‘My child would use anything as a weapon': the parents who live in fear of their offspring

The Guardian

06-03-2025

Erin knows her three children haven't had an easy time. When they were growing up, her partner was abusive towards her and the children witnessed violence and coercion at home before she found the strength to end the relationship. A few years later, her child Jay – then in their early teens – disclosed that a trusted adult had sexually abused them.
Erin, a successful businesswoman, has always believed Jay. She reported the abuse to police and severed ties with the alleged perpetrator. But Jay's behaviour began to change. They threw knives at Erin. They set fires in the house. 'They would use anything as a weapon to cause injury and harm,' Erin says. Often, Erin was forced to barricade herself inside her bedroom when Jay tried to attack her, while the other children fled the house. In many ways, she felt as if she was living with her abusive ex again.
When Erin was with her ex, she knew there was help available for victims of domestic abuse. But when she sought support for Jay's behaviour, she felt as if she was hitting a brick wall. A mental health assessment concluded that Jay was not struggling with any psychological conditions. Social workers focused on how Erin could improve her parenting and downplayed the severity of Jay's behaviour. Eventually, afraid that Jay would kill her, or one of her other children, Erin begged her local authority to take Jay into care. It wasn't until Jay made a credible attempt to kill one of their siblings that she succeeded.
Erin didn't know it at the time, but Jay's behaviour towards her had a name – or rather, lots of names. Among other terms, it is called filial violence, child-to-parent abuse or child-against-parent aggression. There is no legal definition but the national domestic abuse charity Respect uses the acronym Capva (Child and Adolescent to Parent Violence and Abuse) as a term to describe a person aged between eight and 18 who engages in 'harmful and repeated' abusive behaviour. This might include physical violence, sexual and economic abuse or 'emotional, coercive or controlling behaviour'.
Over the last two decades, interest in Capva has risen steadily among academics, social workers and practitioners in sectors including domestic abuse, adoption and mental health services. The pandemic saw a surge in reported cases and today, specialist services working to address child-to-parent abuse report that they cannot keep up with demand. A storyline about this issue even featured in EastEnders last year, as Kat Slater struggled to cope with the increasingly violent behaviour of her teenage son Tommy. A new report by Femicide Census on more than 170 UK mothers killed by their sons (of all ages) in the past 15 years observed that mothers were sometimes considered a 'safe space' for children to mete out violence.
But this gradual growth in awareness has yet to translate into families getting the support they need. In a recent landmark survey by Respect, British parents shared their experiences of Capva. The survey report paints a picture of desperate parents punched in the face so they need stitches; attacked with knives and other weapons; suffering heart attacks due to the stress of their situations. It also highlights the silence, stigma and lack of understanding that surround child-to-parent abuse. More than half of parents experiencing Capva told Respect they had not sought support at all; of these, 68% said this was because they were ashamed or worried about the stigma or judgment from professionals.
'Shame and blame are really prevalent issues for Capva, and I think they are part of the reason this issue can stay hidden for so long,' says Justine Dodd, head of young people's services at Respect. 'Parents will maybe reach out to family and friends at first and get a response that's quite shaming. Unfortunately, sometimes professionals in services working with children have very similar responses.'
Dodd says she often hears of parents who are told they simply need to 'get a grip of their kids and take charge' – by friends, family or frontline practitioners such as social workers, police officers and teachers. 'All of this is because of a lack of awareness,' she says. 'If you haven't seen Capva in action, it can be hard to conceptualise that somebody might be really frightened of their children.'
Michelle John is the founder of Pegs (Parental Education Growth Support), a social enterprise launched in 2020 to support parents and caregivers affected by child-to-parent abuse. She compares the disbelief and victim-blaming to the way domestic abuse was widely talked about in the 1960s or 70s. 'There are those really damaging attitudes: 'Just tell him no.' 'You must be doing something wrong.' 'Put up and shut up',' she says. Between 2023 and 2024, Pegs saw a 70% increase in referrals. John met a solicitor recently and mentioned what her organisation does. 'They laughed and said: 'That doesn't happen.''
Helen Bonnick first met a mother who was scared of her child in the 1980s, when she was a social worker in London. Recently awarded an MBE for her work to raise awareness of child-to-parent abuse, Bonnick remembers how the idea that parents should be held responsible for curbing their children's harmful behaviour dominated public discourse in the 1990s, as Tony Blair's Labour government began to send people on mandatory parenting courses via antisocial behaviour orders. Bonnick was sure the fearful parents she met through her work in social services, and then in education, were facing problems beyond 'normal teenage stuff'. But, she says, the prevailing political narrative was that if your child was being violent or aggressive, 'you, as a parent, needed to pull your socks up'.
In 2025, some cultural narratives around raising children may look very different – this is an era of gentler parenting, after all. But judgment and shame still underscore conversations about raising families, and modern parents who can't stop their child from hurting them report receiving similar messages about how they are failing.
'You do worry that you sound like a really weak parent,' says Tim. He lives with his partner Charlie and their 12-year-old son Silas. When Silas was younger, some teachers dismissed him as naughty and he was often punished. Later in childhood, he was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Today, he regularly blocks doorways, punches Tim in the stomach and jabs him in the chest. Insults, swearing and name-calling are a daily occurrence.
There are moments of joy and peace – Tim chuckles as he describes watching The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air with his son and doing 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzles together at the kitchen table. But more often, Tim feels scared in his own home. 'Silas's behaviour feels more threatening as he's got bigger and stronger. His language is becoming more sophisticated, too. He'll be really aggressive, two inches from my face. Then he'll flip into talking really calmly, like: 'I'm not wound up at all.' It can feel like you're being gaslit.'
Silas was adopted so Tim and Charlie have had readier access to professional support than some other parents. On top of the training they had as part of the adoption process, the couple have attended three intensive courses on 'positive parenting', five workshops on raising neurodiverse children and multiple child psychotherapy webinars. None of this has made a meaningful difference to Silas's violence and aggression. 'It feels like the message is: 'If you just learn to parent a bit better, all this will go away.'' Tim says. When that doesn't work, 'you start to feel powerless. There's a real sense of despair.'
It is no surprise that traditional parenting strategies, which focus on rewards and consequences, don't work for families like Tim's. While there is no one reason for child-to-parent abuse, or one type of family in which these dynamics play out, research suggests that neurodivergence and the experience of care – including fostering and adoption – can be compounding factors. Children who have grown up in homes where intimate partner violence is present may also be more likely to engage in child-to-parent abuse themselves. Overall, a child who has 'experienced loss, grief, trauma, adverse childhood experiences, bullying at school, parental conflict, domestic violence, mental health issues [of] a parent, mental health issues for themselves [and/or] neurodiversity' may find it extremely difficult to communicate their needs or emotions, says Jane Griffiths, the co-founder of Capa First Response, an online support service for families affected by child-to-parent aggression.
In these situations, some children may resort to 'externalising' their emotions by displaying violent or harmful behaviour, Griffiths explains. An effective response to child-to-parent aggression, she says, has to involve helping children and parents to learn to communicate with one another. 'This is not an issue that can be resolved by putting boundaries in place or using star charts.'
For parents, finding a way to communicate to other adults what they are going through – simply having the right language to describe their experience, and trusting that others will believe them – is essential. Yet there is no legal definition of child-to-parent abuse. A Home Office consultation was held in early 2024 but shelved when the general election was called. Meanwhile, parents and professionals are divided over whether the word 'abuse' should be used at all. Many parents feel the word is the only way to adequately convey their suffering. Others recoil from it, fearing that it further stigmatises the vulnerable children involved.
Dolly certainly doesn't think of her 15-year-old son Jack as abusive. Instead she describes him as outgoing, charismatic, cheeky, struggling with big emotions. Jack's dad has never been around, but he has grown up surrounded by a tight-knit, affectionate family that many would envy. He loves motorbikes and keeps busy with extracurricular clubs; he has no special educational needs. 'From the outside, Jack's got a great life,' says Dolly. 'He doesn't want for anything.' But around the start of the pandemic, Jack began lashing out at Dolly. 'He's never punched me. There have only been a couple of occasions where I really felt like he was going to hit me,' she says. 'But he's kicked me and been very violent around me – hitting or kicking or punching the windows or the doors, screaming.'
Jack is much taller than Dolly now, and can 'be really scary', she says. 'I think he knows he can intimidate me.' Predictably, some relatives have suggested that she simply needs to be tougher. 'My dad said: 'If he hits you, you hit him right back.'' But Dolly didn't want to hurt her son – she wanted to understand him.
Recently Dolly and Jack came to the end of Respect's Young People's Programme, a three-month intervention for families where children or young people are being abusive or violent towards their parents or carers. Families participate in sessions designed to help them identify negative behaviour patterns and work together to improve their situation. Evidence so far suggests this approach can make a meaningful difference: one evaluation in Cambridge found the programme reduced violence and abusive behaviour for all parents and carers who took part, while a recent pilot in Norfolk reported that 100% of children said the programme helped to improve their relationship with their parent or caregiver.
Dolly was particularly moved by sessions in which she and Jack recorded voice notes for each other, guided by a trained practitioner from the relationships charity Talk Listen Change. 'Jack said some things he'd never told me before about his feelings about his dad. I said his behaviour does scare me sometimes,' she says. 'He was shocked by that.' While Jack has not stopped being aggressive to Dolly entirely, she feels that they both have new tools to communicate their emotions and needs. 'It's helped because it's not a parenting course aimed at me,' she adds. 'It's about him.'
Capa First Response's approach, which draws on neuroscience and attachment theory, is designed to help whole families develop strategies for communicating emotions. It has also seen positive results: 96% of parents who have worked with the organisation reported feeling more confident about working with their child to change their behaviour, while 83% said they felt better able to seek support from others. Inevitably, resources are limited. Most families have to wait years to get this kind of help. Long-term funding is desperately needed for specialist support, especially for families with neurodivergent children. More training is needed for professionals in social care, education, health and the police. In the meantime, says Justine Dodd, of Respect, compassionate, honest conversations about child-to-parent abuse will help to bring the issue out of the shadows so that families don't have to suffer in silence. 'We cannot solve a problem that cannot be discussed.'
Names and some details have been changed to protect privacy.
Further information and support: capafirstresponse.org, talklistenchange.org.uk, respect.org.uk
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