The terminology around children's harmful behaviour is tricky and language matters. The language we use influences whether families experiencing harmful behaviour from their children speak out and find support. The language influences the motives we attribute to behaviour, and therefore our responses as parents. The language influences the way that police and social care respond.
Because of the work that I do, I'm uneasy with the term 'child to parent violence.'
It's often not that clear cut. It's often the case that a child with additional needs and a frazzled parent have got into stuck patterns of relating and things keep escalating. The parent functions within safe behaviour limits, at least for the most part, and the child doesn't. Is that child to parent violence? Of course. Is it the same dynamic as a child intentionally using violence to frighten and intimidate a parent into submission? Absolutely not.
Terms like 'Child to parent violence' and 'Child to parent abuse' don't always capture the variety of contexts or intentions behind violent or aggressive behaviour on the part of children.
It isn’t always the case that violent children or young people have a hostile motive, or any conscious motive at all. Sometimes it’s about getting very valid underlying needs met and not knowing a different way. Sometimes it’s the outworking of what’s going on at a physiological level - sensory needs, nervous system states and basic needs like tiredness and hunger.
A lot of the families I support are navigating the impact of complex trauma and the outworking of disabilities including FASD, autism and ADHD. In my experience this is much more complex territory to navigate. Of course that doesn't mean that that parents and others should be more tolerant, that empathy and compassion will be enough to turn things around, or that behaviour doesn't need to be addressed. It means that we need to find language, and solutions, that take into account the realities of developmental trauma and other forms of disability.
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