Lynette Robinson, of Alternative Restoratives, has sent me a flyer for a one-day training course she is joint facilitating in the new year, March 1st 2012 in Wakefield, UK.
You can find details and booking form here.
Parent abuse: a psychological perspective
To what extent is it important to frame the understanding of parent abuse within a particular discipline?
Currently within Britain, and indeed around the world, different models of support have grown up as practitioners have identified the problem within their own working practice. Arguably, parents don’t care what it’s called so long as it works. So child and adolescent mental health services, youth offending teams, family assessment and support arms of children’s services, education officers and domestic violence practitioners have all variously developed their own programmes of advice and support which centre on allowing parents to share experiences, build strength in alternative ways of interacting as a family and rebalancing the power relationships. Continue reading
Filed under Discussion, publications
32 essays on parenting
The Family and Parenting Institute published a series of 32 essays this month, considering the pressures on modern parenting, what can be learnt from the reaction to the August riots in Britain, and the implications of these for parenting policy. The essays cover a range of topics through single parenting, working lives, welfare, grand-parenting, but were of particular interest to me for the discussion around parenting support: how did it come about, what does it say about the role of the state in parenting, is this what parents want? “Authors … consider the way in which parenting has become professionalised and the extent to which a deficit view of ‘problem parents’ is now in the ascendance.” Continue reading
Filed under Discussion, publications
We need to talk about Kevin
Parent abuse wasn’t the first thing I expected when I picked up We need to talk about Kevin, particularly as the friend who recommended it had suggested he thought I would enjoy it. Lionel Shriver’s much applauded book superbly captures the complex family dynamics, the sense of bewilderment and anguish of a flawed but utterly believable mother, desperate for answers and resolution after her teenage son is involved in a high school massacre.
Needless to say, parent abuse isn’t one of the most discussed themes, but as the narrative moves we see the complex power relationships developing as “mummy’s little monster” exerts his manipulating influence. Is it nature or nurture we are constantly asked with, naturally, no clear answers even by the end. Of course the various characters and relationships play their part, but then many children face similar dysfunction in their lies without the consequences we see here.
Now we are to be treated to Lynne Ramsay’s adaptation of the novel, in the film released this Thursday, 21st October. The Guardian has some excellent reviews, and an interview with Tilda Swinton, who plays Eva magnificently. I am quite possibly the most squeamish person you will ever know when it comes to the cinema, but I am assured that the film is much more than a visual retelling of the story; and the magnificent Swinton will be the reason I am at the front of the queue!
Filed under Discussion
Parent abuse legislation on the cards?
Since work is directed by policy, and policy dictated by legislation, Yvonne Nugent hopes that one outcome of her research into child to parent violence will be the reform of legislation. Based at Loughborough University across the fields of law and social science since 2007, Yvonne originally began this work in 2005.
At the Respect National Practitioners’ Seminar in Nottingham this October, Yvonne presented some of her findings and considered how we can best work within the current legislative and policy landscape. With not even a working definition of parent abuse, the response by agencies is at best ad hoc. It was suggested that both the Every Child Matters framework (within the UK) and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (3.1) currently offer possible support for work with abusive teenagers and their parents, since it is never in the child’s best interests to be involved in an abusive relationship.
Yvonne hopes that it will not be too long before the UK follows New Zealand in developing both a legal definition of parent abuse and a reform of the safeguarding legislation to include abuse of parents by children under the age of eighteen within its aegis.
Filed under Discussion
LOL – Not!
Knowing my interest in parent abuse, people regularly inform me of clips or articles they have come across. I am often impressed by the thoughtfulness and awareness of some YouTube videos, but I also find myself frustrated and despairing at whole swathes of content. Where do I start?!
Today’s offering is not untypical. A Mum films her son and partner “fighting” for laughs. I hesitate to call it wrestling. I grew up with fond memories of wrestling my dad and brothers on the floor, but it was more about tickling and wriggling than the punches being thrown here. What messages are being given in these videos about the acceptability of violence – hitting your parents as a leisure activity! The blogosphere is similarly populated by parents amused by the “abusive” actions of toddlers (or occasionally disabled children); and Facebook is a rich mine of photos of teens with their Mum in a headlock. We have a community that accepts the notion of parent abuse – but as a joke. Continue reading
Filed under Discussion, TV and video
More from Australia
Nicely furthering the debate on police and courts’ involvement, Jo Howard discusses the possibility of introducing the American Step Up model of intervention as a response to adolescent violence within the home in Australia. This paper, for the Australian Domestic and Family Violence Clearinghouse, acknowledges that the philosophical and practical differences between the two systems preclude a straightforward adoption, but there are seen to be strong benefits in a coordinated community approach that includes criminal justice options, offering a means to engage reluctant adolescents and holding them accountable for their violence.
For anyone interested, the September ADFV Clearinghouse e-newsletter is also here.
Filed under projects, publications
HOLES IN THE WALL 