News

What would you do if your teenage son regularly punched you? Or your 11-year-old daughter spat in your face and called you a whore? The term domestic violence is mainly associated with men being violent to women, and children are generally only involved because they are victims or witnesses. But while domestic violence between adults has come out from behind the net curtains, it is rarely acknowledged that children can physically or verbally abuse their parents.

"It is one of the last remaining taboos," says Susan Bailey, a child and adolescent forensic psychiatrist for the Salford and the South London and Maudsley NHS trusts. "We are ready to pick up on violent behaviour in children and adolescents if they are displaying it at school or on the streets, but violence behind closed doors including by children to parents has been hidden," she says.

One of the problems is that the right questions often aren't being asked. "Where you discover children who have assaulted other kids or siblings or strangers, they have quite often done it to their parents. But the question isn't asked and it's a difficult thing for a parent to disclose."

Without intervention you end up with the "tyrannical child", she says. Violence increases in severity and frequency. The dynamics between the child and parent resemble those in spousal abuse with the adult becoming submissive and the child more dominant.

According to Parentline Plus, it is becoming more common. Its latest figures, for 2002-3, record that 40 per cent of parents calling its helpline were concerned about their child's behaviour. Of these, 10 per cent had themselves experienced some kind of abuse from their child.

There are many triggers for this behaviour - although sometimes parents will never discover the catalyst - including:

• They may have a violent home life, or their parents may neglect them.
• Undiagnosed behavioural problems such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, conduct disorders.
• Learning difficulties.
• Family relationships, for example divorce, new partners or bereavement.
• Drug abuse.
• Early onset psychosis in a small minority.

An added complication is that, contrary to what society expects, such behaviour occurs in families across the socio-economic spectrum and not just in those from deprived or violent backgrounds.

Maureen Pearson, area manager for north east Parentline Plus, says: "Parents feel angry, let down, embarrassed and frustrated. We run parenting courses to help the parent look at acting and reacting, and encourage them to listen to what the child is saying. Sometimes a child can be frightened that they are so angry or out of control. They want to be set limits.

"We do lose our tempers sometimes because we are not perfect. Apologise to your child so that you show you accept responsibility for saying something hurtful. You can tell them you love them but you don't love their behaviour."

Pearson speaks from experience as a parent and a foster carer; there were times she was frightened to be in her own house. Parents are ashamed to seek help, she says, but also don't know who to turn to. "It would take a very confident parent to go to social services and say they have a problem. They fear their child will be removed. They might not like what their kids are doing but they love them, and putting them in care is a last resort."

Family support services could help, but only if they get in early enough, says Pearson. "They often don't get involved until crisis point. The parent may have been calling social services and saying they are at breaking point but nothing is done. They phone us to say they're about to walk out on their child because they can't cope and if the parent agrees we then phone social services to say there's a child at risk."

Parents in the Wirral are more fortunate - the only course of its kind working in the area is on their doorstep. The Peace (Parents Enjoying a Changing Environment) course came about following government pressure to prosecute parents of children who were truanting (see panel, below). Parents were offered action plans to address this by the local authority's education social welfare team, the deal being that if they didn't comply they would be prosecuted. What they hadn't bargained on was coming across parents they had thought to be ineffective or unco-operative at their wits' end because they were being abused by their children when they tried to get them to school.

So instead of penalising these parents, the council decided to help and support them. Wirral education social worker Roberta Crawford devised the 12-week course that deals with domestic abuse perpetrated by children on their parents, encompassing physical, emotional, psychological and financial abuse.

The course has been running for three years now, and the only criteria is that the child's abusive behaviour has to have an impact on their education, be it poor attendance, behaviour problems or truanting, for example.

Sessions include discussions on how adults can keep themselves safe from their own children in their own home - "a traumatic" topic, says Crawford; and putting them back in control of their own life first so that they can go on to take control of the family. They learn how to recognise that a situation is developing before it becomes a crisis and how to stop it escalating, by listening to how they are speaking to each other, keeping the sound level down, taking time out and being non-confrontational where possible.

While parents are attending the course, their children are referred to appropriate services including the education department's youth service and the health authority's child and family service.

Peace has seen over 200 parents so far and calls also come in nationally for information and advice. Some parents who completed the course went on to form Tulip (Together United Living In Peace) to offer continued help and support to parents. Now when the Peace course finishes parents are invited to join Tulip; it is currently supporting about 400 parents nationally.

"Over the past two years the government has been saying that parents are responsible," says Crawford. "But there's a difference between them being responsible and being made to feel they are to blame."

- For more information contact Peace on 0151 637 6060; the Tulip project on 0151 637 6363; and Parentline Plus on 0808 800 2222.

Giving peace a chance

Elizabeth Brown (not her real name) is a married professional with a son and daughter. Her son abused her - but not his father or sister - physically, verbally, emotionally and psychologically from the age of 12 for several years. She still doesn't know what triggered his behaviour.

"I wasn't the lone parent living in the inner city in deprived circumstances. We blew away all the myths," she says. "That's what was so hard, because I'm a professional and to be a professional who has a situation at home that you can't manage, where do you go with that?"

She and her husband went to nine different resources seeking help so that the family could stay together, including counselling, their GP, an educational psychologist and the health authority's child and family service.

It was a psychologist at the latter that referred them to Peace. After trying so many other options, Elizabeth was cynical. "But I started recognising that there was a lot of sense in what was being said about changing my response to what was happening. I was being listened to and the sessions were about my individual situation. We weren't judged, we weren't called bad parents."

After the course Elizabeth joined Tulip. Her son's behaviour gradually improved, he has now finished his education and is working full-time. He no longer lives at home and has a good relationship with his mother.

"I was in this great big black hole and somebody shoved a ladder in there and said start climbing," she says.