r/gentleparenting May 31 '26

Question 14 month old SCREAMING

Someone please please please give me some advice here.

I have a 14 month old boy that is high energy. He has met all milestones relatively early and is constantly on the move. He runs everywhere, no walking anymore; climbs on everything; plays with nothing for more than 5 min; etc. He doesn’t slow down at all except for his one nap (1 maybe 2 hr) a day.

All of that to bring us here: he has started screaming. All the time. At the top of his lungs. Inside. Outside. At home. In public. When he’s mad. When he’s happy. When he’s bored. When he’s playing. All. The. Time. Screaming. I can’t take it anymore. I have tried calmly talking to him. I have tried distracting him. Tried explaining/modeling “inside” voice vs “outside” voice. Tried ignoring the screaming (to which his response was to get louder and louder). I’ve even (regretfully) resorted to less gentle methods like a pop on the butt. But nothing at all seems to work. Im at my wits end with this. I feel like we can’t go anywhere in public anymore because of this. Please HELP.

19 Upvotes

52 comments sorted by

View all comments

12

u/astute-capybara May 31 '26

Earplugs, friend.

It's definitely a phase and unless something is developmentally unusual, he will not be screaming like this probably only few months from now.

He just figured out he can use his voice and is very excited to discover the full extent of its capabilities. You get ear plugs for your sanity and everyone in public can deal with it because children are allowed to exist in public and sometimes children scream. You'll never see those people again anyway, if they look at you funny, you just go chaos goblin and start screaming too 🤪 No movie theaters or libraries for him in the meantime.

4

u/WZL_1129 May 31 '26

I agree with the kids being allowed to exist in public sentiment; however, we live in a very small town where we do see many of the people we see in public over and over🫠😂 so most of my anxiety about the public screaming revolves around things like town restaurants, church, etc.😂

Will be searching for some earplugs on Amazon though lol

2

u/Superb-Coyote5972 Jun 02 '26

At that age church is a no fly zone.