Most commonly, family conflict was caused by serious financial worries and debt, with one in five parents stating a squeeze on household budgets as the source of arguments. Other causes of conflict included disagreements over child discipline, sibling rivalry and redundancy or long-term unemployment of one or both parents.
More than half of respondents said they argue and shout during family conflicts. However, 10 per of parents said the conflict in their families involved physical fighting, with nearly one in ten parents confessing that possessions had been destroyed during a family row.
The report, entitled 'The Enemy Within', also highlights that children are overwhelmingly the victims of conflict, with more than 950,000 affected by domestic violence, either directly as victims or indirectly having witnessed violence.
It is the third report to be published as part of 4Children’s Give Me Strength campaign, which calls for a new approach to strengthening support for the most vulnerable families to prevent crisis developing.
In light of the findings, the charity is now calling on councils to ‘wake-up’ to the true extent of conflict in families.
Separate research by 4Children revealed that almost half of local authorities do not have a domestic violence strategy which mentions violence committed by family members other than the main male/female partners. It also found that one in ten local authorities have no domestic violence strategy in place at all.
The charity has proposed a number of recommendations to help address the gaps in the system to support families in the UK who experience violence. They include:
- Making family violence a high priority locally and nationally
- Introducing a ‘whole family approach’ to responding to family violence
- Raising awareness among professionals
- Recognising the impact of family violence in national initiatives to strengthen families and turn around crisis - for example, by including family violence as a measure in the payment by results criteria for turning around 120,000 troubled families.
- Moving to an early intervention approach to prevent family violence and crisis, for example by up-skilling professionals to respond early and introducing stronger therapeutic support services for children and families in crisis.
Anne Longfield, chief executive of 4Children, said, ‘Domestic violence is familiar ground, but family violence is often hidden from view. Conflict need not turn to violence if families get the help they need. Violence within the family threatens lives, breaks up families and has severe ongoing psychological and physical effects on hundreds of thousands of parents and children every year.
‘Family violence is one of the biggest causes of family crisis in the UK, one which puts lives at risk, isolates people, undermines good mental health and costs the taxpayer in excess of £3.1bn per year in costs to the NHS, the courts and social services. 4Children's Give Me Strength campaign is focused on getting Government and the whole of society to work together to prevent family crisis.‘Even more worryingly, children who face or witness family violence in the home are significantly more likely to commit other crimes in later life. Up to 79 per cent of those identified as the most troubled families in some authorities are living with domestic violence and in some areas three-quarters of children on child protection orders are on the registers because of concerns over domestic violence in the family. Unless urgent action is taken, it is clear that this cycle of violence will continue to plague families for generations to come.’