Fun Aloud should be allowed

Have you ever shut yourself into a room or in your car and blasted your favorite pump-up music at max volume? You know that feeling you get when you emerge? Yeah. That one. You feel invigorated, refreshed, tension, and steam fully released. You feel ready to take on the world.  Is that why kids like to be so loud? 

Kids can get super loud – too loud for most grownups to stay silent

If you have a child in your life that is toddler-aged and above, chances are you have been amazed by the decibels they can produce.  These superhuman bellows and shrieks are not reserved for when they are upset. Oh no. It is also when they are excited, having fun or just because it’s Tuesday.  Kids get into these noise-making moods so much that inevitably, a grownup around will begin to feel like they are about to lose their mind and ask the kids to put a lid on it. 

Sometimes kids should be allowed to have their fun aloud!

Imagine that you were in the middle of a much-needed pump-up session, letting it all hang out and living your best life. Then some giant came and forced you to halt – for no other reason than you were being loud. That doesn’t sound like fun at all does it? It’d be like when you’re about to sneeze and suddenly the sneeze disappears.  Yet as adults, we don’t give it a second thought when we shush and ask kids to quiet down.  

There are many occasions when asking kids to lower the decibels is the responsible call – for their safety, for decorum, for our health and sanity or other good parenty reasons.  But one has got to admit that sometimes we ask kids to be quiet just because. In the name of sparing our kids that yucky evasive sneeze feeling they may get, we advocate that sometimes we should consciously let them have their fun aloud.

A practical guide to keeping your cool when kids get loud to have fun

So how do you let kids have their loud jollies (at least some of the time) and to not lose your cool?  Here are some starting tips.  Tell us how you have done it in the comments if you have other ways.  All parents will thank you. 

Communicate the spaces where loud fun is allowed!

Wouldn’t it be awesome if we could schedule a time when kids have their loud spells?  But alas, everything can’t be awesome.  While you can’t schedule the time – that would kill the spontaneity that makes being loud great – you can definitely set boundaries on the space.  In most cases, it is more flexible and easier to communicate the spaces where kids cannot unleash their inner jet engine sounds. So you can build some predictability into your life by letting kids know that your office, or a bedroom, or the bathroom where you often hide from them, is a place where they can’t do their fun aloud.  

Join in on the loudness and be silly with the kids!

So this seems like the act of resignation but no, it is an act of taking back your power – and getting some play and fun in your day too!  You can’t lose your cool if you are deep in the joy of the chaos yourself.  Give yourself permission and even encouragement to become part of the racket when the kids are driving you up the wall with their noise. You may just find it cathartic too.  The kids will love to see you being silly and a potential escalation of the parent-child wars will instead be turned into a wonderful memory you’ll share.

Steer them to productive, but loud, fun

There is something about music that makes it a great pump-up tool.  So another way you can take the bite out of your kids being ridiculously loud is to help them channel that urge into belting out tunes and words that teach them something.  Hey, can you stay mad when they are essentially learning along to a song?

Let them rock out loudly to the water cycle song or the continents of the world song. Hopscotch and Number rock are just 2 youtube channels that teach kids of all ages, not through lectures, but through short songs of all genres. Yes, shamelessly influence their pump-up jam choice by exposing them to pump-up jams that do double duty.  And here friends is where Aneta helps you. Feed the kids the good stuff any time they want without you having to lift a finger.

Alright, these ideas should do for now. Hopefully, you see, you can let the kids have their fun aloud.  And in case you were wondering, yes, we did enjoy making you read out, fun aloud, allowed :).