The scramble to find reasons and culprits for the recent riots in England has demonstrated again just how visceral is our desire to apportion blame. Once more, parents, particularly single parents, were right up there along with gangs, drugs and schools. Never mind that single parents may have experienced years of abuse themselves, or may be struggling to hold down two jobs to provide for their family; now it seems we expect parents to know where there teenage children are, and what they are doing, at all times. Pointing the finger to the bottom of the pile is easier than asking more troubling questions about our attitudes to those different to ourselves, about the values we have come to hold as a society, and the priorities we have placed on growth, wealth, advancement. Arguably we are all to blame once we buy into this way of life. Continue reading
Tag Archives: Parent abuse
A new online support service for families
My google alert has twice recently given me the address of a group in the early stages of researching the need for a parent abuse support service: Parent Abuse and Reconciliation Service. Currently they are exploring the level of demand before applying for funding.
The three members of the developmental team come from an educational background, where they have found many instances of parent abuse, but little help available.The eventual intention is to offer parent/child reconciliation using the Restorative Justice model, within the north London area, as well as nationwide advice and guidance.
Filed under projects
Some Summer Holiday Reading
Restorative responses that are high both on accountability and support are widely evidenced not only for their culturally transferability but their ability to achieve high engagement, ownership and accountability, and empower individuals to change. Step Up is a model that could also be adapted for use in schools, preventative services and a range of family service providers.
(Lynette Robinson, p32)
A series of three articles about the Step Up programme, developed within the youth justice system in the US as a dedicated response to adolescent violence to parents: Continue reading
Filed under Discussion, publications
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
Reader beware!
This poster has been on display until recently at my local underground station. We may quibble with the statistic, but it’s helpful to remember sometimes that the majority of young people do not offend in any way, in view of some the news items (here and here) that I have picked up over the last couple of weeks following the launch of a book by Dr. Aric Sigman. (The Spoilt Generation: Standing Up to Our Demanding Children, 2011, Piatkus Books) Continue reading
Filed under Discussion
Exciting training opportunities!
Two more training opportunities have come to my attention recently.
Eddie Gallagher will be visiting the UK at the beginning of September 2011, before heading off to Spain for an international conference. He is inviting offers for training workshops particularly. He can be contacted at gallagher@aanet.com.au
Lynette Robinson, of Alternative Restoratives, is organising a professional awareness raising conference regarding adolescent to parent violence on September 22nd 2011, in the north of England. Lynette comes from a youth justice background where restorative justice has been used for some time, and she has done some interesting work in applying this approach to families experiencing parent abuse. More information at http://www.alternativerestoratives.co.uk/teen_violence.htm
Filed under Training opportunities
The Learning of Shame
ON a recent Eurostar journey, I found myself seated in a carriage, judging by appearances, designated for parents and babies. Little ones cried, were fed and burped, everyone smiled; and if they fussed too much their long suffering parents walked up and down or took them to look out of the window. Not so, the woman travelling alone with a toddler three rows back. Whether from anger, frustration or simple exhaustion, this child screamed for the full two hours of the journey, interspersed with the kicking of seats and the hurling of fists, toys, legs and head at her mother, who worked desperately to calm her. At first passengers were patient, then heads were turned, and finally, as if one, they rose to stare. Not one, mind, offered to help. As if hypnotized, the mother took her child, still protesting, out of the carriage and the cacophony was thus muted for the remainder of the journey, till both returned, drained of everything, ten minutes before we arrived. As we left the carriage, a few kindly souls, fellow travellers, remembering their own attempts to pin a two-year-old child into a confined space for two hours, murmured pleasantries, or helped with her bags, to assuage their guilt. Continue reading
Filed under Discussion
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
HOLES IN THE WALL 