The growing problem of cyber-bullying

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abuse, Children, Cyberbullying, parents, school, social media, suicide, Teens

The growing problem of cyber-bullying

Although it’s been around for as long as I can remember, I appreciate that for most adults cyber-bullying is quite a new phenomenon. And I don’t quite think they’ve yet grasped how to treat it. Unlike other forms of bullying, its effects often aren’t seen until it gets completely out of hand, and sometimes when it is too late.

According to the cyber bullying charity the Cybersmile Foundation, every 20 minutes a child between 10 to 19 years of age attempts to commit suicide in England and Wales. While one in three children in the UK suffers from cyber-bullying.

However, apart from the occasional scandalous news story such as the recent suicide of Canadian teenager Amanda Todd, most of it is never brought to light. So what’s really going on?

In my experience, most cases of cyber-bullying incidents aren’t, thankfully, as bad as Amanda Todd’s story. They usually comprise of arguments on Facebook that turn into popularity contests. Someone will spark off the conflict with a claim or rude post on the other person’s wall or photo and it will lead to a string of abusive and sarcastic messages. The rules of the battle are to remain nonchalant throughout and the winner is decided by whose comments received the most “likes”.

It then becomes almost a spectacle with everyone watching the fight unfold and messaging each other on who they think is faring the best. The bravest friends stick up for their comrade with their own comments and those less willing to get involved will simply join the mass of likes. This goes on until the receiver or the poster of the original message has enough sense to delete it and the fight continues in private.

Unfortunately, not all cases are so harmless and some can lead to serious emotional damage. A friend of a friend was a recent target when girls in her year created a Blackberry messenger group about her. It was comprised of over 20 people messaging each other about how they should kill the “slag”, supposedly because she was going out with an older boy. They then added her to the conversation and she wasn’t seen at school for two weeks. A close friend of mine was also a recent victim of abusive texts after false accusations arose around her having cheated with somebody’s boyfriend. “I felt so isolated and exposed,” she told me, “There was nowhere I could turn where they couldn’t get to me”.

There are also instances of malicious public statuses, embarrassing pictures being sent round and abusive questions on sites such as Formspring, a medium on which anonymous questions can be posted to specific people. Teens hiding behind their anonymous identity can post extremely hurtful things, which they would never say in real-life, but which they feel are acceptable in cyber space. Those who don’t answer are often accused of being cowardly and as a result receive even more “hate”.

Over 80 per cent of children fear that cyber-bullying is getting worse. Due to the growth of social media, every move you make on sites such as Facebook and Twitter is watched and regulated. Just a slight slip such as an “uncool status” or adding somebody as a friend, who you supposedly don’t know well enough, leaves the perfect opportunity for bullies to strike.

Victims of cyber bullying are always told they should seek help from school but they can often be just as confused as the perpetrators themselves. Although it is the wrong thing to do, many teenagers believe that their only chance of survival in the social media jungle of bullying is to fight back with equally as harsh and hurtful comments. This just leads to more tension and leaves schools and authorities with no easy way of putting an end to it without being accused of showing favouritism to a particular side.

I spoke to the founder of the Cybersmile Foundation, Scott Freeman on what he recommends when he receives distressed phone calls from victims and parents. Many parents are extremely worried about whether their child is being cyber-bullied and often are not sure how to protect their children if they don’t even know if it’s going on.

They are told to look out for certain signs such as their child acting paranoid and protective about other people looking at their computer and not wanting to go to school. A big reason why children may not want to alert their parents to the problem is the fear that their privileges, such as having a Facebook account and surfing the web may be taken away. Parents must show that they are on their child’s side and want to help them not punish them.

Children who call the helpline are suggested to talk to either to their parents or a member of staff at school about it straight away. If given permission to do so Cybersmile will contact their parents to run them through what can be done. If the child feels uncomfortable with that they should talk to a close friend, the most important thing is not to suffer alone. Cybersmile also offers counselling for anyone who is really having trouble. Most children live in fear of being cyber-bullied and this shouldn’t go on.

The charity also raises awareness of the problem, they fear is growing, by giving talks in schools and universities. They are designed to shock students into thinking about what they do online and who they may be affecting. Cyber-bullying workshops are also on offer for parents and children in order to bridge the gap between both generations and work on ways to combat the problem.

Cybersmile is working on changing the harassment law which they feel is outdated because it does not include online bullying. They believe that the internet should be viewed as a public space in which people who are acting abusive should be punished by law. A petition calling for government action has already received over 1,000 signatures, in the hopes of helping to erase cyber bullying. The foundation is producing anti-cyber-bullying wristbands which will be available from the 5th November. The money raised will be used towards supporting their 24 helpline which can be contacted on 0845 6887277.

For more information about the Cybersmile Foundation visit www.cybersmile.org

We Need to Break the Taboo Surrounding Self Harm and Start Talking About It

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Children, GPs, hospitalisation, parents, self-harm, support, teachers, young people

We Need to Break the Taboo Surrounding Self Harm and Start Talking About It

One in 12 children and young people deliberately self-harm with around 40,000 cases needing hospitalisation each year because their injuries are so severe. Those statistics alone suggest that we must do more to help children and young people who are turning to self-harm and our new research shows how imperative this task is.

Research by YoungMinds and the Cello group launched today shows:
• Three out of four young people simply do not know where to turn to talk about self-harm
• A third of parents would not seek professional help if their child was self-harming
• Almost half GPs feel that they don’t understand young people who self-harm and their motivations
• Two in three teachers don’t know what to say to young people who self-harm

The research findings are worrying. Among young people, parents, teachers and GPs self-harm is considered more concerning and more serious than many high-profile youth issues such as youth gangs, drugs, binge-drinking or eating disorders. Young people themselves also rank self harm as a very high area of concern.

Myths, misconceptions and lack of understanding characterize self-harm, our research shows it can be viewed as too serious with links to suicide or too trivial to prompt action by being seen as attention seeking. With this polarisation of views it makes it really difficult for people to seek or provide support.

As a society we feel ill equipped to talk to young people about self-harm and at the same time young people are saying they don’t know where to turn. If as our research shows, parents, teachers and GPs don’t feel equipped and confident then is it any wonder that young people are stuck not knowing where to go?

Only one in 10 young people are comfortable seeking advice from teachers, parents and GPs. Over half would go online to get support about self-harm despite only one in five trusting online sources. Thousands of young people are getting emotional support from online communities rather than going to their parents, teachers or GPs. Everyone concerned about the emotional wellbeing of young people needs to acknowledge and accept this and look at why young people are supporting each other online.

We shouldn’t blame people for not being confident or equipped our research shows a real desire for people to be able to talk to young people about self harm. The majority of people believe that they need to be able to offer support to young people who self-harm; however, nobody feels empowered to act.

Thousands of young people are suffering in silence every day. Our research demonstrates that we need to break the conspiracy of silence around self-harm so young people feel more able to seek support and parents, teachers and GP’s feel equipped to provide it. We also need to find ways to breach the gap online that exists between adults who want to help but don’t know how to enter the online space and young people who find peer support there but may also come across the more negative and dark side of online communication.

The YoungMinds Parents’ Helpline offers free confidential online and telephone support, including information and advice, to any adult worried about the emotional problems, behaviour or mental health of a child or young person up to the age of 25.

Call us free on 0808 802 5544  Monday to Friday 9.30am-4pm or email parents@youngminds.org.uk

Campaign to unlock secrets of people who go missing

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adults, disappear, family, mental health issues, missing persons, parents, project, relationships

Campaign to unlock secrets of people who go missing

When Laura’s daughter asked about her grandparents, Laura said they were dead, killed in an accident she preferred not to discuss. “It is a terrible, horrible, lie,” Laura admits. “My daughter will inevitably discover the truth and when she does I don’t think she’ll ever forgive me.”

Despite her fears, Laura has repeated the story to her friends, her partner and his family. One lie has led to another and now, she admits, her life is built on deception. “I exist on a cliff edge. I’m very frightened. I have constructed my life on something that will inevitably crumble.”

The truth is that Laura’s parents are not dead but living 175 miles away; a train journey of two hours.

Since the night 12 years ago when Laura tiptoed down the stairs of her family home and shut the door behind her, she has neither seen nor spoken to her parents. She has no intention of doing so again. She has never told anyone about her past before, and does not give her real name.

Approximately 327,000 missing person reports – 110,000 of them concerning adults – are made to UK police each year. It amounts to almost 900 reports a day.

Despite the numbers, though, the world of the “missing” is shrouded in mystery: there is no research into why adults choose to go missing, how they disappear, where they go, and why they do, or do not, come back.

That, however, is about to change. Monday marks the nationwide launch of the first project, in the UK and internationally, to examine the hidden, secret, landscape of adults who choose to go missing.

Funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, the project, entitled Geographies of Missing People, is a collaboration between experts at Glasgow and Dundee Universities, the Metropolitan police service and Grampian police.

For more than two years researchers have traced and interviewed “missing” people. They are now using a website to ask those with experience of being missing to post their story. “This is a nationwide call for the missing to tell their stories,” said Hester Parr, principal investigator in the project. “There is no organisation that represents adults who choose to go missing. They have no way of being in contact with each other and so can find it very difficult to make sense of what has happened. This is a chance for those without a voice to tell their story.”

Parr and her colleagues spoke at length to families, police, police-based researchers, forensic scientists, academics and representatives of Missing People, an independent UK charity.

In a field parched of evidence-based research, the project has hit a nerve. The UK Missing Persons Bureau, the Police National Search Centre, and the National Policing Improvement Agency, say the findings will be used to train police, inform government policy and design services to support those who disappear and their families.

In the next few months there will also be conferences in the UK, Brussels and US for police officers to get together alongside researchers, families, and people who have returned.

Parr said police so far had relied “on the slightly nebulous, professional, hunches that come from years of experience”.

He added: “The lack of research means that those who go missing have no guidance on how to let their families know they’re okay or how to return home. Families also find it difficult to know what to do [or how to talk about the situation] when someone comes home.”

Many of the 216,000 individuals of all ages who go missing every year are resolved by police; just 2,500 people remain untraced more than a year after they disappear.

But that can still mean people do not return home and that families are not told if their loved one is alive or safe.

A closed case simply means the police are confident that no crime took place.

Few of the missing people traced by the Missing People charity do choose to go home. “Instead the missing person is able to rebuild relationships without their family finding out where they live, or being in direct contact with them,” said Martin Houghton-Brown, chief executive of the charity. “It doesn’t mean happy families but it enables people to accept someone has gone.

Laura, for example, only reluctantly agreed that the police could tell her parents she was alive. “It wasn’t that I wanted, or want, to hurt them, but I couldn’t bear it any longer and I still feel the same.”

Laura was 21 when she found she was pregnant. Her boyfriend of two years said he wanted nothing to do with a baby, and her parents said an abortion was her only option. She bought a train ticket to a neighbouring county, rented a room and got a pub job. She lived day to day, waiting for the police to knock on her door and force her to go back.

When she tried to pay her first month’s rent, she found her bank account frozen. The bank said she had been reported missing, and needed to talk to the police. “I thought they would make me go home,” she said.

But they didn’t. They gave her a cup of tea, told her she had the right to go missing, and asked her permission to tell her parents she was safe, but that she was not going back.

Laura is tormented by the decision she made. She always orders extra copies of her daughter’s photographs in case she sees her parents again. She has a big box of letters she has written to them too. “I try to explain,” she said. “But I never get it right. I feel very guilty, ashamed. I hate that I have deprived my parents of a relationship with their granddaughter, and her with them. Still to this day it makes me wonder what sort of person I am.

“I’m on antidepressants. I rarely sleep. I don’t let anyone get too close to me. But despite all that I’m desperate not to go back. I love the life I’ve built. I live in fear of it being taken away from me.”

Joe Apps, manager of the Serious Organised Crime Agency’s UK missing persons bureau, said there was a range of reasons for adults disappearing, including relationships, financial problems, addiction and mental health problems.

There is, he said, a dearth of solid information to help police trace those who could be at risk. “We only solve five to seven of the 30 to 40 cases we handle each month,” he admitted. “We appreciate that’s a very small number but this is a mysterious world we know very little about. This new project is a sign that we are entering a new era in missing adults.”

The only specialist research centre concerned with missing people in the UK, the Centre for the Study of Missing Persons, at the University of Portsmouth, estimated that an average investigation costs from £1,325 to £2,415: roughly three times more than a violent crime or robbery, and four times more than a burglary.

But Houghton-Brown emphasises that the urge to disappear can be positive. “We need to be more open as a society [to the fact that] people need to take breathing space. Sometimes people need to take time out to deal with stuff. But they need to know how to do that safely.”

Rebecca chose to go missing, aged 22, to escape her bullying father. She stayed away for two and a half years before the death of an uncle prompted her return. “Going missing was the last resort but it gave me time to deal with my own issues. I still sometimes have the urge to go missing again. If you’ve done it once and survived, the temptation is always there.”

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

How would it feel if you couldn’t recognise your own family?

Tags

'face blindness', Alzheimer's, autism, brain impairment, brain injury, Children, dementia, face processing, facial perception, Memory, new national centre to study, parents, prosopagnosia, stroke, treatment

How would it feel if you couldn’t recognise your own family?

Imagine waking up and not knowing who’s sharing your bed. Imagine collecting a child from school – but picking up the wrong one. Or being a mother and not being recognised by your own child. These are all the problems faced by around a million people in the UK today. Among the famous sufferers are Duncan Bannatyne of Dragons’ Den, playwright Tom Stoppard and Jane Goodall.

It’s called face blindness – or prosopagnosia. It affects more people than Alzheimer’s and autism and, just like dyslexia before it, it’s a hidden handicap that gets people in trouble every day.

But a new national centre to study the condition has been established and pressure is building up on the NHS to recognise the condition and to get the public to understand it and sympathise with the sufferers. There’s also pressure for children to be tested because, after an experiment in Australia there may be hope of treatment. There, in Sydney, an eight-year-old boy identified only as “AL” was put through a long series of tests using grey scale photographs to retrain his brain. For the first time psychologists here are hoping there might finally be a solution. In a letter to the British Medical Journal Dr David Fine, himself a sufferer, revealed the torment of his early life. He wrote that the condition “has shaped my life”. He added: “I often fail to recognise my children or even my wife.” The doctor, from Southampton, is calling for a simple children’s test “so that the next generation of sufferers grows up in a society that understands and recognises our disability”.

Leading researcher Dr Sarah Bate, of Bournemouth University, also wants to develop a way of training sufferers with the condition. She’s just got funding to start a new national centre to study prosopagnosia and she’s already been contacted by 700 individuals offering to be tested. A number of parents who think their children might be sufferers have been in touch and now a joint project with the University of St Andrews is under way – the first attempt to improve these children’s skills at face processing.

Bate has found that part of the problem is the British tradition of wearing school uniforms. She says: “We had one boy of five and the only friend he could make – simply because her face was different – was a Chinese girl.”

In the United States, where they don’t use school uniforms, there was no such problem. And some children, she found, couldn’t even recognise their own parents. One teacher with the condition only coped by the use of seating plans. But when the pupils played up by swapping seats he got depressed and got a post at the Open University corresponding by email.

Dr Bate says: “We’re wondering whether, if we could test children at, say, seven, there might be a chance that some training could help. It’s going to be an uphill battle but we do need those tests – just as they have them for dyslexia.”

A classic case is former IT teacher Jo Livingston, 67, from Bexley. She suffers from the condition and, having retired, is now touring schools and giving talks to make people aware of the problem. Even now, she only recognises her husband “because he has a beard and talks a lot”. They met in their 20s as members of a climbing club.

She says: “When you’re climbing you always wear the same clothes and if someone wears a red anorak they’ll be in a red anorak next week. So I married the one in the red anorak because that was the one I was looking for. Now I do the talks so that people can know about it – so they can have that ‘that’s me’ moment.”

Livingston has found instances where a woman could only be sure it was her baby in hospital if it was the one with a cuddly toy in the cot. Another woman said she was at a festival, looking for someone she’d planned to meet and only later found she’d been chatting to Ronan Keating. And a Hollywood engineer couldn’t even recognise Brad Pitt when they shared a lift.

“Television’s very difficult because characters change clothes and hairstyles and sometimes the plot hinges on that,” Livingston says. “You see two young blond women and you think they’re the same person until they appear on screen together and then you mentally have to rewrite the entire plot. It’s quite exhausting.”

Another sufferer is social worker Nerina Parr, 44, from Brighton. She says: “It’s the new dyslexia… nobody could explain what it was and half the time they didn’t have any sympathy with it anyway. It’s always getting me into trouble. For instance, my partner changed the picture of us on my bedside and I got really jealous and demanded to know who this new person was… then there’s the nightmare of walking into work meetings and not knowing who the people are – even though you work with them.”

Anna Cady, a 60-year-old artist from Winchester, thought at one stage that she had Alzheimer’s or dementia. “So when I found out what it was it was a tremendous relief. Then again, I did some tests on the internet and ended up sobbing my eyes out because I couldn’t even tell when they changed the faces. The awful thing is that you dread going outside because you might offend someone by not recognising them. When someone says ‘hello, Anna’ your heart sinks because you just hope you aren’t going to offend someone.”

If you think you have face blindness and would like to be part of the research you can register at prosopagnosiaresearch.org

Face blindness: Causes and cures

Prosopagnosia or face blindness can be caused by stroke or brain injury, but some people are born with it or develop it despite having no other signs of brain impairment. Recent research suggests it may sometimes be genetic.

It is thought to be caused by abnormality of or damage to a part of the brain that controls memory and facial perception.

In extreme cases, those with the condition are unable to recognise their own faces or tell the difference between a face and an object.

Treatment focuses on teaching coping strategies and the use of a variety of prompts and cues to recognise people by other means. But research is under way and it is hoped an effective prevention or cure may be found.

Stepfamilies: One step beyond

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Children, family, parents, step-families

Stepfamilies: One step beyond

Divorce, they say, is hardest on the kids. But putting the children first when you’re embroiled in the hurt, betrayal and insanity of a long-term break-up, is even harder when they’re not biologically yours.

Jim Carrey was criticised on national radio by his former long-term girlfriend Jenny McCarthy for losing contact with her son. The model and actress, with whom Carrey split in 2010, claims Evan, 10, who suffers from autism, has been in therapy to cope with separation from his former stepfather Carrey, who has denied that McCarthy directly invited him to stay in touch with the boy.

Step-parenting is a tricky business under even the most Brady Bunch of circumstances. But when a relationship goes awry, how best to attend to the needs of a child who has probably depended on you and been told to love you, but who is not your flesh and blood, and to whom you have no legal obligations after a split, is a minefield.

It can take years to “blend” families; with children belonging to different partners, grown-up offspring, new babies and the grandparents, aunties and uncles that come with them. Difficulties between parents and children who are not related by blood are among the key causes of relationship breakdowns. But when this happens (and assuming the adults don’t then declare themselves celibate), the complications seem to perpetuate themselves. Divorce rates among those already divorced have been consistently high for the last decade. Nearly 40 per cent of marriage dissolutions in England and Wales annually occur between couples where one partner has been married before. More than 9 per cent of divorces each year happen between couples who have both been married already.

“What the marriage and divorce statistics don’t take into account is the high number of co-habiting couples who then split up,” says Christine Northam, of Relate. “Children grieve for the loss of their home as they know it. Parents need to be very mindful of what they are doing.”

A child’s natural loyalty to a biological parent who has been replaced by a new spouse is just one of the many complicated problems that can influence daily lives in a step household. The arrival of new children who might have to suddenly share rooms, toys and attention will undoubtedly upset the order of things – and can produce tension. Parents who have done it will tell you it takes the resilience, stamina and patience of a saint to create a functional step-family. But if, having got there, and “blended” into being, however unconventional, ragbag and surprising your family is, if the whole thing breaks down once again, it can be unendurable for children. Lizzie, 38, grew up in her father’s care after her parents divorced. He married his secretary after a work affair and Lizzie and her younger sister and brother moved in with the woman who caused the end of her parents’ marriage. Two half-brothers soon arrived.

“There are 15 years between me and my youngest half-brother, so people thought he was mine,” she says. “My stepmother was out working a lot so I looked after the little ones, which I loved.” Despite the bonds between the siblings, coping with her father’s “new family” brought with it an additional set of emotional ramifications. “Being part of the first set of children does make you feel you were never good enough,” she says. “You feel misplaced. I am biased but I think for men, children from previous marriages come last. It’s different for mothers.”

Having got over initial feelings of resentment towards her first stepmother (over her father’s infidelity), Lizzie was stunned when her father left his second wife for a younger woman. Lizzie didn’t keep in touch with her first stepmother and couldn’t form a relationship with her father’s third wife.

Mary, 37, a journalist, has a more positive view of the break-up of her blended family. Her parents divorced when she was 14 and both remarried. Her mother’s new husband had two sons who came to live with them, the youngest of whom was a similar age to Mary. “We became brother and sister really quickly,” she says. “His father cheated on my mother about 10 years later so I didn’t stay in touch with my stepfather, partly because I didn’t want to for Mum’s sake, but also because he didn’t want to have anything to do with me. But my brother made a real effort to maintain the relationship with us.” Strictly speaking they’re not related in any way but they still refer to each other as brother and sister “because it would be weird not to”.

It’s easy to focus on the negative sides of melded families gone wrong. But often, as in Mary’s case, even if the “unit” breaks up, positive relationships endure. Interior designer Kelly Hoppen is stepmum to the actress Sienna Miller, despite having divorced her father years ago. They appear at glitzy events together, Sienna having recently supported the launch of stepsister Natasha Corrett’s new cookery book, and Hoppen publicly confirmed Miller’s pregnancy earlier this year.

Pop singer Peter Andre and model Katie Price divorced in 2009 after four and half years of marriage. They have a son and daughter together and Andre has been vocal about his continued relationship with Price’s disabled eldest son, Harvey, 10, whom she had by footballer Dwight Yorke. Andre dedicated 2010 single “Unconditional” to Harvey and has paid money into a trust fund for the boy. And the actress Demi Moore’s daughter, Rumer, appears to be feeling her way towards a continuing relationship with her former stepfather, Ashton Kutcher, to whom she was very close when he was married to her mother, despite the difficult nature of the break-up.

Northam warns against underestimating the impact a step-parent may have had on a child’s life. “I would always recommend, if possible, maintaining a relationship with a child, even if it’s limited to a cup of tea every so often,” she says. “Parents and step-parents need to be as honest as they can with their families. Don’t shroud it all in mystery. Give children age-appropriate information. If you can do it together that can be very helpful because it shows the child you can co-operate on their behalf.”

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.

Bully: Documentary Film

Tags

Bullying, Children, documentary, film, parents, suicide

More info:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marlo-thomas/bully_b_1382354.html?ref=uk

I’m not a movie reviewer, but I strongly recommend that you take your child by the hand this weekend — or several children — to see the new documentary film, Bully. The only problem is, you might not be able to find the film at your neighborhood cineplex. That’s because the Motion Picture Association of America has stamped the film “Unrated,” after a long and noisy battle over its original R-rating. So now it is up to the individual theatre owners to decide whether or not they will exhibit Bully. I urge them to do so.

But make no mistake, even if you have to drive your kids across state lines to see the film, your kids need to be in the audience — because, whether you know it or not, they may be among the 13 million American children affected by bullying every year. For them, this is more than just a movie. It is real life.

And in this real life, parents have been all but invisible — invisible in the school cafeteria, invisible on the playground, invisible on the school bus and online — unwittingly abandoning their children to face this torment alone. The film makes this painfully clear, whether it’s the dad who confidently recites that timeworn rationalization about bullying — “Kids will be kids” — or the school administrator who blindly insists to a worried parent that her students are “good as gold on that school bus” — intercut with a clip of a small boy being choked on that very bus. We come away from Bully feeling defeated and enraged.

Interestingly, the MPAA’s controversial decision about the film’s rating — based on its use of profanity and other violent language — could end up working in the children’s favor. Research indicates that bullied kids are not comfortable revealing their dangerous predicaments to their parents. But now that the rating has forced kids to see the film with an adult, the movie can do the revealing for them. And children will at last feel their parents there, by their side, seeing and understanding what it’s like to leave their house and wander unprotected into a scary world.

Adults may be horrified by what they see in Bully, but the kids know this world all too well. Directed by Lee Hirsch, the film captures the wrenching drama of schoolyard bullying — the hitting and harassing, the tormenting and tears, the grave suffering — in unflinching detail, as it zooms in on the daily battles waged by five bullied children, two of whom ultimately commit suicide. But sitting through the film will be worth every harrowing minute, especially to the children, whose only hope against this ever deepening crisis is the visible and vocal support of the adults in their lives.

The MPAA’s decision has incited a storm of protest. When Bully was first given an R-rating, a 17-year-old Michigan high-schooler, Katy Butler — who has been bullied herself — posted a petition on Change.org, demanding that the MPAA change the rating. When such high-profile and conscientious activists as Meryl Streep and Johnny Depp joined in the protest, the MPAA was effectively arm-twisted into changing the movie’s rating to a still restrictive “Unrated.”

But while all of this debate continues, the sad fact is: children are still dying at the hands of bullying.

This is why I am urging all adults — parents, guardians, caregivers — to take your kids to see Bully this weekend. I also encourage educators and school administrators to arrange school-wide field trips. Because if there’s one thing we’ve learned since launching our anti-bullying campaign last year — with the Ad Council, the Department of Education and funders like AOL, Facebook, the Waitt Family Foundation and the Free To Be Foundation (who have been major funders of the Bully Project) — it’s that, if we are ever to eradicate this deadly, modern-day scourge, we need to face the problem head-on — and together.

It’s a girl: The three deadliest words in the world

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abortion, Children, culture, daughters, documentary, economy, education, family, femicide, film, foeticide, gender, girls, infanticide, mothers, parents, poverty, women

http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2012/01/16/it%E2%80%99s-a-girl-the-three-deadliest-words-in-the-world/

It’s a girl, a film being released this year, documents the practice of killing unwanted baby girls in South Asia. The trailer’s most chilling scene is one with an Indian woman who, unable to contain her laughter, confesses to having killed eight infant daughters.

The statistics are sickening. The UN reports approximately 200 million girls in the world today are ‘missing’. India and China are said to eliminate more female infants than the number of girls born in the US each year. Lianyungang in China has the worst infant gender ratio on record with 163 boys born for every 100 girls. Taiwan, South Korea and Pakistan are also countries in which unwanted female babies are aborted, killed or abandoned.

Gendercide in South Asia takes many forms: baby girls are killed or abandoned if not aborted as foetuses. Girls that are not killed often suffer malnutrition and medical neglect as sons are favoured when shelter, medicine and food are scarce. Trafficking, dowry deaths, honour killings and deaths resulting from domestic violence are all further evils perpetrated against women. This femicide has led the Geneva Centre for Democratic Control of Armed Forces to report in ‘Women in an Insecure World’ that a secret genocide is being carried out against women at a time when deaths resulting from armed conflicts have decreased.

The brutal irony of femicide is that it is an evil perpetrated against girls by women. The most insidious force is often the mother in law, the domestic matriarch, under whose authority the daughter in law lives. Policy efforts to halt infanticide have been directed at mothers, who are often victims themselves. The trailer shows tragic scenes of women having to decide between killing their daughters and their own well-being. In India women who fail to produce sons are beaten, raped or killed so that men can remarry in the hope of procuring a more productive wife.

It is an oft-made argument that parental discrimination between children would end if families across south Asia were rescued from poverty. But two factors particularly suggest that femicide is a cultural phenomenon and that development and economic policy are only a partial solution: Firstly, there is no evidence of concerted female infanticide among poverty-stricken societies in Africa or the Caribbean. Secondly, it is the affluent and urban middle classes, who are aware of prenatal screenings, who have access to clinics and who can afford abortions that commit foeticide. Activists fear 8 million female foetuses have been aborted in India in the last decade.

The Chinese cultural bias towards male children is one exacerbated by the birth control policy. India, however, poses a more complex problem where the primary cause is a cultural one.

Activists attribute a culture of valuing children by their economic potential to South Asia’s patriarchal social model in which men are the sole breadwinners. Sons both carry the family name and work from a young age. Daughters, on the other hand, impose the burden of a dowry before leaving the home upon marriage. Strict moral codes, onerous cultural expectations and demanding domestic responsibilities are all forces that further subjugate women.

Dr Saleem ur Rehman, director of health services for the Kashmiri Valley, has conceded that a healthy male to female infant ratio in Kashmir in 2001 led him and his team to become complacent. Since 2001, the ratio has dropped from 94.1 to 85.9 girls per 100 boys. The solution, however, lies beyond merely holding officials to account.

The cultural root of the problem partially explains why an effective solution has eluded authorities. Legal prohibitions have proved ineffective. In India, dowries were outlawed 1961 and in 1994 the Prenatal Determination Act outlawed gender selective abortions. Yet dowries remain a condition of marriage and action against unregistered or non-compliant clinics fail to intercept registered medical professionals performing illegal operations.

A crude supply and demand distinction can be drawn. Activists argue the demand for eliminating female fetuses is independent of the supply of illegal services. Only those that can afford to abort will do so. Others simply kill or abandon female infants after birth. This foeticide/infanticide equation will only skew towards the latter if the problem of illegal clinics and criminal doctors were solved.

In the New Statesmen, Laurie Penny explained that South Korea improved its infant gender ratio through a programme of education. But is increasing the awareness of contraception, abortion laws and women’s rights a panacea? No. Educational efforts insufficiently target the core cultural canker. Similarly, economic policed designed to encourage development are necessary but insufficient. Any improvement in living conditions is unlikely to offset the financial burden of raising a child and a dowry.

A solution therefore must be three-fold. Policy efforts combatting poverty must be supplemented by legal prohibitions. There must be an educational programme informing women of their rights. Finally and most importantly, there must be a social and religions campaign aimed at destroying ossified cultural attitudes.

The distinction between, on the one hand a programme of economics and education and on the other a cultural campaign is not qualitative but quantitative. The latter warrants a greater level of official engagement, allowing governments to actively discourage femicide rather than passively encouraging change.

A ‘secret genocide’ is a malaise in response to which government paternalism must surely be justified. In Kashmir, officials have enlisted the help of social and religious leaders. It is religious and social leaders that must reinforce legal prohibitions on dowries with campaigns attacking the social pressures of producing one. And they must supplement information of women’s rights by persuading mothers to educate their daughters and to allow their daughters to work. These cultural channels are best placed to begin to erode sexist cultural monoliths.