
When the kids get loud, the parents need to bring them inside, tell them why they have been brought in, and keep them there for, say 10 minutes.
Let them out. If they do it again, bring them in for 20 minutes.
They'll be climbing the walls. They won't be able to sit still. They won't be able to be quiet. Too bad.

If they do it a 3rd time, they must sit, in a chair, for the entire time (maybe 20 minutes again), or they can't go back out, pure and simple.

If they have been allowed to be completely wild and unruly for a long time, this will be painful at first, but it won't take more than a couple of days. They may spend entire afternoons sitting in a chair facing the wall before they get the message that screaming and bothering the neighbors is not to be tolerated.

My neighbours have three children who are all of school age. As someone who plays an instrument and sometimes has guests over I understand that a certain amount of allowance needs to be given. The family had a right to live and make noise. But the children will make police siren noises for hours - not stopping. Once until 1 am on a Wednesday night. Even going to opposite rooms of the house doesn't help (we share one wall of a townhouse with them). I understand they are children and they will play; laughing and running is tolerable and understandable. However, I do not think it is unreasonable of me to expect hours of screaming/obnoxious noise making to stop. I am a student, paying my own way through university. I have spent entire days trying to find one area of my house with enough quiet to write a paper. And I cannot. I'm too polite to say anything and usually end up having an existential crying fit (which is pretty unlike me) because the noise never stops. What can I possibly do?

You really REALLY have to talk to your neighbors. You may think you are too "polite", but your neighbors are NOT polite, so you have got to say something. It could be that they have no idea how disruptive their kids' noise is. They may be so used to it that they tune it out. Believe me, I've seen parents able to ignore the most obnoxious relentless noise imaginable from their kids. That's why when other people approach them in a restaurant (or the manager does) to tell them either they be quiet or they have to leave, the parents are incredulous. They are really not aware of how horrible their kids are.



So, take the nice approach first. Explain what you explained here. You are a student. You have a right to expect quiet at certain hours of the day, at least, and can they please keep their kids' noise down?

If that does not work, well, then it's up to you. But I would get more hard-nosed and tell them they have to do something or you are going to talk to the police (or if you are renting, the landlord).



They do not have a right to make disruptive noise like this.

I worked as a nanny and also have 3 children of my own. There is no reason for screaming. Yelling, getting loud, sure. But actual SCREAMING? No, there is absolutely NO reason for that except for poor parenting. If there is no one chasing these kids with a hatchet, they should not be screaming. End of story. If you think otherwise, you're just too lazy to teach the kids you're taking care of how to behave.

I must disagree (and yes, I am a parent. I raised two kids who are now adults, and now I am doing it again with step-children.

I am in exactly the situation you describe. My first two were model children. Minimal punishment. Listened well. They were quiet, smart, never in trouble.

The two I have now were absolute monsters by comparison. They defied everything. They are loud, grabby, sneaky. They are lazy. They do sloppy, lousy schoolwork. They ignore adults who speak to them. They pulled all that scream-in-the store tantrum c**p.

Or should I say, that's how they WERE.
They came a long way in only a few months after I came into their lives. Most of the loud defiant stuff was over that quickly.

Consistency is the key, and I have met far too many parents who swear up and down that they don't give in and are very consistent, yet if you watch them with their children, they are giving in left and right. Their kids manipulate them so effectively that they don't even realize they are being outwitted by a 4 year old.

If your daughter still throws tantrums then you have simply not ratcheted up the punishment enough. I always laugh when "experts" recommend time-outs of 5 or 10 minutes. They must be joking. Many a screaming brat will put up with that in exchange for trying to get away with things they know they shouldn't do. How about a stern swat on the behind so it stings and gets their attention. Then a stern explanation of what they did wrong, and then how about an hour in the time-out chair? How about 2 hours? How about, when you have taken little Egbert to the store and he has thrown himself on the floor screaming for the 10th time, he spends the entire rest of the afternoon in a chair looking at the wall?

He's not going to perish. And man oh man will that make a lasting impression. An entire uncomfortable, exhausting day of siting on a chair staring at a wall will make him think twice about being such a monster.

People are afraid of their own kids. They are afraid they will bruise their precious egos. Bull. Kids are basically unsocialized monsters who are relying on us to teach them the rules and make them stick.

Noisy feral brats deserve DISCIPLINE .

I feel for the op, kids should not simply scream for no reason at all, let alone all day. How could I possibly understand? I have three of them myself, a 4 yo, a 2 yo and a 3 month old. All have very differant personalities. Do they get noisy? Yes, but when it starts to get out of control, I quickly remind them that this is not acceptable behavior, as the PARENT it is my responsibility to teach them. My 2 yo is going through the terrible twos, she throws tantrums, but they will not last more then 30 seconds because I put a stop to them. Even if that means stopping what I'm doing and God forbid, spending time with my child (sarcasm alert) to discipline them or sooth them. They also fight over things, normal child activity, but once again I put a stop to it. I chose to have children, I choose to raise them the best way I can, mould them into respectable citizens, even of this means I spend a huge amount of time teaching them and feel exhausted by the end of the day, I will reap the rewards. Mothers who say it is perfectly normal for kids to act like screaming brats are just plain lazy, sorry. They say it's just natural, well even animals discipline their offspring. Another thing is monkey see, monkey do. If the child is bein screamed at all the time, then that child will scream all the time. It often makes me wonder how the parents of these bratty kids feel about them, do they not want them to grow to respectable, responsible adults so they can have a more fulfilled life?

Yes, children do get noisy, and my neighbor's kids scream all day. I'm tired of parents saying "Oh, they just do it to get the noise out of their system," or "They just do it for no reason,". I find the real answer is that its because the parents think their kids are good enough on their own and are so afraid they are going to hurt their child's feelings that they don't have a fricking sense of discipline! I don't believe in all these excuses! I'm tired of this! Its completely the parents responsibility to raise their children and if you raise children, do it right! Don't be so afraid to put discipline on your child you let them get away with anything! There's a five year old living on my street, he's still shrieking at 10 pm and I find he is wandering alone on the side walk, crawling under my car! His parents have no sense of discipline! I find the same problem as you do, barritt, and it drives me insane! Kids that don't get taught a sense of discipline when they are young grow up to be adults with a huge sense of ego!

What is wrong with you people? So, you hate kids, big deal, who cares? Kids are told about inside voices versus outside voices, and when my kids were little and got excited, they were sent outside to release their pent up energy. That's the way it works, folks. You wanna run & scream? You wanna ACT LIKE A KID? You go outside. I actually have more issues with rude, loud, ADULT neighbors. At least the neighborhood kids quiet down by bedtime. Sorry folks, but rudeness comes in all shapes & forms, & I'm betting there's a fair among of posters on here who are just as bad, if not worse, than the children they're complaining about. Glass houses and all that, so let's get very real here for a moment. We live in a society. Not everyone is going to discipline their children, dogs, or even themselves the way others think they should. People handle their lives & children however they see fit, and thankfully, we have very little control over others and their actions. Aside from obvious abuse issues, I'm not going to tell anyone how to live, raise their kids, etc., that's their perspective, choice, and right, and THEY will live with the consequences of that. you don't want to hear the neighbor's baby cry in the middle of the night? Move to a house, single family home, where you don't share walls with anyone. You don't want to hear kids shrieking and playing in their yards? Move to the country, problem solved. Anywhere people congregate, you will find loud children, and that is just a fact of life that no one on here can ever change. Your only solution is to either find an area with no kids, or, adjust your attitudes on social norms and thinking. Crab about "bad parenting" all you like, but that won't "change" anything, you think people are going to take YOUR advice on how to discipline THEIR kids? Ha! Not. Going. To. Happen. Like, ever. So, either get over it & learn how to deal with things out of your control, or move into a cave in the wilderness where people are not a concern. The government will NEVER have the right to tell us who can have children and who can't. And if they even tried, there would be a rebellion & revolution, and rightly so. The government has no business telling anyone what to do, or not do, with their own bodies. Sorry, folks, kids are going to keep coming into the world on a daily basis. There will be good parents & bad parents. You have no control over anyone but yourself, why don't you worry about that instead.

my neighbors are 12, and 14 and they go outside every day of the week and just SCREAM!!!! I AM SO SICK OF IT!!!!! I AM ALSO GOING TO BE 14 BUT COME ON A 14 YEAR OLD AND A 12 YEAR OLD ARE A BIT BIG GOING OUT TO JUST HEAR THEIR SELFS SCREAM THEIR PARENTS NEED TO GET OUT OF HAPPY HAPPY LAND AND STOP THIS IGNERANCE NOW!!!!!! ALL THEY DO IS AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH ALL DAY LONG!!!!!!!!

NORMAL PARENTS WOULD BUT PEOPLE ARE JUST IGNARENT

I think it's quite a stretch for you to assume that all the complainers in here "hate kids". I, for one, raised two all the way to adulthood, married again, and am now raising two more. Does that sound like I hate them?

Hoping the Government will tell people who can have kids is insane. I'm certainly not advocating that.



But telling everybody that have to put up with obnoxious behaviour and noise, or else go live out in the country, is equally insane. People protest and complain about injustice and bad behavior all the time. What's wrong with that? That's what we're talking about here. These are not just normal kids making kid noise. This is hours-long screaming.



Nobody can tell a parent how to discipline their kid? Correct. But we CAN tell a parent when they are allowing their kid to infringe upon our personal space. That's what this is all about.



More appropriately, how you as a parent get your kid to behave is entirely up to you. Just make sure you do it. Because when children are obnoxious and unruly, it indeed does become the business of adults around them. That's why families sometimes get asked to leave restaurants, for example, because they have no right to spoil everyone else's dinner time if they can't make their kids be quiet.



The same goes for backyards. I should not have to move "out in the country" in order to have reasonable standards of quiet in the property that I own.

Greatly appreciated. My neighbors drive me crazy!