Once upon a time, when I didn’t know so much about “parent abuse” it seemed a little exciting to be at the forefront of a new phenomenon. It felt important to speak clearly and categorically, for clarity, and the avoidance of misunderstanding – which was commonplace. “Parent abuse? You mean abuse BY parents? No? You must mean older people then?” Now it seems that the more I learn, the less certain I am about anything – other than the fact that many, many more parents than we would like to think about are struggling daily with much, much more than anyone should ever have to face within their family.
What we call this has been a constant running theme throughout the last 11 years that I’ve been involved. I quickly ditched “parent abuse” for the reasons above, though some still favour it as describing a subset of family / domestic abuse. I do still refer to it on my website home page (documenting parent abuse), but generally these days I have been using “child to parent violence”. Right from the start I was aware of questions around whether the term “abuse” was more appropriate than “violence”. It seemed important to me to capture the very active sense of terror that parents experienced; and I went with the whole phrase because it included relationship, direction and action. It’s probably worth saying at this point that I have counted over the years more than 30 different phrases in use, either in the literature or by practitioners.
Last week I barged into another conversation on twitter. People were talking about how they found the phrase “child to parent violence” unhelpful. Tell me, what was I supposed to do!
First of all, why does all this matter?
It would be really helpful if we could come up with a phrase that worked for everyone. It would potentially make it easier for parents to identify their experience and ask for help, for practitioners to understand what parents were saying, avoid confusion among policy makers, enable more realistic counting, and help us all to be sure we were talking about the same thing. At the moment the media seem to be au fait with “child to parent violence” so should we bite the bullet and stay with that?
Does it matter who chooses the name?
Hmmm. Well I would like to think we let ‘someone’ other than the media define what we’re talking about! In the beginning it was mostly academics talking, and each person adopted the phraseology that most suited what they were addressing in their paper. Many articles, dissertations etc begin with an explanation of the choice of name, quite apart from a definition. The few practitioners who were also writing similarly used terms which captured the issues they saw, and the family configurations they worked with, while continuing to wrestle with the abuse / violence question. (Hence “adolescent violence and abuse”) But are we comfortable, in the 21st century, with professionals naming a situation experienced by others, and imposing that name, if the individuals concerned would prefer something else?
Some snippets from the conversation …
My personal feeling is that children aren’t ‘abusing’ parents.
I am reluctant to give people terms which make them think badly of my child.
I wouldn’t class my child’s behaviour as violent – but other people would.
Some people, who lived through the seventies and eighties, would call this “false consciousness”, but that’s probably not terribly helpful. More useful is to think about the shame that stops families coming forward for help, the love that keeps them going day after day after day, and the loadedness of some terminology in the way it is used in different contexts. Saying that child to parent abuse can sometimes feel like intimate partner violence is one thing. Acknowledging what that means in terms of how you understand your child is quite another.
Hiding inside this conversation is, of course, the definition debate. Does intent matter? Is this one thing or many?
Do we need different names for different situations?
To some extent, we have already started down this road. Yvonne Newbold has blogged and spoken about preferring the term Violent Challenging Behaviour (VCB) for children with severe learning difficulties and mental disabilities. (But there are some who dislike the use of the word “challenging”, finding it a simplistic generalisation which excuses our own lack of understanding or curiosity as to the reason for the behaviour.)
I find this to be an unanswerable conundrum. Clearly there is a huge gulf between children and young people with severe disabilities who lash out, and those who deliberately and provocatively inflict harm to people and property. But there are so many young people in between, so many different scenarios, and overlaps of diagnoses.
If anyone would like to enter this debate they are more than welcome! If you can come up with a better turn of phrase then please let us know. In the meantime, I will leave you with some thoughts from ‘Mumdrah’ from the other evening:
For now ‘violence’ is all we have; we need better words for sure.
Whatever the label, this stuff is beyond hard to understand.
Update, August 8th 2017
As usual, the comments and replies came via twitter ….. The consensus seems to be to use the phrase “child to parent violence and abuse” as more accurately reflecting the lived experiences of families. I can’t argue with that!
HOLES IN THE WALL 
My son has abused me verbally, mentally, physically and monetarily. So many times I could have had him arrested, however the men or women in uniform are not trained to identify this. For instance, my son as I was sitting in my own home minding my own business, asked me for money which I did not have. He proceeded to call me the names which are the most degrading, w, c, s,b,,worthless if you follow me. I went to my balcony and said some call the police. As I knew this would escalate into him chasing me to my bedroom to lock the door, as he punches another hole in the door.
While my so knows now the law is coming, he goes into the bathroom, cuts himself with his fingernails until bleeding and walks out as I am letting the police in. Now I have not touched him, I have short nails. The officer was going to arrest me for scratching him , the new wounds he saw. I said sir, I have never touched my son check my nails. Nope. I was at fault. Stand up put your hands behind your back. And my son wa willing to let me go to jail for his own abusive behavior.
Now the only reason I did not go to jail, is because I had a sheriff living underneath me, and evidently when he called the police officer out on the balcony, he must have over rode the officer. Well I did not go to jail. The message is that it is not an officers fault really bc they are trained to protect the child. To this day I cannot get an officer to see it any other way. Their first instinct is to protect the child. Well at that time my son was 22, 6’1″. I was 57, 5’6″ 117 lbs.
I so ask the law enforcement community to utilize some form of trainng to decipher or identify this abuse that is real and deadly. I would have called the law numerous times for the abuse of my son to me, it would have been fruitless, as I would again be placed under arrest. So we don’t call, then as moms, we are so wanting not to believe this is happening we love that child dearly. So we let it go. We do not hold accountability, we enable, as time goes on we have created the worst monster of all. I have I know.
God forbid me to say this, I can’t say I have any emotion for my son. I guess I do, bc I sure keep giving him money. He has financially almost ruined me, if I don’t the verbal vindictive very abusive name calling starts. I am scared of him he has held me captive in my own home. Blocking me from the restroom, as I grab tight to my billfold or hide my credit cards and any other thing of value.
I am embarrassed to say to the extent and how many years I have let him manipulate me, verbal, mentally and physically abuse me.
This is a huge problem as well. So in the moment of despair and helplessnesse we call the law. Then we as a parent hate the word jail for our son. We won’t press charges which and I will say I am sorry so sorry to them for the frustration. I have no defense any longer as to why I will not have him incarcerated. None what so ever. It is violent abuse, with no regards to any. A month or do ago he came from behind with all his strength fisted me twice on the back of my head the once on my shoulder blade. It brought me to my knees. I didn’t say a word, crawled to my bed in fear of more. I laid in silence wondering why I deserves this. At that time also he busted my door in, broke in many pieces. This happened at 61 years of my age. There are no more excuses for this behavior. As much as I want to say Dyan is a good boy, I want to defend him . This is sick bc he is not. I know this and tonite I told him I will expose you for your abuse of me. I am afraid, heartbroken, buy this cannot go on any longer. His threats, his vocal embarrassment to me, he does not care. He will use any tactic to get his way.
Maybe this is the first step. Thank you for listening.
I am to the point where I have nothing left, but I am string, if I could just hold to that fact and not let my heart get in the way of what is right no matter what. I truly am a mess tight now, I admit this.
At times I am awful scared of him bc I know what he is capable of. He is a punk and they think they are invincible.
After all these years, he is 27 now, I can barely think that I am a good person, which I know i am and God knows I am. That is what is the most relevant. There is so much more uglhness i could shafe with you but i think we have the jest of a more than dysfunctional situation.
Lest we forget he is a meth head for sure. Sorry I didn’t forget, just recalling the abuse.
God Bless each and everyone who reads this.
Terri
s the parent beating the child.
Terri, I am so sorry to read about your experiences with your son. What you write about is truly awful and yet you nail it when you say that as Moms people put up with it because there is such a strong bond there as well. You are not alone and many people will read your account and nod as they recall their own troubles. Thank you for taking the time to comment. And thank you for your honesty. As you say, perhaps this is a first step.
I wonder whether you have come across Judith Smith? She has written a book about the experience of parents like yourself, and she also runs support workshops for those who are able to join in. This link will take you to her website, where you will find more information. https://www.difficultmothering.com
I hope that you are able to find the help that you need and want, and that you will find a new way to connect with your son that feels safer and healthier for you both. With very best wishes, Helen