Lack of support for parents who live in fear of their teenagers, study shows

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domestic violence, parenting, parents, shame, stigma, support, teenage violence, Teens, violence

Lack of support for parents who live in fear of their teenagers, study shows

Parents living in fear of their abusive and violent teenagers are being left without support because of a lack of understanding of adolescent violence directed at parents, according to the first academic study into the issue.

Data from the Metropolitan police revealed that there were 1,892 reported cases of 13- to 19-year-olds committing violence against their own parents in Greater London alone over a 12-month period from 2009-10.

Dr Rachel Condry, lead researcher at the University of Oxford, which carried out the study, said there was little support for parents in such circumstances from police, youth justice teams or other agencies.

“The problem has, until now, gone largely unrecognised, which can mean that parents can find it very difficult to get help,” she said.

“The parents we spoke to said they were stigmatised and felt ashamed – they were experiencing patterns of controlling behaviour that were similar to domestic violence. One woman told us she would get up in the middle of the night to make her teenager dinner because she feared the consequences if she didn’t; others talked about walking on eggshells.”

Britain’s incoming director of public prosecutions, Alison Saunders, warned last month that teenage violence in the home was a hidden aspect of domestic violence: “There is a lack of respect and a lack of regard for authority. When I was growing up the thought of striking a parent was beyond the pale. Is that peers? Is that TV? Is that the general environment in the house? You are not born to commit domestic violence.”

Nicola, a mother in West Yorkshire who did not want to be named, said her daughter first started to behave violently towards her when she was 13. “She’d push me, punch me, lose her temper and smash the house up – it got to the stage where I was scared stiff,” she said.

“I thought it was me, my mothering skills. People were asking me why I couldn’t control her, but what was I supposed to do? Beat her up?”

Nicola was sent on a parenting course, but felt there was no one to help her. “I’ve got three other kids and none of them were like this – it wasn’t like I didn’t know what I was doing,” she said.

The study, co-authored by Caroline Miles, found that 87% of suspects in the London study were male and 77% of victims were women, although fathers could feel more reluctant to report the issue, said Condry.

The study found that, in the reported cases analysed, 60% of victims were classified as white European, while 24.3% were African-Caribbean. It says: “Families reporting adolescent-to-parent violence are likely to be at the lower end of the socioeconomic scale”.

Of those who recorded a profession, 46.7% were unemployed, 11.6% described themselves as housewives, while 3.4% were teachers and 2.9% were nurses.

Condry said it was a problem that could hit families in any demographic. “It is not the fact of being a single parent that is causing this issue, but parenting an adolescent is difficult and perhaps if a parent is on their own there is more potential for things to go awry.” The study found that a range of issues, including exposure to domestic violence, peer influence, mental health issues and drug problems had played a role, but there was no one reason for adolescent violence against parents.

“There may be issues around what we think of as poor parenting but many families we spoke to did not have those type of histories – that is uncomfortable for society, but we have to get a handle on the complexity of this issue,” she said.

When asked what she thought had provoked her daughter’s behaviour, Nicola said: “She has always seen me dominated, but I’m having counselling now and I’m starting to stand up for myself.”

Eventually she got support from the Rosalie Ryrie Foundation, a charity that deals with family violence. “They were fantastic; they showed me different techniques and it’s much better – she still loses her temper but she’s not as violent,” she said.

“It’s hard to ask for help. Other people should remember that it’s easy to say stand up to them, but it’s much more difficult when you are in that position.”

Condry said: “We want our victims to be entirely blameless. We think parents should be in control of their own children – but this is not an issue that can simplistically be blamed on bad parenting.”

I really didn’t like my son

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Children, family, parenting, parents

I really didn’t like my son

“Get inside the house!” I say, in a low growl, which I hope the neighbours can’t hear.

“No,” replies George.

“Listen, you brat” – tempers are frayed – “I know I promised a trip to the ice-cream place, but Auntie died two days ago and we are too upset, too busy. We’ll go another time.”

In the emotional-manipulation game, I’ve played my trump card. Now George plays his: “I don’t give a fuck that Auntie died.”

I stare at my eldest child, who meets my apoplectic gaze with blank defiance, and the thought hits me like a saucepan to the head: I don’t like you.

How did we get to this?

George is 10 and reminds me of Two-Face in Batman. He has a capacity for gentleness, is kind, generous and sensitive at heart. Yet his innate goodness – that soft, precious side – is these days mostly hidden beneath an arrogant, flinty exterior. His teacher likes his intelligence and wit, but confesses that her assistant finds him cocky and rude.

I agree. I feel a gouging ache of despair, even though I know that if I question him, he’ll be indignant and exclaim that the assistant always, unfairly, blames him when it’s the girls’ fault. And, immediately, I hate the assistant, for not understanding him, for her ignorant sexism (when he was a reluctant reader, she cemented the problem by forcing him through Eva, The Enchanted Ball Fairy). But mostly, I hate her because her attitude towards my darling son is uncomfortably reminiscent of my own.

So often, George seethes with latent rage and the tiniest imperfection will cause an eruption – last night, a too squashy satsuma. He is ferociously competitive and often casually cruel to his young brother – elbowing him on the stairs, so that the poor child flinches every time he passes his tormentor. He reaches extremes of emotion in seconds, screaming, crying, hurling books or balls across the room. It’s frightening because he is easily as strong as I am.

Recently, he called his father a bastard for forbidding him to watch South Park. If I’d spoken to my parents like that, I told George, I’d have been hit across the room. “And would that have been right?” enquired my son coolly.

I’m not Zen enough to always remain impassive when provoked. I don’t want to be a parent who hits, but I have grabbed George roughly, scratching his arm, to prevent him attacking his brother. I apologised with the weasel caveat, “Listen to me, then I won’t have to physically restrain you.”

My son isn’t stupid. He senses my fleeting dislike and it is poisoning our relationship. I lurch between futile forgiveness and condemnation. If we ban him from his favourite sport as punishment, we fuel his anger. The penal system is not a deterrent. But if we talk ourselves hoarse, he barely listens. Or he might cry, feel contrite, submit to a cuddle, then revert to venom and violence the instant he’s tested.

After 10 years of instinctive, cack-handed, self-analytical mothering, it strikes me I have no idea what to do.

It doesn’t help that on some pathetic level, I goad myself that this was inevitable; dysfunction rumbling miserably down through generations. I was a child who meekly obeyed autocratic parents: I never, ever answered back. My own mother shouted and hit. She was perpetually sour and incandescent with fury at the smallest infringement. Do I secretly resent my son, for his ingratitude, for the happy but exasperating fact that he isn’t afraid of his mother?

Of course my son cares about Auntie but I willfully choose to take him at his silly word and have a fight about it. Meanwhile, George derives grim satisfaction from watching me lose it. He is spoilt – not materially – but he often gets his way. I don’t know what I should deal with: the insolence or its cause – why is he like this?

Mostly, I fear I know. Stress and grief mean his father and I are a-boil with tension. All my unprocessed anger towards other people has accumulated into one bristling ball. Only at home do I give vent. My 10-year-old has seen me stamp and shout. He has absorbed this anger and thrown it back at me.

Yet I’m not like my mother: I cuddle, comfort, praise my children, and can’t hugely care when the light fitting is hit by a tennis ball. But her shadow remains and my reflex reactions are sometimes hers. I speak in her voice: “Get a move on! Pick up your feet!” That harshness is within me.

As I argue with my son in the street, I wonder if I possess the mental strength to be a parent. Perhaps because of my upbringing, my confidence evaporated when the hospital staff let me take this baby home. I was glad to have a part-time nanny, relieved to hand over my son to a professional. I was scared of him; his need for me was so great, I was terrified of failing him. I managed the practical stuff: steamed his organic carrots, overdressed him, read him Elmer. But I connected warily.

Eventually, you must stop excusing your failures, and take responsibility for your attitude and actions. My approval is certainly conditional but when does that spill over into withholding love? We spend a lot of time with our son – some quality, some purgatory. I often wish I worked in an office: despite the home-cooked meals, taxiing to various sports, the reading together, familiarity breeds contempt.

I am critical, correcting him on his table manners 10 times in one sitting. I discipline him supposedly for his good, but also for mine. He is a frequent, casual loser of coats, which maddens me. I am not always accepting of the child I’ve got.

As I start to write this, venting my frustration, each word feels like a betrayal of a small boy who should trust me. My sister-in-law says: “He tries so hard to please you – he always looks to you for approval.”

What she says resonates. I’m so desperate to change the situation that over the following months, I force myself to be warm, tolerant, minimise blame, smile – even when I want to yell my head off, like when he methodically picks the stuffing out of the dining-room chair.

I also consult Gaynor Sbuttoni, an educational psychologist who specialises in emotional issues. She says that as a parent, I must see that I come second. I must allow him to be angry, look for a solution, but limit the behaviour. Tell him: “You can’t hurt anyone, you can’t hurt yourself and you can’t break things. But you can stomp and shout and get your anger out and when it’s over we’ll carry on and we’ll do the right thing.”

Sbuttoni adds, “With most children, anger is covering up their anxiety. If he was feeling you didn’t like him – how scary is that? If your mum can’t love you unconditionally, nobody can.”

At last I recognise what is happening. I also see that I am not a victim of his behaviour; I have the power to stop it.

I comment on his every good deed: “That was kind of you, to read to your brother.” I try to promote intimacy. I have a foolish reticence, as if by pushing myself close, I’m interfering. At heart, I’m scared of his rejection. But when I join him in the garden to play, he is so pleased and surprised I feel ashamed for holding back. He blushes with delight when I attempt to fast-bowl.

I give him credit. I recognise that we expect a lot of him and work on recognising his vulnerabilities.

Sbuttoni explains: “A boy, developing emotionally, is fraught with pain. On the outside they are supposed to be big and strong and tough – inside they’ve got real feelings and are trying to cover them up, understand them – and many people do not acknowledge that with boys. It’s still hard for a boy to talk about feelings and when he has an adult who allows him to, there is friction inside: ‘I can do all this talking but when I get with the gang, I have to be angry, abusive and aggressive so that the male community will accept me as a male.’

“All kids are struggling with so much at any one time and Mum is the one they test it all out on,” she says.

My power to do good or evil is thrown into sharp relief by her words – and with it, my huge responsibility. I also see, with far greater clarity and compassion, his position. When George does explode with frustration, instead of snapping, I charm away his bad temper. I find this supremely difficult. When he swears, I say, “Please don’t speak like that.” I don’t stoop to a squabble. I even – as Sbuttoni advises “stand there, as if you are a gorilla over him” – to indicate on important issues that while he is as powerful as me, I am in charge. But mostly I try to put my ego aside and see it his way. When I help him with an essay, he asks, “Were you the cleverest person at English in your year at university?”

“God, no!” I say. “There were a lot of naturally brilliant people there. I just tried hard.”

He says, “I think it’s far better to try hard and do well, than to be clever and not try.”

“You’re right, George,” I say. “Thank you,” and he beams.

I feel a great rush of love. Because he’s so eloquent, it’s easy to mistake his for an adult mind, to roar, “Oh, grow up!” when he plays the fool or needles me. I am a difficult parent: disorganised, grumpy, sarcastic and unfair. Yet he loves me, as I do him, with painful, primal ferocity. I see I just had to learn to try harder.

Names have been changed

An expert opinion

Is it common not to like your child? It’s difficult to know as it’s such a taboo subject that people won’t readily admit to it. We are supposed to love our children from the minute they are born, like magic, and if that doesn’t happen you can feel you are stumbling from the start.

While it’s perfectly normal to find your child annoying occasionally, or dislike aspects of him or her, not liking them long term can usually be traced back to a reason, or sometimes several. There might have been a rupture in the bonding process. Sometimes children remind the parent of parts of themselves that they don’t like. Or they find it hard to cope with a child’s extreme vulnerability.

How you were parented can also have an impact: if you had a really difficult relationship with your mother (or father if you are a man), it can be really difficult to know how to be a good version of a mother/father yourself.

What is damaging for children is if they can’t get back to a place where they know the parent really does love them – in other words, if there’s never a time at which the child has a secure base. There has to be trust on the part of the child that underneath it all, he or she is loved.

Family therapy can really help if things are cyclical because unless someone steps in to change the patterns – how parent relates to child and vice versa – it just perpetuates. The sooner you get help, the better: younger children are more able to adapt to changes in their parents.Ryan Lowe

• Ryan Lowe is a consultant child, adolescent and family therapist,childpsychotherapy.org.uk

Why stay-at-home dads are still the invisible men of the house

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Children, choice, economy, family, fathers, house dads, househusband, parenting, parents, primary carers, relationships, women

Why stay-at-home dads are still the invisible men of the house

Edmund Farrow is facing redundancy. For 11 years he has worked up to 90 hours a week, looking after Matthew, 11, Daniel, nine, and seven-year-old Joanna.

“I haven’t regretted being a house dad, but now we’re at a stage where I have to think about what next. I used to be a computer programmer, so obviously things have moved on a bit in that field.

“I got used to being the only man in a hall of 30 women and learned that if I saw another dad at the school gates he’d probably have a day off. The numbers of dads looking after young children is still very small.”

Small but growing. Whether changing nappies, playing with the children or reading a bedtime story, most fathers are undoubtedly far more involved in their children’s lives than their own fathers would have been 30 or 40 years ago.

New research from the Office of National Statistics suggests the phenomenon of the househusband has seen a rapid explosion in numbers, but experts say the trend is less about choice and nurture than an economic necessity that is not being recognised by policymakers.

Last year 62,000 men were classed as “economically inactive” and at home looking after children, tripling from 21,000 in 1996. The figures did not include fathers working from home or part-time in order to be the main stay-at-home parent.

A survey out last week from the insurance company Aviva suggested there could be 600,000 men, 6% of British fathers, in that role, a further rise from the ONS figures which recorded 192,000 British men as the primary carer for children in 2009 and 119,000 in 1993.

Farrow, from Edinburgh, who set up DadsDinner.com to tackle the gap in services, said: “My wife and I made the decision that I would stay at home because of personality. My temperament meant I’m better with the kids for long periods of time, whereas she can get wound up more easily by them and needs to be out and about. So it suited us. But every other dad I’ve talked to has done it for financial reasons.”

Adrienne Burgess, head of research at the Fatherhood Institute, feels there is little understanding in government about family life and that more men could be househusbands. “What’s changing is not the fathers but the mothers,” she said. “More mothers at the time of their first child are earning as much or more than their partner. So couples make rational economic decisions. By the time the child is 18 months old, three quarters of mothers are back in paid work and those who aren’t tend to be the most poor or disadvantaged who don’t have the options because of the cost of childcare. The fully fledged stay-at-home parent is a dying breed.

“Go to any antenatal class today and there’s a split between the mothers who are going back to work and those who aren’t, each side a bit beleaguered. Motherhood is still in that flux and, while men are seeing being the primary parent as an option, their voices aren’t heard. They are ghettoised. What holds a lot of men back is a lack of confidence and a culture that is sometimes hostile and excluding of men.”

Anne Longfield, chief executive of the family charity 4Children, said efforts were under way to make a transition to equal parenting and for services to target fathers “despite society’s undeniable prejudice towards seeing mothers as the core carers”.

“Whether or not dads are full- or part-time carers for their children, what we have seen is their increased presence, and this is fantastic. However, there is still work to do – while mothers are often involved in their children’s centres as volunteers, fathers are less likely to be, and there are still some who do not always routinely seek to involve both parents in their children’s early education and play. The wider issues of workplace flexibility and the gender pay gap are also still relevant if we are to seek a more even balance.”

But others warn how changing roles throw up new pressures for the fraught modern family. Divorce lawyer Vanessa Lloyd Platt said she was seeing a trend of relationships suffering because of resentment building up between couples trying to navigate traditional gender roles. “I hate to say it but things are changing so fast for women and an awful lot of men are not moving forward. Relationships are suffering.

“I noticed a trend some years ago. I started to act for a lot of husbands who were staying at home. There had been this revolution, women earning more, then children arrive and sometimes they don’t want to give that career up, or the husband just can’t earn as much.

“For some people it worked, it’s essential to say that, but for others there is a pattern of dissatisfaction set off by this reversal of fortune. That resentment builds up after a few years and suddenly the woman is working really, really hard and thinks the husband is sitting around with his feet up, and the man has seen his career fold and his ego is mush.”

It’s a pattern recognised by Andrew Holmes, 52, from Devon. He has started working again part-time now that his children are at school, but remains the primary carer. “Leaving work to pick the kids up still gets comments from other blokes. There is the sense that I’m not putting in a full day. It can be hard going at times. I did feel quite isolated and resentment did build up between my wife and I. She envied me spending so much time with the kids and I envied her freedom when she went off to work. Neither of us was entirely happy with the way things were, but it was the only way financially.

“I value having been at home with the kids, but if I was to do it again I’d do it differently. I’d force myself into social situations a bit more. Mothers definitely didn’t invite me round for a cup of tea and it’s difficult when you go to a toddler group and women sit talking about pregnancy, as invariably they did.”

The rise of the stay-at-home father remains against a backdrop of social pressures on women to be good mothers and on men to be economic providers. Half of fathers still do not take the legal fortnight’s paternity leave because of fears that it will affect their careers or because they can’t afford to.

Men also seem to stay at home for a shorter time than women, said psychology professor Dr Charlie Lewis of Lancaster University. “It’s difficult to do research because they are such a transitory group,” he said. “A lot of people go into it with rose-tinted spectacles and great enthusiasm and then, partly to do with the social isolation, find it doesn’t suit them. They think they are breaking the mould, but then realise what it’s all about and bolt.

“Dads have to surmount a lot of problems, not least that women can be very unwilling to delegate parenting, even to their partner. There is so much pressure to be the good mother that it can lead to them holding men at bay, even when they desperately want to be involved.”

He added: “The economic climate compounds the problem. People are under stress and families are more complex than ever, complexities rarely conceded in statistics. One study five years ago looking at 5,000 households identified 73 different family types. Yet we continue to hold to the simplistic stereotype of motherhood, but there are many permutations of what makes a good parent.

“To declaim role reversal as a bad thing is just as catastrophic as to declaim it as a good thing. When people change roles with great gusto and intent and it doesn’t work out, then that disappointment can destroy the relationship. What we should be thinking about is how can social policy support systems fit all types of families.

“There really has been a seismic shift in gender roles, but really we will only know it’s changed when men start cleaning the toilet. That’s the last bastion.”

But, for most couples, childcare remains a juggle in changing social and economic times. Dan and Ilana Rapaport-Clark, from north London, both work part-time, although Dan is the main parent for Lola, three, and Jacob, one.

“I always wanted to do it, even before we had kids,” he said. “My family was supportive but some of my friends thought it was a bit odd. You definitely have a different experience to mothers and you rarely see another dad. A lot of men who would like to do it are put off by the dominance of women, so it becomes a bit of a chicken and egg situation. I wanted to see them walk and hear their first words, childhood is such a finite time. I love hanging out with my kids.”

See also:

Fathers are happier when doing more housework, says study

All about my mother

Tags

Children, family, motherhood, parenting, parents

All about my mother

“I realised I was just like my mum and went into therapy.”

“For the first few years of parenting, I thought good parents were strict and shouty [sic] and smacking was OK.”

“When I was in antenatal group the HV [health visitor] asked, ‘What is your biggest fear?’ and I said, ‘To become my mum.'”

These are all comments from people on Mumsnet, the parenting website, showing that the old adage that we all turn into our parents is still striking fear into the hearts of many. But is it true that we’re doomed to repeat their mistakes? Or can a difficult parent actually teach you things that an ideal parent can’t?

A new book, Difficult Mothers: Understanding and Overcoming Their Power, by the psychologist and Cambridge fellow Terri Apter, says that a difficult parent does have a huge impact on whom we become, but we aren’t necessarily doomed to repeat their mistakes. In fact, having a difficult parent can give you some important characteristics and skills that a child with a happy upbringing might not have.

“You inherit patterns of behaviour from parents, but these aren’t set in stone. Reflecting on what was difficult about your maternal relationship will help you to prevent copying their behaviour in later life,” she explains, but this isn’t as easy as it might sound. Some people take years to rid themselves of their parents’ influence.

“People talk about ‘internalised voices’, this punitive, berating voice. They might describe themselves as ‘haunted’ or ‘shadowed’ by the voice of a mother telling them they will get things wrong, saying things like, ‘No one cares what you think,’ ‘You are stupid,’ or ‘You always say the wrong thing.’ You can learn to engage with that punitive inner voice and you can be cowed or amused by it; you don’t have to believe what it says.”

Difficult Mothers is based on case studies collected over 10 years, a review of journals on the subject and also inspired by Apter’s difficulties with her own mother. “It was very constrained; she was angry and controlling. I always had to be on the lookout for her anger and I was always on the alert to try not to reveal things that might upset her, and to placate her when they did. It wasn’t spontaneous and it wasn’t comfortable. Toward the end of her life she had cast out my sister and that gave me a sense of how fragile this relationship was.”

Apter identifies five categories of difficult mother: the angry mother, the controlling mother, the narcissistic mother, the envious mother and the emotionally unavailable mother. She is careful to caution that only around 20 per cent of mothers will fall into these categories – the rest are just normal, flawed humans – but if your parent does fit one of these types, it can have a profound effect on whom you become.

A child’s brain development from birth to three years of age is particularly crucial. A mother will normally respond to and mirror her child’s feelings. She will look into the child’s eyes and try to get to know him or her. This process of responding to a baby’s signals is called “attunement”. The psychiatrist Thomas Lewis once remarked, “The absence of attunement may be a non-event for a reptile, but it inflicts a shattering injury to the socially hungry.” Apter agrees: “The worst bit is having that brain not develop – that is the real killer.”

If a mother has postnatal depression it can mean she does not attune to her baby and doesn’t give him or her enough stimulation. Apter classes this within the “emotionally unavailable” category. If you are withdrawn, or you think no one cares about what you think and feel, it might be the result of this lack of stimulation when you were young, but this isn’t set in stone. “Once you recognise this, you can try to be more sensitive to positive responses from others,” Apter says. “When people are friendly, think about responding positively back.”

You might also have some highly developed life skills. “If you had to help your mother from a young age, you might have learnt that you can comfort and be a source of support to others and might also have developed a great deal of competence through helping others in the family,” Apter says.

Having an “angry” mother – as Apter and her sister did – might make you want to withdraw from any relationship when there is conflict in adult life. “That can be a problem and result in you only having short-term relationships,” Apter says. On the other hand, she points out that you will probably be very diplomatic, and have a thick skin, developed from protecting yourself against other people’s anger.

An over-protective mother might show signs of the “controlling” or “envy” groups, Apter says. “She might say, ‘You can’t do things without me there to pull the strings,’ or ‘You will mess up if I’m not in control,’ or the other aspect might be ‘I feel anxious and diminished and I need you to feel that alongside me, because I can’t bear to see you feeling stronger than I am.’ Although an envious mother will never clearly admit her jealousy.”

According to Apter, children of a controlling mother can find it hard to know what they really want, because they are used to their mother telling them how they should feel. A child of an envious parent might feel they should not seek to achieve success. “They subconsciously think, ‘If I am successful and happy and independent, it will destroy the people I love,'” Apter says. “You have to try to focus on whether you feel this anxiety or paralysis when you think about what you want. You can fill in the blank and attend to what you are thinking or feeling, just pause, wait and keep it in mind. Also, try it out and see it isn’t catastrophic to do what you want.”

On the plus side, a controlling mother can make you very disciplined from an early age. “If your mother’s controlling personality drives you to excel, there are pluses in that,” Apter says. “You might gain more skills than your peers and be a high achiever.” An envious mother might also teach you some valuable lessons: “Sometimes you learn you have to ignore other people’s negativity or doubts to get what you want,” Apter says. “You know people who are very independent and self-directed with a sort of edge? They may have had to act in the face of others’ envy.” A “narcissistic” mother can also rear high-achieving children. “It might be that you learn to be high achieving but also very modest – that’s a great skill,” says Apter. This is developed by responding to a mother who “might want the child to shine because they are part of her but also resent anyone who outshines her”. So their child might be keen to tout the success of others while never bragging about their own talents.

Ultimately, who you are, and how you go on to treat your own children, is not a fixed pattern, Apter says. “I am not saying you will be a certain way, but take time to assess whether this legacy from your parents impedes you. ” If you identify any of the traits Apter describes, she recommends that you take one situation at a time, and realise that the maternal voice in your head “won’t really kill you or threaten you”; in fact, it could be the key to your success.