I still have a clear memory from my university days, of a particularly inspiring lecture on the work of Geoffrey Pearson, into the ways we continually perceive young people to be behaving worse now than ever. It comes to mind whenever I am asked whether the problem of parent abuse is either new, or increasing in frequency and severity. We can hark right back to ancient Greek philosophers or Shakespeare for examples of young people disrespecting the elders, but it’s probably fair to say that the new-found awareness dates from around the 1980s, with various attempts since then to quantify the amount, and to understand the causes, of teenage violence to parents. Continue reading
Tag Archives: Family violence
A hidden form of family violence
Judy Nixon, Professor of Social Governance at Sheffield Hallam University, introduces findings from her recent research in this video from Research in Practice. The overwhelming message is that we need to talk about parent abuse more, in order to raise awareness and bring it eventually to policy makers’ attention.
Update October 2017: It looks like this vimeo may no longer be available to view. I would welcome information about a more up to date link.
Filed under TV and video
You wait around for years and then two come along together!
Five years ago, when I first began seriously investigating parent abuse, the studies and research papers were largely coming out of Canada, Australia and the USA. The statistics available came from relatively few older studies and were considered unreliable because of the ways they were obtained – the types of questions asked, who they were asked of, numbers involved etc. Nevertheless, they had served to highlight that this was a real issue and one which would not go away. Questions were being asked: how big a problem was this really? Was it confined to certain ethnic or socioeconomic groups, what were the causes, and what sorts of help were effective? Importantly, another question was emerging, as to how we should understand the phenomenon, from a sociological / feminist point of view – was it linked with domestic violence, or with youth crime and delinquency? Continue reading
Filed under Research
