Ok folks, just looking for a bit of input/advice here, as I don't know if I'm being overly sensitive or whether I'm right to be irritated. This is my first post, so hopefully I'm in the right place.
I'll also preface this by saying that myself & DH don't have any children of our own (yet!), so my only experience of a home life with kids is basically my own childhood. I've lived next to a family since then, but the only noise they really made was from DIY and piano lessons on a Saturday morning, so a bit annoying, but bearable. However, I thought I could really do with some perspective on this, so any help is appreciated.
We bought and moved into our first house in the middle of July. It's an end back-to-back terrace, so we have neighbours on one side and at the back.
The people in the house at the back are a family - parents and two kids, a boy and a girl. I don't know how old they are but they're certainly primary age (although the boy could only just be). I understand that living next to a family in a terraced house, there's going to be normal day to day noise. Kids playing, squealing, stomping on stairs a bit; that kind of thing I can deal with. What I can't deal with is the shouting.
Basically, pretty much every morning, the mum finds some reason to scream at the kids. The first week or so we were in the house, the kids were still at school, and every single morning from about 7 until 8:30ish she was screaming at the kids to get up, screaming at them to get dressed, that she couldn't help them unless they helped her to. One day I heard her just scream wordlessly (like in frustration, it seemed). The houses are over three floors and I think the little girl is in the attic, and she seemed to just be coming up the stairs and yelling from the middle floor landing.
Over the school holidays it's not been as bad (weekends still are - obviously kids just get up when they're awake, so we usually hear them from about 7:30. I can deal with that as I know that's just normal, although she does still shout at the boy from time to time on a weekend).
I've been dreading school starting again as I know it'll be the same. This morning I didn't hear her shouting them up, but I did hear her shouting at the boy at about 8:15 - "WHAAAAAATTTTT - STOP GOING ON ABOUT IT - I'M SO P**D OFF WITH YOU ALREADY - GET OUT OF THE ROOM", although it mostly died down after that.
My issue with it is that it's just SO LOUD. When she shouts, she might as well be in the same room as us. It's terrifying! We start work a little later than most people so although we don't expect to lounge around all morning, we don't usually get up til 7:30ish (well, I do, DH gets up a little later). It means that when she does start screaming, one (or both) of us is still sleeping, or we've only just woken up, and it's so jarring to experience. It's making me feel sick; my heart starts pounding and I feel like I need to vomit every time it happens (I know that sounds dramatic, but it's true). I've started struggling to sleep in anticipation of it. (Plus last night they were faffing around at like half 11 trying to get school uniforms dry using what sounded like a hairdryer.) I'm so tired today from tossing and turning til 4 just from being so anxious.
My take on it is that she's struggling to cope; she seems to snap quite quickly and escalate into screaming. I've heard her trying to use time outs, counting to 5 etc, and it just doesn't seem to work, so I don't blame her for being frustrated. But I can't carry on like this, and DH & I both feel that if it continues over the next few weeks we're going to have to say something. The problem is, how on earth do we do it? We haven't spoken to any of them at all (although have seen them getting in their car, seen kids playing in the garden etc). We were thinking of going round and introducing ourselves, but obviously it'd be a bit harsh to go round all friendly and then a few days later tell them to shut up. If she is struggling I'd like to offer help, but I don't know how to do it without sounding condescending or like I know better, because I'm not a parent, so what do I know? I just feel like this kind of behaviour isn't normal (although if anyone else thinks otherwise, I'm sure you'll say!).
Any help, thoughts, ideas etc would be massively appreciated as I'm at my wits end with this, and I really don't know what to do.