Comments on: When Toddlers Scream

By: Robin Floren

Robin Floren — Sun, 13 Sep 2020 18:22:46 +0000

In reply to Becky. Granddaughter is 13 months. Has been screaming since months. Just walks around house screaming on top of lungs. Has two older siblings which are totally unaffected. I’m concerned. Limited words hi, wave, no patience to sit and play. Runs around. Very happy baby. Laughs, dances. Why screams?

By: Brandy

Brandy — Wed, 09 Sep 2020 20:43:38 +0000

In reply to Valerie. We are in the exact same boat except the older sibling is 3. Janet's previous answer kind of seemed to be "let the child scream" but I find that unacceptable. It's extremely disruptive to our (and our neighbors'!) lives.

By: Allison

Allison — Sat, 05 Sep 2020 15:39:51 +0000

Hi, I have an 18 month old also experimenting with the reaction to his volume. My husband and I are able to not react to him when he shrieks. But my 4 year old daughter can’t handle it. She gets so upset. And her reaction is what my son gets so much glee from. How can we support her in this situation?

By: robin charbonneau

robin charbonneau — Wed, 30 Oct 2019 17:28:56 +0000

In reply to Jaime. My boys 4 and screams especially when he wants something

By: G

Thu, 11 Apr 2019 21:39:14 +0000

I really don’t mind if he screams when he’s upset, but my child (fittingly, also Miles!) has a special, horrid scream he does just for the fun of it. I try to be unruffled but the noise is so unnerving that it’s like trying to do math while being tortured. Faking unruffled hasn’t worked because he can still sense it’s bothering me even if I’m trying to hide it, so he intensifies it. I know my reaction is making him feel too powerful and perpetuating the behavior. Is it okay to remove myself from the situation somehow to keep myself calm – like, telling him he is welcome to scream in his room with the door closed, or pulling the car over and standing beside it for a few minutes while he gets it out of his system?

By: janet

janet — Tue, 05 Mar 2019 17:54:30 +0000

In reply to Breanne. Hi Breanne- I know it's challenging but I would allow these interactions to play out without your judgment.

By: Breanne

Breanne — Tue, 05 Mar 2019 16:13:40 +0000

Hi Janet,

I appreciated your response to the question above. My concern with my 13 month old’s screaming is that I can remain calm and unaffected, but my 3.5 year old daughter can’t. She will go right up to him and scream back at him or wave her hands in his face. I can see that usually when he screams, it is when he sees his big sister and is trying to communicate with her so when she responds, he is essentially meeting his goal. Since he now knows his screaming is effective in getting his sisters attention, I don’t see his screaming ending any time soon. It now turns into a back and forth scream off between my 2 children. Any suggestions here? Thanks in advance. Your words are a grounding point for me in this parenting journey.

By: Karen Patton

Karen Patton — Fri, 01 Mar 2019 20:24:49 +0000

Both my sons began to vocalize with very high-pitched screams at exactly this age (15 months.) I determined that they were not protesting, uncomfortable, etc. The problem was when they were in the car seat behind me and they did it. I would suffer from temporary hearing loss with pain in my right ear. My pediatrician gave me the “put both hands on his face and tell him that hurts mommy’s ears.” Well, that didn’t work, and it didn’t address the car events. The older child outgrew the phase quickly, but the younger one enjoyed it too much.
Yes, it’s normal. However, I sustained long-term diminished hearing in that ear, so not so great for me.

By: Kaytlyn

Kaytlyn — Mon, 10 Dec 2018 06:51:25 +0000

Hello, what is your suggestion when the screaming simply isn’t acceptable for the situation? For example we live in an apartment and have limited furniture at this point so it echoes quite loud and neighbors have complained. Additionally what do you do in public settings when the child has this behavior and risks disrupting those around them?

By: Valerie

Valerie — Mon, 19 Nov 2018 14:27:41 +0000

In reply to janet.

Hi Janet,
I’m experiencing a similar situation to Jaime. My 2 year old daughter has been screaming a lot lately, not out of frustration but mainly just to test her limits (and also because she’s quite a loud and enthusiastic girl). We have a 4 month old son who is extremely jumpy and cries out of fear anytime she screams and will wake up crying as well after a scream. We cannot ignore her screams since it impacts her brother so much. We’ve explained to her that when she screams it scares her little brother or wakes him up when he needs to be sleeping. She’s smart and extremely empathetic and understands this but I guess because of her age she can’t help but keep doing it. We’ve recently resorted to putting her in a 5 minute time out in her crib after she’s screamed. I spend the first 2 minutes explaining to her that she’s in a time out because she needs to calm down and that she cannot scream. I then leave her and go back after 3 minutes. I didn’t want to resort to time outs but I don’t really know what else to do. If it wasn’t for her little brother I wouldn’t mind ignoring the behaviour but given how frightened he gets I don’t feel it would be right to do so.
I know that the birth of a sibling is very difficult for a toddler. She acted out a lot in the first 2 months (trying to hurt him and having a lot more tantrums) but after 2 months she suddenly started to go back to her old self and clearly loves her brother now. I know that she’s probably still working out some feelings about having to share our attention but this can’t go on.
Please let me know what I can do differently to help curb this behaviour.

Thank you,
Valerie