Kids are loud enough alone, but when you get siblings together, any parent knows that the volume goes up. Whether playing or fighting, it’s easy for parents to get frustrated by this level of noise. We asked nationally recognized Cleveland area pediatrician, Dr. Arthur Lavin, why siblings are so loud together and how parents can work with their kids to lower the volume.
Sibling relationships are a game
Lavin says siblings treat their time together as if they are in a game. The games can be fun, negative and competitive. In all of these instances, it is easy for siblings to become immersed in their game and act oblivious and completely unaware of the rest of the world – especially when parents may be yelling for them to quiet down.
“When they’re having fun, they get loud, and when they’re in a fight, they get loud,” Lavin says. “Plus, they make other noises like burping, which only contributes to the octave in the house.”
He says sibling rivalry can also contribute to the noise, as younger siblings often feel less powerful than the older sibling, setting up a dynamic where they are always reaching for a sense of dignity.
“The first born doesn’t want to lose the advantage of being more powerful, so they are incentivized to keep the younger one down, while the younger one is incentivized to try to rise up,” he says. “Kids often exert power through raised voices.”
Young kids are not yet emotionally regulated
Many times, especially with children ages 3 through 8, each individual child doesn’t yet know their own strength.
“They think of their lungs as a new instrument and take it for a ride, seeing how big and strong it can be,” Lavin says. “When you have two young kids, you have double the noise.”
COVID had a strong impact on families
While the COVID-19 pandemic didn’t create any of these realities of kids being loud, the result was siblings stuck together for long periods of time and parents frustrated with them more easily.
“We are also just now starting to see the delays in social development, which is why kids now are acting a few years younger,” says Lavin, who adds that kids in third through eighth grade are currently struggling the most. “For so many years, kids didn’t have a teacher putting a lid on outbursts and conflicts, so they didn’t get a chance to get socially civilized.”
How parents can handle volume concerns
Lavin says rather than yelling and screaming at kids when they are in the moment, he suggests solving the issue in between these moments so they can be prevented in the future.
One idea he has is for parents to record a video of their children and have the children identify if their voices are quiet, normal or loud.
He also says it’s important to teach your child what it means to be irritating. This can also be done as an irritation game, by having everyone talk about things that irritate them. The next step in that game is for everyone to note when someone in the household does something to irritate them.
“That game helps develop a sense of what irritation is, the fact that other people own their irritation and that you own whatever you actually do to irritate someone,” Lavin says.
If all else fails, he says, parents can also remind kids of appropriate level inside and outside voices.
