Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures, tables and boxes
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction: the problem of adolescent-to-parent abuse
- one Abuse in families: commonalities, connections and contexts
- two Experiences of parent abuse
- three Explaining parent abuse
- four Parents, children and power relations
- five Frontline service responses to parent abuse
- six Working with parent abuse
- seven Adolescent-to-parent abuse: future directions for research, policy and practice
- Resources
- Appendix: Adolescent-to-parent abuse: initial assessment
- References
- Index
Introduction: the problem of adolescent-to-parent abuse
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 September 2022
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures, tables and boxes
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction: the problem of adolescent-to-parent abuse
- one Abuse in families: commonalities, connections and contexts
- two Experiences of parent abuse
- three Explaining parent abuse
- four Parents, children and power relations
- five Frontline service responses to parent abuse
- six Working with parent abuse
- seven Adolescent-to-parent abuse: future directions for research, policy and practice
- Resources
- Appendix: Adolescent-to-parent abuse: initial assessment
- References
- Index
Summary
“He’ll scream and shout at me, awful abuse, absolutely awful abuse. He’ll throw things at me, he’ll punch holes in doors, he’ll threaten to hit me, and this’ll be all in front of my three little ones. So when it came to punching holes in the front door, screaming abuse at me at eight o’clock in the morning, I thought, ‘No, the time has come to do something about it.’ ‘Cos one time that he was kicking off, he was throwing things at me and it ricocheted off me and hit my youngest baby, who is 21 months you know, and a shoe ricocheted off me and hit him. Well I can't have that. I didn't do anything about it at the time, but that sort of behaviour I can't have. He's done it in front of his friends, thrown big pieces of hardboard at me and garden toys and everything and I said to his friends, ‘Look, I’m not a horrible mum, John is just like this.’” (Sally, mother of John, aged 15 – from original transcript, Holt, 2009)
What is parent abuse?
Sally's experience may sound very familiar to those who have experienced, researched or worked with victimisation in the family home. But what might make Sally's experience less familiar to readers is that her perpetrator is 15 years old, and is her son. And while abuse directed towards parents from children and young people appears to be as prevalent as other forms of family abuse, experiences of it remain unarticulated. Parent abuse refers to a pattern of behaviour that uses verbal, financial, physical or emotional means to practise power and exert control over a parent. The parent may be a biological parent, step-parent or a parent in a legal capacity, and the son or daughter is still legally a child (ie, under 18 years) and is usually living in the family home with their parent(s). As Sally's account highlights, parent abuse is likely to involve both physical and non-physical forms of abuse, and the exercise of control is usually evidenced by the parent's inability to ‘do anything about it’. Furthermore, like all forms of family abuse, it produces both short-term distress and long-term harm for the families involved: empirical research has been relatively consistent in identifying fear, guilt, shame and despair in parents and feelings of helplessness and inadequacy in the child or young person.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Adolescent-to-Parent AbuseCurrent Understandings in Research, Policy and Practice, pp. 1 - 14Publisher: Bristol University PressPrint publication year: 2012