Children & Noise
Noise poses a serious threat to our children’s hearing, health, learning and behavior. Recent research suggests that quiet promotes an environment which will foster learning, as well as the opportunity for parents and children to enjoy each other’s company. Parents must analyze their own home and recreational activities and make every effort to include quiet times with their children, reading, talking around the dinner table and listening to their children.
Noise & Its Effect on Children's Behavior
Effects of Noise on Children's Behavior
Noise poses a serious threat to children's hearing, health, learning and behavior. Recent research suggests that quiet promotes an environment which will foster learning, as well as the opportunity for parents and children to enjoy each other's company. Parents must analyze their own home and recreational activities and make every effort to include quiet times with their children, reading, talking around the dinner table and listening to their children.
Noise & Children's Social Behavior
Researchers are now finding what parents have known instinctively for a long time - noise in the home brings chaos to our lives. Imagine a home at around 5 p.m. The television is on, perhaps the stereo is blaring upstairs.
The phone rings, one child pulls at your leg, another screaming about a sibling knocking down a carefully designed block construction, all while you are trying to make dinner and help with the homework. Now, imagine the same home without the background noise. Turn off the television, turn down the volume on the stereo and lower the voices. Theodore Wachs (1993) studied the level of "noise confusion" in the home and its impact on early childhood development. Wachs concluded that high levels of noise, crowding and traffic patterns in the home were associated with lower caregiver attentiveness and responsibility. Noise, it seems, can affect the temperament and social interactions of children. Just like adults, children need quiet time at home, to create, learn, relax and just "be".
Offer Your Children the Opportunity for Peace and Quiet
Where today's market offers children a variety of noisy toys, loud and boisterous recreational activities and the message that "loud is cool", parents must provide children with the opportunity for peace and quiet in their lives. Consider the words "peace and quiet". In order to have peace, it is implied that we must have quiet. If we want children to live in a world of peace, we must first offer them a world with the opportunity for quiet.
Please see the Noise Center’s References & Suggested Resources
