If you’re in the habit of telling your kids to turn down the music when you can hear the thumping coming from their headphones, you’ve made a good start at protecting their hearing. But the world we live in is increasingly noisy, and we don’t always notice how loud things have gotten.

Ever turn up the volume on the TV because your dishwasher was running? Notice how your favorite restaurant sounds full even when it’s half empty? Indoors there are video games, home entertainment and appliances. Outdoors you’ve got traffic, leaf blowers and heavy equipment.

And then there are concerts, where even classical music can reach the same noise levels as an ambulance siren.

Exposure to all this sound can slowly erode your family’s hearing if you aren’t careful. To turn the volume down, turn to the “It’s A Noisy Planet” website from the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders. It has a host of tools and information for parents and tweens. Some of my favorite features:

• An interactive sound ruler that samples sounds from a shhhhh to a shotgun, and tells kids which are dangerous.

• A guide to hearing protection, including ways for kids to respond to friends who tease them about earplugs.

• A video message from Sophie Kaye, a teen who lost her hearing at age 7 and has dedicated herself to protecting the hearing of others.

There’s even a section on “Noise In the News” to keep you in the know. Check it out and enjoy the quiet.