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Child-to-parent violence (CPV) is a serious problem in many families, but one which is often dismissed or misunderstood. Much research focuses on teens, but there is increasing awareness that this is also involving much younger children. Al Coates, a social worker and adoptive parent who has experienced CPV first hand, surveyed more than 200 parents and carers – mostly fellow adoptive parents. He found that a third of families who had experienced CPV had concerns about violence when the child was five years old or younger.
Alison Woodhead is director of public affairs at charity Adoption UK, and an adoptive parent. ‘It is partly the level of violence that differentiates CPV from normal tantrums, and also the sustained nature of it: it becomes part of the daily routine,’ she says. ‘Three-year-olds reacting to seemingly trivial incidents by kicking, punching, spitting and acting out choking on their parents. There are sustained attacks on family members and often pets as well, and self-harm is often another aspect.’
Many parents describe a rapid escalation of challenging behaviour in their violent child as they approach puberty. ‘Some families will cope with it rumbling on until the child becomes 12 or 13, then there are lots of changes piling on and it erupts,’ says Helen Bonnick, CPV blogger and campaigner. ‘For others there is a very specific incident, after which the child becomes violent: for example, something traumatic happened outside the home.’
SHAME AND GUILT
Some research has suggested as many as one in ten families experience CPV in some form, while in adoptive families, where children have often suffered early trauma, that rises to one in three. Feelings of shame and guilt lead many parents to hide the fact that they are affected.
‘When my daughter was three years old she would pick up chairs and throw them across the room,’ says Mr Coates. ‘People say you are big and burly, why are you frightened of a three-year-old? Why can’t you control a five-year-old?’
Some families do report the problem but find their experience is minimised as normal behaviour for children. CPV can be hidden in the home, says Ms Woodhead. ‘Things might look different at school, they might run and hide instead of hitting out,’ she says. Children may bottle their emotions up at school and explode when they come home.
There is also fear of blame. ‘Some parents have told me about incidents where they have gone to social services and asked for help with one child, and social workers have taken their other children into care because they have said the parents have failed to protect them,’ says Ms Bonnick.
FRIGHTENED AND ANXIOUS
Definitions of CPV often include the intent to control and intimidate a parent, but this does not reflect the experience of all families. There are also arguments as to whether to include children with learning difficulties under the CPV definition.
‘Some children are lashing out in unconscious response to something that is going on,’ says Ms Bonnick. ‘Do we lump that with children who are deliberately controlling and imposing fear on their families? I suspect most children are somewhere in the middle. A lot of this is kids being very frightened and anxious; something has happened that they can’t verbalise, but they need to express their fears.’
Ms Bonnick has compiled a list of factors that often correlate with CPV, but warns that this should be looked at as correlation not causation, and that every family is unique.
‘The factors that correlate with CPV are rarely found in isolation, and there are families where all this is going on and the children are not violent,’ she says.
Factors include:
- early trauma, such as abuse or neglect
- experience of domestic violence, or homes where violence is commonplace
- a change in family circumstance, such as loss of income, a sudden death, a move to a new country, a new step-parent
- mental health issues and learning difficulties. Autistic spectrum disorder (ASD), attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and foetal alcohol spectrum disorder are linked to CPV
- substance abuse
- relationships outside the home, such as gang membership or bullying.
‘With very young children, it is generally about trauma, ADHD, ASD, and possibly domestic violence,’ says Ms Bonnick. Parenting can also be an issue. ‘There is a new style of parenting that has come into fashion, which has perhaps generated an increase in children feeling quite entitled, and we find this correlates quite highly with CPV,’ she says. ‘Children are feeling they have a right to everything, and when they are told no, the backlash comes.’
Early trauma affects a child’s cognitive development, which is why CPV is so prevalent among adoptive families. ‘These children experience the most challenging early life experiences – sexual abuse, physical abuse, bereavement, physical neglect,’ says Mr Coates. ‘Trauma has a significant impact on their neural pathways. Under stimulation that we would consider normal – such as being told “you can’t do that”, or a stranger coming into a room – they are not able to regulate themselves. They are caught in flight or fight, and they go for fight.’
NON-VIOLENT RESISTANCE
Mr Coates says ‘normal’ parenting techniques do not work with children who cannot regulate their emotions. ‘The best parenting models in the world do not work with them because they are unable to cognitively process stuff,’ he says. ‘Consequences mean nothing to them: you can’t say this has happened, so that will happen. So, you develop strategies that look permissive to professionals – when I see my daughter is dysregulating, I can see I need to switch her brain off of its track, so I might say, “Do you want a hot chocolate?” It seems like rewarding bad behaviour, but I am taking control by giving control.’
One approach to CPV which is gaining traction is known as Non-Violent Resistance (NVR). ‘It has a lot to recommend it,’ says Ms Bonnick. ‘It doesn’t need the child to be engaged, as it just works with the parents, looking at different ways of parenting, and how to de-escalate situations.’ Part of NVR is the use of non-verbal ‘reconciliation gestures’ to let a child know they are loved and understood. It also includes developing an adult support network.
While NVR has been very successful, Ms Bonnick says, it is also important to look at what is making a child unhappy. ‘It is no good just looking at the violence, you have to address the other issues or it will just bubble up again – so with children with autism, for example, you have got to find ways of making them feel less anxious.’
Adoption UK asked adoptive parents what worked for them when dealing with CPV. Responses included:
- Take control and model de-escalation by saying, ‘I need ten minutes to calm down.’
- Remove all other people and pets from the room, and ideally the house.
- Help them to name emotions they struggle with.
- Use of a ‘safe space’ or a sensory den to retreat to.
- An emergency kit including fidget cube, putty, ear defenders and chewy sweets.
Many families experiencing child-to-parent violence find it difficult to access support. ‘There is more awareness than there was, but there is still a feeling that while people know it is happening, they don’t know what to do about it,’ says Ms Bonnick. ‘There is good work happening in some CAHMS teams, but you need a mental health diagnosis, and even then you might have to wait six months. The adoption community has good work going on looking at violence and addressing trauma, but this is not just a problem that affects adopted children.’
There is a need for better training for professionals says Mr Coates. ‘We are lobbying the Government to make training on CPV part of social work CPD,’ he says. ‘There should be training for teachers as well – it is part of a bigger picture about understanding the impact of trauma.’
CPV SUPPORT SERVICES
PAC-UK and Adoption UK were funded by the Department for Education to deliver support services for families experiencing CPV. The funding ended in March but the project, which includes training opportunities for professionals, is set to continue.
‘There are opportunities for nursery staff to become involved in training, as it is an issue that affects pre-schoolers to college-age children,’ says Jo Mitchell, CPV project lead and head of Child and Family Service (Leeds) at PAC-UK.
Services for parents include one-day awareness-raising workshops that introduce the principles of the Non-Violent Resistance approach. Participants learn about the principles of NVR, how to build ‘new authority’ in the family and establish reconnections between parent and child.
CPV Parent Groups are designed to build mutual support between parents. During up to 12 weekly three-hour sessions, parents learn skills to help them resist out-of-control and violent behaviours while developing a collaborative, solution-focused approach to problems. They also learn to counter giving in to their child’s demands or responding in a reactive way, which can lead to even more violence. The groups are facilitated by PAC-UK child and family therapists and trained ‘parent graduates’.
MORE INFORMATION
Connective Parenting: A guide to connecting with your child using the NVR Approach by Sarah Fisher sets out the principles of the NVR approach and gives practical advice
Adoption UK produced a special supplement of its Adoption Today magazine focusing on trauma-fuelled violence, www.adoptionuk.org/shop/adoption-today-supplement-trauma-fuelled-violence
Holes in the Wall is Helen Bonnick’s comprehensive and regularly updated blog documenting parent abuse, https://holesinthewall.co.uk