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Alamb

Author/Television Reporter

Amanda Lamb is a professional television journalist and author. She covers murder trials by day and reads Dora the Explorer to her children at night. Somewhere in between all of that she writes about those parenting moments that catch each us off-guard in a crazy, chaotic, and wonderful way. Aman...

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Loud Nation

Amanda Lamb

My youngest daughter’s preschool teacher told me the other day that she noticed kids were getting louder.  As a parent of loud kids I can attest to this fact.  The teacher said that in day care kids learn at an early age to be loud in order to be heard over the din of so many kids competing for attention in one room.  For some reason though it doesn’t end with preschool.  It seems to go on, and on, and on.

I can’t tell you how many times a day I say:  “Lower your voice, I can hear you.”  This is usually in response to one of my children asking me for something at a decibel that is sure to touch off an earthquake or a tsunami.  When you get two or more children together in one room the decibel level rises exponentially.  I sound like my mother, constantly telling them to “tone it down.”

There are two ways of handling it, tune it out or make it stop.  My husband is a master at tuning it out.  He can have a perfectly civil conversation with someone while his youngest screams in his ear begging for his attention.  I, on the other hand, handle it poorly.  It is like nails on a chalkboard to me.  I can’t tune it out, so I try, most of the time without success, to tone it down.  I especially have trouble with their loud-talking when we are in a public space and their antics are clearly bothering others.  Again, my husband has no such concerns.  He acts like he’s in a parallel universe where he can’t hear their screams. 

I guess I could wear ear plugs, or better yet my Ipod all the time to tune it out.  But then I might just miss something important, but at least I would be smiling.