—Important to distinguish abusive behaviour from other troublesome behaviours that could be seen as falling within the range of 'normal' adolescent behaviour
—Acts of domination or coercion
'when an adolescent attempts physically or psychologically to dominate, coerce and control others in their family. It takes a number of forms. The most commonly acknowledged forms are physical violence, destruction of property and/or possessions, threats and intimidation, psychological, emotional and social abuse, financial abuse and sometimes sexual abuse' (Howard and Rottem, 2008:11)
I would also like to point others in the direction of a very useful blog on the subject http://holesinthewall.co.uk/ including a link to a Research in Practice video of Judy Nixon discussing her findings from her recent research.
The following are two case studies we shared at the forum.
1.“I don’t want my child to be demonised” A story of APV as told by mum:
Sam was a happy, confident, outgoing, sociable child. At school he was popular and was regularly invited to friend’s houses. His teachers described him as chatty and a bit of a class clown. He was young in his school year (June birthday) and academically ‘middling’.
His relationship with his father was reasonably good, there were some disagreements but there were no issues re disciplining and boundaries were clear. There was plenty of ‘family time’ and 1 on 1.
Sam was very close to his paternal grandparents who separated when he was 9 years old. Soon afterwards he developed alopecia. After some tests a specialist put it down to stress. I didn’t know what was at the bottom of it, and put it down to his grandparents split but the alopecia became a source of stress in itself. In his last year of junior school he lost his eyebrows, eyelashes, and had to wear a hat on his head. Children asked if he had cancer, they were nasty and Sam went on to start secondary school with alopecia. It has stayed with him ever since, fluctuating in severity and he describes himself as a freak because of it.
At secondary school Sam had a good tutor but his behaviour began to go downhill. In his first year, his dad left his marriage and the family home in the January (with just a couple of weeks notice to Sam and his sister). Sam’s dad had a series of temporary homes but the children continued to see their dad every other weekend initially.
By Y8, Sam was smoking cannabis and was getting lots of detentions and exclusions at school. At the end of Y8, Sam went to a behaviour referral unit one day a week which was helpful initially. However, the behaviour and the exclusions continued in Y9. The school’s approach was to isolate Sam. Some teachers were good, others awful – without giving me much say, the school decided to permanently exclude him and he was sent to a pupil referral unit.
The PRU was the worst thing that could have happened to Sam. His cannabis use increased his poor behaviour at school and at home he was off the wall. He chose to stop seeing his dad, who by then had been engaged to marry someone, separated, met someone else and married her.
Sam had really bad angry outbursts; he would throw furniture around the room, be verbally abusive towards me, spat in my face, pinned me up against the wall and threatened me.
On one occasion his dad phoned social services out of concern for his sibling. A social worker came and spoke to my daughter Jane, she spoke to me and made me feel guilty. Her concern was for solely for Jane. But nothing came of her visit.
I reported Sam to the police a few times during his angry outbursts and their response was variable; on one occasion they handcuffed him in our front garden in front of the neighbours whilst he pleaded with me, “Mum, mum, please don’t do this.” Another time, after I had wrestled a knife off him, I had slapped him and then he had pinned me against the wall and the police told Sam he could press charges against me. There were other more sympathetic police and a call from victim support which led to some really good 1:1 support. They even took me to see a solicitor to seek an injunction against Sam when he was at his worst but I was earning above the threshold for legal aid and not enough to be able to afford it.
Around this time I was offered a CAF. This was useless. In theory Sam had two lead professionals a YOT worker and a EWO but nothing happened and no services were offered.
I did throw my son out of the house out of concern for his sister and he stayed at his friend’s house which worked reasonably well. But he got in to trouble with the police and breached court orders and was tagged. When he was tagged he had to be at home every night.
He wanted money. On one occasion when I refused, he pulled the handbrake up in the car and the car span round and mounted a pavement. I managed to take control of the car and drop him off further down the street and went into shock when I thought what could have happened if there had been another road user behind us or anyone on the pavement at that time.
He would smash up the house and things went missing – missing from his grandmother, his sister and from me.
The police gave us a TAU (“treat as urgent”). Then we were offered help from CAMHS. They have a young person’s drug treatment team and a really good worker assigned to support Sam. They had things in common and they really connected. However, the worker was on a temporary contract, he left and though Sam was offered another worker he didn’t want to tell his story again and wouldn’t engage. CAMHS talked about doing family work but it never came off.
I paid for counselling privately but Sam skirted around the issues, for example he wouldn’t talk about his hair loss and again he didn’t engage fully.
Meanwhile, I referred myself to Next Link and my daughter for counselling and things improved during this time and he came home. At one point I had a regular phone call with Parentline Plus, once a week for an hour and that was useful in the early stages (Extended Telephone Support).
However, Sam was kicked out of the PRU and left school aged 15 with no qualifications. He was referred to INCLUDE but he didn’t engage and there was no follow up. Connexions were useless and again didn’t try to engage him.
After things improved they went downhill again. He was using cannabis and other things (I don’t know what) and he got into graffiti and got in more trouble with the police. His angry outbursts and stealing continued.
One day when he was kicking off his sister was in pieces. I bundled her up in a blanket and took her next door to a friend and had to kick him out. I knew I couldn’t put Jane through this anymore and she said she’d have to go and live with her dad if it carried on. I wasn’t prepared to lose my daughter as well, so even though Sam pleaded and cried, I asked him to leave.
He went to a young person’s homelessness organisation (The Hub) who housed him in a sheltered housing arrangement. This was successful until he wanted more freedom and to be able to have his girlfriend over so he went into shared housing through ‘16-25 Independent People Re-Housed’ and moved again a bit closer to home as he was far away from friends and would end up at our house at 1 in the morning after he had been out with friends.
I see him regularly and his angry outbursts don’t escalate so much now but he still kicks off and is emotionally abusive. It’s always about money. I got into so much debt giving money to him all the time. I’m cross with myself, wanted a quiet life and to keep me safe and Jane safe.
Their relationship was awful – so much animosity. His sister hated him which is understandable.
I worry about him and his girlfriend. She’s 16 now, they’ve been going out 3 years and they have rows and some fights. I called the police once when they were fighting and an anonymous call to social care.
I was only afraid of being harmed physically once.
I have one friend who has stood by me and Sam as well. She takes no nonsense and is able to sort him out. She really cares for him and will stick up for him. She is Sam’s champion. He thinks no-one likes him. I’ve lost friends because of comments they have made about him.
His dad has withdrawn support when it suits him and tells him I’ll see you when you can behave. They have both been unreliable for each other and dad has not taken any responsibility. At the beginning we were both involved at meetings with the school until he was permanently excluded. Now he only sees his dad very occasionally like Christmas.
Sam can be beyond angry and can revert to his 2 year old self. He’s very apologetic and says I don’t know why I’m like it. One time he threatened to take his own life and I called the GP who got him to speak to him on the telephone. The GP said he was distraught but not at risk, no need to section him and no follow up.
I’m a strong person and I’m resourceful, but my son needs support from a strong male role model.
Looking back I don’t blame myself except I regret not working harder with his school. Why didn’t they offer him a transfer? The PRU was really bad for him. There needed to be more support for his sister and I had 10 weeks off work due to the stress of it.
Sam can be absolutely lovely and caring. But he has not been at school since Y9 and has no self confidence. He calls himself stupid and won’t engage with anything. Yet he wants a job – but what prospects has he of getting one?
Holidays have been a nightmare.
I’ve had a lot of support from two work colleagues and a best mate but they still don’t know what it’s like. I hear other tales from parents about their children’s misdemeanours like “staying out until midnight” or “they swear” – just wait til they smash your house up.
There needs to be more support for parents – a parent support group to talk about it, share the feelings of shame, realise I’m not alone and I’m not a bad parent.
Someone said to me it must be worse if it’s your partner but I think its worse coming from your children. You can’t completely detach, it’s your child, you’re emotionally involved and see the pain for your child and want what’s best for them. I don’t want my child to be demonised.
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