noisy grandchild

Sounds like shes been the centre of attention of a whole host of adults for her whole life and noe its what she expects to happen . Really cant blame the child and i really dont know how you can right the situation without some tears along the way. Maybe someone will have better advice.

The child is confused. To be the centre of attention is all she knows. You have to retrain her (sorry if I make her sound like a puppy). She needs to learn that she is not the centre of the world. How old is she? Perhaps time out would help. Put her out of the room until she is ready to stop shouting. She can choose when to come back in.

There will be tears and tantrums but better to do it now than wait until she's older and the situation is even worse.

you say when your grandaughter shouts you shout over her to make yourself heard...sounds to me that she is just copying her elders...Just wondered has she had her hearing checked? as I know from experience that children who have hearing problems do shout because they cant here their own volume...

Yes, take her to get her hearing checked, then when that is ruled out, stop shouting over her! If it is a competition who can demand attention most loudly, she will always win!

If she breaks into a conversation to tell you something of her own, say something like "Keep that in your head for a moment! How long can you remember it? Until we have finished this bit that we are saying? Then we will ask you about it and hear all about it properly. Put your hand over your mouth to keep it in! OK?"

You could even look at a watch and note the time, so that you can tell her how long she kepther news inside, and make a game of it. Continue to talk to one another for a sentence or two - briefly, she won't be able to keep it in for long! - and then be sure to ask her about what she was going to say.

This won't be cured overnight! She is the centre of her world, and won't realise that other people have lives until she has had a bit more practice at playing second fiddle.

The daughter of a friend of mine years ago had it down to a fine art - she would sit on her mother's lap, facing towards her, so that her head was always between mother and me and she was gazing into mother's eyes from a few inches away. When mother moved her head to the side to talk to me, daughter's head would move too to cut off the view. It was like a chess game, at checkmate. Her mother never seemed to notice, just kept dodging from side to side like a ski slalom course.

Good advice, elegran.

How old is the child, ethel?

I don't think you should ask her to be nice or tell her that she is making her mother cry - it is not intentional and she is too young to take that into consideration. You would just be piling on the guilt for the future, that it is her fault when mother is upset. Make a game of her waiting and saving up what she wants to say for a few minutes, without denying her the chance to say her bit when it is her turn. That could stand her in good stead with other children too, she will need to give and take with them. As an only child she has no sibling to "knock the corners off her"

My DGD is 3 and a half by the way.

Her hearing seems fine as she can hear whispers, I often 'whisper' a secret for fun and she can hear ok but having said that I will observe in the future. Thank you for that tip.

I'd say it's fairly normal behaviour for a three year old. Try elegran's suggestion of a game to help her learn that interrupting all the time isn't polite, and/or vamp's suggestion that she be told to leave the room for a time and that she can come back if she doesn't shout. Good luck.

They don't seem to have a volume control at 3 or 4! But learning to have one (and a delay) and using it could be a fun game.

When asked to say things more quietly she may think that she would not then be interrupting. I remember mine would come up and breathe something indistinguishable in my ear over and over again, which broke into a conversation as much as a shout would have done!

You could be describing my 3 and a half dgd.!! However mine also has a 6 month old sister to compete with so can throw whopper tantrums. She is so lovely in between times that hopefully we will all survive this phase.

At the moment I find her whole behaviour very boisterous, she is fun but tiring so I tend to do all I can to tire her out such as days at the park, playing with her ball or just running, the downside is that Im worn out and she is just beginning to slow down but good for another few hours. lol

You need a system where SHE is running round working off energy but YOU are sitting still. Not easy!

My granddaughter has just been here for a week. I don't think she stopped talking the whole time - if she wasn't saying something sensible she seemed to be repeating collections of nonsense words over and over again, or running round the lawn in circles to get dizzy then throwing herself down laughing like a kookaburra. She is 12 !!!!!

(But she says she loves me, so . . . .)

We had a big family which of itself generated noise. I found that speaking quietly myself tended to get more attention than raising my voice over the children. Expect they thought they were missing something.

Also, using "strong and firm" body language along with "just a minute ... is speaking now" seems to work. My daughter's second child could talk for England and she has had to be very insistent with him (consistently so, even at the end of the day when exhausted) and it is now reaping rewards. On my last visit he said excitedly "excuse me but I have something to tell you, don't forget" almost as soon as I got there. He is still the wild lively little boy I love, but does let others speak now.

Good luck!

We are trying the 'indoor' voice concept with our shouty almost 3 DGD, just wish the 13 month understood!

This seems to me to be another of those stages that pass in time. The saying'this too will pass' is often the best advice. I found this when raising my own children and seems to be the case with my DGD. You get to the stage where you think that you can take no more and hey presto! That stage has passed and on to another worry.
I think toddlers of this age all think that they are the centre of our worlds, mainly because they are! ??

My DGS is three and a half and he does the whole noisy interrupting thing too. He has no siblings to 'knock the corners off' but since he started nursery he has learned that there are times when you need to take turns. This is what we tell him when he is butting in - sometimes it works, sometimes he carries on but I think persistence and using the same tactic works because they see and recognise a pattern.
I agree that shouting over them won't work because it becomes a competition and everyone gets fraught

It's girls!!! I'm sure they have a gene that makes them shout & scream. I had boys so never experienced this until GC arrived.I have 4 GS & 2 GD & the girls are so loud! They just yell for no apparent reason. Luckily elder GD is just turned 8 & is calming down a bit slowly but 4 year old is taking over. The boys are fine. They complain about screeching girls too.I noticed this years ago when I had a family next door with 2 of each & it was always the girls you heard over the fence.Boys just seem to get on with whatever they are doing- even if it is rolling on the floor fighting- which boys do as a matter of course & then get up best friends again- odd things children!.

How about trying a method used with autistic children who cannot read social signals about when to speak. Get a ball or other object and pass it between the group, people can only speak when they hold the object. The child will learn to take her turn and wait for others to have their say.

My grandson and I have a secret code game when I am talking he touches my wrist so I know he is there and waits until I finish speaking. Took a little practice but he loves the idea of secret codes

Our children never seemed to screech at the tops of their voices. Yes, they had their moments, but not the way children do these days.
I'm sure other parents of my age ? feel the same. I was once told that nowadays children have to shout at the top of their voices to be heard in school. Surely that can't be right? Anyway, it goes right through my head .

Has the child's hearing ever been questioned,has she had ear infections? I ask this because my DGD1used to shout when she spoke until she had Grommets put in both ears due to 18 ear infections!! She seemed to speak quieter after that,bless her!

I think the volume control on small children is faulty!

We use two things. We ask them to use their indoor voice if they start shouting , they all know ( 9',6,4 and 2) that that means quietly talking. The older ones even have a 'library voice' for even more quietly talking.

The second thing we have just started is this - if the child wants to say something and the adults are talking, they come over and put their hand on your arm. That means I have something to say. You then put your hand over theirs - that means I know you have something to say please wait. You then finish your conversation and then turn to the child and talk with them.

Start off making the time between covering their hand with yours and talking to them very short . As they get used to the technique lengthen the time they must wait. Our 9 and 6 year old can do this really well now.

We started with the 4 yr old on holiday as he has been the centre of attention for his whole life and we found we were getting some spectacular meltdowns so this was a way of stopping that happening.

The 2 year old doesn't need it yet but it's been successful enough that we will use it on him too.

I really like the idea of `indoor voice` . craftycat is right , girls are much noisier than boys.