Sorry if this is long, trying not to drip feed.
The garden that backs on to mind is a house with a family with 3 children, two primary school aged children and one is a baby who is probably about 18 months old now.
Last year every time we were out in the garden we could overhear everything being said by this family - not intentionally eavesdropping, but our gardens aren’t huge and where our paved area with seating is is right by the rear fence. There seemed to be a lot of aggressive yelling and telling offs of the children and lots of tears from the children - which felt OTT and unpleasant but I put it down to maybe the stress of lockdown and an obviously new baby so probably lack of sleep etc. There were also a number of occasions where they had music playing that had lots of swear words or inappropriate racist words - which wasn’t great as it made me feel like I couldn’t be out there with children, as I didn’t want them to overhear that, but I tried to give the benefit of the doubt and assume it was something like a Spotify playlist that the parents hasn’t listened to before putting it on for the kids and hadn’t realised the content.
But this year it’s exactly the same, if not worse. Admittedly the weather has only been good enough for the last couple of weeks to be out regularly but I’ve never heard anything from the parents to the children that isn’t said at a yell or scream. (Sometimes it’s so loud I can hear them if I’m in the house) Everything is said in a really aggressive way and there are lots of insults and threats. Just as an example, I sat out yesterday for about thirty minutes and in that time heard the children being told they were idiots, morons, fucking stupid, to “shut your stupid mouth”, “stop that or I’ll drag you inside” and more. The dad seems to be the most aggressive in terms of things that seem like almost threats of physical violence like the I’ll drag you inside comment but the mum isn’t much better and I’ve never heard her communicate with any of the children in anything other than an insult, shouting or telling them she doesn’t care and to go away. Yesterday morning she was out in the garden with the baby who was sobbing and sobbing and she was just saying shut up to them - I was still in the house so she was saying this loud enough for me to hear indoors. The baby seemed near hysterical and it was just really distressing to hear. There are also lots of comments of the “wait till your dad gets home” type to the older children said in a way that just seems really threatening in tone.
I’m so uncomfortable about this and it feels really abusive to me. I feel like I should report this but then I question myself and wonder if I’m just interfering and would anyone even care to look into this if I did report this? My gut instinct is that someone who would speak to their kids that way where they can be overheard is probably more abusive behind closed doors and the children don’t ever seem to be happy - there never seems to be just the usual kids messing about and having a nice time just lots of tears and conflict. I don’t know anyone who would talk to a child the way this couple does. I don’t know anyone who would speak to their dog the way they talk to their children.
I don’t think I’m being melodramatic (maybe I am?) This isn’t a one off. It’s any time we’re outside - from overhearing them if we’re putting the bins out to the kind of stuff I’ve mentioned above if we’re sat out in the garden. Should I just think of this as stressed out parents and keep my nose out and hope they’re not like this all the time and it’s pure coincidence that any time I hear them they’re like this? I don’t know anyone who is like this with their children (totally appreciate we all can lose our temper at times and shout or yell as a one off in a way we might look back on and regret but this is literally every single interaction I’ve ever heard).
So as not to drip feed it does seem like the mum has some issues with regards to being rational or proportionate about things - last year she became very abusive and was harassing a neighbour because their recycling bin blew over when they were on holiday and some of the contents got scattered about but she seemed unable to accept this and spent months harassing and threatening them over this - they’ve actually moved away now because of how bad it was. So knowing this makes me also think she’s probably worse behind closed doors than what I hear outside.
If I did report it would anything even happen? I feel like if I did report this as a concern social services would just turn up and because the children are clothed and fed in what is considered a “nice” area and a parent with a “good job” that they wouldn’t really be interested about the harm being caused to children by being spoken to like this. Does anyone have any experience of issues like this? Would I be unreasonable to report this?