“My son said he would kill me one day … and I believe him”

Countless women live with violent bullies who cannot escape them – because the perpetrators are their own children. Anna Moore is researching

From the outside, Kate’s life looks like a success story. Every weekday she leaves her home in a beautiful part of the country to drive to her senior job at a well-known financial company. Her profile on LinkedIn shows a fit, smiling expert; he has been in the same company for decades.

Few are invited to her home, as even a glance inside would tell that something is wrong. The floorboards are bare, the carpet is gone – Kate threw it away as her son poured five liters of paint down the stairs. There are oblique traces on her sofa in the living room, on the oak table, and on every other kitchen surface – made with knives and razors that cross the refrigerator door. Kate lived without heating and electricity for a while as her son broke through the wall between his and Kate’s bedroom and pulled out the wires and radiator. “At first I couldn’t fix it because the plumber would look at it once and say, ‘What the hell?'” Says Kate, 51, who is single.

“I don’t see any harm now,” he continues. ‘Everything I had was destroyed. My jewelry was flushed down the toilet. He certainly broke 35 TVs, and I lost counting phones. My life is really scary. If you look at my call list, it’s 999, Samaritans, crisis team, doctor. ‘

Kate survives on the brink of crisis. He sleeps on the couch because it is safer – closer to the front door – always in clothes suitable for leaving the house. She slept in the car many times. “My neighbors need to know,” he says, “but I never look at them, I just hold my head down in shame. I don’t understand how they never called the police. I think they would do it if it was my partner, not my son. ‘

Kate’s son is now 24 years old – but his extreme behavior started when he was 12 and he didn’t want to go to school, which exploded with rage when Kate tried to talk to him. At this stage, she sought help from everywhere – from absentees, from school, social services, general practitioners. (She once managed to take her son to the doctor’s office and when he refused to enter the building, her doctor agreed to see him in their car. However, her son did not want to return and still has no official diagnosis or treatment.)

Kate was sent to parenting courses where advice on boundaries was given for a child without fear of repercussions, whose rage went through the roof in a matter of seconds. (And if it was a simple parenting question, why was her older son successful and respectful of the law? Now the 33-year-old lives nearby with his family.)

Not every call for help got anywhere. Meetings with a CAMHS psychologist (Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service) were prematurely interrupted because her son “did not cooperate”. Kate once asked the social services for care, but her son’s behavior was judged “too extreme” to set him up. Police twice referred Kate to a local domestic violence group, who told her they didn’t know how to help. They work with people who can escape the situation – but the ‘perpetrator’ was Kate’s son.

“I feel guilty, I’m ashamed, I blamed myself all the way,” Kate says. I respect the law, I’m a good person, but I should never have a child. He used to be this wonderful boy: this confident, popular person who loved me, who was always smiling. Now the only emotions he shows are anger and rage. It must be my fault. ‘

This torturous combination of love, shame, and self-blame is typical of parents experiencing child-to-parent abuse (CPA) – and has remained on the radar for decades, unrecorded and under-researched. Dr Amanda Holt, a criminology reader at the University of Roehampton, has worked in this field for 20 years – her recent research on eyeball, the first large-scale study in England and Wales, found that a parent kills their child every 19 days. . (Although the perpetrators were mostly adult children, the youngest was 11 years old.)

“It’s a bit like the field of domestic violence 50 years ago, when activists and practitioners said ‘it’s important, it’s happening,’ but no one has noticed it, no one has considered it, or developed policies and practices,” says Dr. Holt. . ‘It’s very hard to break your head. The assumption is that parents have power. The CPA turns things upside down. ‘

It is gradually changing. Slow-growing research shows that CPA affects up to five percent of families and covers behaviors ranging from physical abuse (such as beatings, biting, strangulation, knife use) to emotional abuse (such as blackmail and coercion) to economic abuse (including theft and destruction). assets).

She is very sexually defined – mothers are more likely to be victims – and single mothers seem to be the most vulnerable, although this changes as the child ages, and in cases of fatherhood, fathers are more likely to be killed than mothers. (These are just general patterns – Dr. Holt was recently in contact with his grandfather, who was twice hospitalized by his eight-year-old granddaughter, who is caring for her.)

Our growing awareness of the CPA has led to its recent inclusion in the new Domestic Violence Act, and the Home Office is currently updating its advice on how to deal with it. For Michelle John, founder of the Parental Education Growth Support (PEGS), expert policy may not come soon enough.

Michelle introduced PEGS in 2019 based on her own experience with CPA. Her child was a teenager back then and Michelle was as scared as Kate is now. “I was trying to get help,” he says. “After the serious incident, I turned to social services and asked for an assessment, as I had to make sure everyone was safe, including my other children. They made one and decided that because I was protecting everyone and not posing a risk to my child, I did not meet their criteria.

“We all have the right to a safe life,” he continues. “When someone says they’re afraid of their partner, we don’t say,‘ Sorry, but you have to stay there because it’s too much of a risk to put him somewhere else. ’We don’t send them to a course to learn how to be better. We would never blame anyone who experiences the abuse of an intimate partner – but society tells us this is a parental failure.

“The parents we support have been on the road for years. They went to parenting courses; read every book, every article; downloaded podcasts; they achieved and implemented every proposal they were given, ”says Michelle. “They love their children – they don’t want to be criminalized, they just want help.” But there is no help. “When parents say they’re on their knees, that they’re on the verge of leaving, they’re in danger of being left by social services – that’s what happened to the 20 percent of parents we see.”

Parents who have joined PEGS come from all backgrounds. “We supported judges, lawyers, police officers, doctors,” Michelle says. There is no single explanation when it comes to their child’s behavior, but there are clear risk factors. Adoption is one – a survey of adoptive parents conducted by Adoption UK found that 63 per cent of their children experienced aggressive behavior towards them. Exposure to domestic abuse at home is another obvious risk factor – and this was true for Kate’s son.

During a 14-month period when he was six to seven years old, Kate had a violent partner who was arrested after a severe assault. (He ended up in prison.) “My son witnessed many things. The worst was when my partner showed up in the middle of the night and held me hostage in my bedroom and smashed her, and my son was helpless behind the door. In the end, I had therapy and victim support. Now I think the impact on my son has been forgotten. I don’t think we were aware of how much was being cooked in it. ‘

Another risk factor for CPA is additional needs. Imogen is the parent of PEGS, whose ten-year-old son has been diagnosed with ADHD, an autism spectrum disorder and a behavioral disorder. Although he is academically talented, he is manipulative from a very early age. At three, he warned the babysitter that he would tell his mother she ‘didn’t protect him’ if she didn’t let him on the trampoline in the rain. Currently expelled from school for assaulting a teacher, he launched child protection proceedings after accusing his therapist of kissing him, and recently ran to neighbors and asked them to call police, saying Imogen hit him. When the police arrived, he admitted that he was supposed to ‘teach her a lesson’ and give him more time for the internet.

“He’s very strong,” says Imogen, whose relationship with her son’s father ended before he was two years old. ‘Kick, hit, throw things at me. He broke my fingers last year. One morning he woke me up by hitting me in the face with an iPad. He said he would kill me one day and I believe him – he’s not a teenager yet.

“It’s like living with a very forced partner,” he continues. “I tried to give him everything – guitar lessons, a football club – but nothing would be enough. “I want what I want now” drives every thing he does, and no one will get in his way. “

Joining PEGS with an online forum changed the lives of Kate and Imogen. “Like reading my story over and over again,” Imogen says. “The parents sought help and did not believe them. If a child plays, it’s the parents’ fault and the parents’ problem. ‘

There are no easy answers here. Dr Holt believes finding ways to record and detect is a crucial first step. “All police forces should warn this when they are called to incidents,” he says. “Social workers should ask their families about it, schools could ask parents if they experience this when they have a child who shows such behavior at school. Until we know how much of this happens, it’s hard to argue for more resources. There needs to be more support. We need to develop specialist interventions. ‘

Michelle John agrees. “I have a hard time understanding why social services can’t accept the whole family approach in risk assessment,” he says. “They have to consider the risks to parents, not just those under the age of 18. When parents pick up the phone and ask for help, they are at a tipping point. And then they tell them, “It’s your fault.”

“If we don’t have a policy and a framework, no one knows what to do. But listen and believe and ask, “How can we help?” would be the beginning. ‘

DO YOU SUFFER HEALTHY CHILDHOOD ABOUT PARENTS?

There are no easy answers in this situation, but this advice from the PEGS support group can help you move forward.

Talk about what’s going on with someone you trust.

Create a security plan for you and everyone else in the home. It should include where to go in an emergency, emergency contacts, a spare set of car and house keys, and access to money or a bank card. Make sure other children can use the phone and know the emergency numbers.

Keep a log or event log. It can help you think more clearly and show professionals the reality of your home life.

Leave the room during the incident or go out for five minutes if it’s safe.

Build on all the management strategies that suit you, for example, to remain calm, refuse or reduce behavior, withdraw from a situation, etc. Take the time between incidents and consider whether any of these worked and which techniques you can try next. It’s okay to treat behavior when things are more orderly, not in the moment or right after.

If there is any danger your child will hurt themselves or someone else, always call the police.

Contact services that can help you. For more information and support, please contact:

• Family Life Helpline (formerly known as Parentline) on 0808 800 2222, which offers free and confidential support, or visit familylives.org.uk.