Answer

Memo

To: The CEO, Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission

From: Department of Home Affairs

Date: 25^th January, 2019.

Subject:  Overcoming the Challenge of Domestic Violence against Parents in Australia

Following increased rates of reported cases of child to aren’t violence, this memo brings to your attention the gravity and implications of the issue, and provides recommendations that your commission can foresee to curb the rising menace.

Child to parent violence (CPV) remains a social problem that is vastly ignored compared to other forms of family violence. CPV is any kind of behavior that intends to mistreat, threaten or intimidate parents by their children. While it is normal for young children to demonstrate conflict, frustrations, and healthy anger during the transition from childhood to adulthood, it is important to distinguish anger from violence. Incidences of parental abuse are on the rise necessitating pragmatic measures to help curb the menace affecting most parents within Australia. It is important to look into primary prevention strategies and create awareness on the importance of reinforcing anger management strategies and positive social skills to reduce aggressive behaviors. These services can be done at community level so that all victims can be helped and such behaviors totally stopped.

Violence is about both physical and non-physical acts that aim to achieve an ongoing control over another individual by instilling fear or pain. It is important to note that a good percentage of abused parents experience difficulties to admit that their children are abusive (Desir & Karatekin, 2018). They feel humiliated, disappointed and ashamed and end up blaming themselves for such situations. This has led to imbalance of power. It is also an element of denial as parents try to convince themselves that their children’s behavior is a normal adolescent conduct. However, this is wrong.

Nevertheless, it is important to identify child and family risk and protective factors of CPV, and further make investigations on whether they differentially forecast verbal and physical parent-directed violence among both boys and girls. It is also important to identify family-related protective factors of child aggression. Generally, positive family relationships are characterized by support, warmth and effective parental monitoring which appear to be essential for the development of pro-social characteristics among the adolescents (Amanda & Phillip, 2018). Parricide and non-fatal violence towards parents has revealed foremost themes of pathology, mental illness as well as child abuse.

Children are continually assaulting their parents. The family researchers and psychologists have noted an increase in the number of cases of parents being abused by their kids. It is attributed to the sense of entitlement with which most children grow up in today’s world. There is an increase in the number of reports regarding domestic violence assaults, which is something that must be watched much closely (Holt, 2016). According to the NSW crime statistics, the rate of child-parent-violence has increased from 5.7% to 8% within the past five years. It is a matter that needs immediate interventions.

Exposure to domestic violence and children’s maltreatment experiences are salient risk factors of parental abuse. These situations affect the quality of relationships established between parents and their children and the quality of the two parents in homes. Most mothers/women take up and embrace the responsibility of child discipline and childcare more than fathers do. Since they assume this responsibility, the relationship between child-to-parents and parent-to-child interactions are much stronger for mothers as opposed to their fathers. Consequently, according to Ibabe, Jaureguizar, and Díaz (2009), more women bear the brunt of violence perpetrated by their adolescent children as shown in figure 1 below:

Source Ibabe et al. (2009)

Figure 1. Proportion of victims of CPV aggression in Australia.

 Moreover, according to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, between 2014 and 2015, 14% of indigenous women underwent physical violence, with 28% of the population reporting that the incident was perpetrated by their aggressive children. In 2012 and 2013, 41% of violence victims were harmed by their partners and 22% of parental victims harmed by their children. The graph in figure 1 below shows the rates of reported domestic violence incidents in Australia according to Australian Institute of Health and welfare website.

Figure 1. Reported domestic violence incidents in Australia

Interventions must target these parent-child interactions in order to reinforce more positive disciplinary behaviors and parenting strategies. Programs like Parent-Child Interaction and Parent Education and therapy seek to instill in both caregivers and parents positive parenting behaviors to curb the aggressive behaviors displayed by children. However, very limited treatment approaches have been enacted for reasons of educating parents on the role of appropriate parenting behaviors as well as disciplinary strategies (Desir & Karatekin, 2018). These include providing supervision, teaching children regarding pro-social behaviors, as well as employing less harsh discipline at the point of correction.

The reason behind the increased children-parent violence across the globe is not only out of neglect, but also because the disciplinary approaches are not consistent with the type of lifestyle upheld by family and its cultural beliefs. Limited parent abuse interventions have been enacted to assist victims of family violence overcome trauma and other psychological distresses. Moreover, mothers who are frequently battered by their partners or intimate partners are at a significant risk of child-to-mother abuses. Findings highlight that limited interventions have been incorporated to curb the negative results associated with the exposure of children to domestic violence (Amanda and Phillip, 2018). Therefore, because of the resultant stigma associated with family violence, some children take up the habit thinking it is the only protective strategy they can used against their parents. In most cases, the victims hesitate to disclose such incidences of abuse. Practitioners handling the victims of domestic violence should consider recognizing the stigmatized nature of a family and child-to-mother abuses. The only limitations is that victims of parent abuse have limited opportunities for discussing their mothering experience as a part of normal client assessment procedures.

Domestic violence and abuse occurs between families regardless of the nature of existing relationship or the gender. Child adolescent to parent abuse has for a long time been ignored, though it is a common but hidden form of abuse and violence. Child/adolescent to parent domestic abuse is a harmful act because children end up gaining control over their lives and overpower their parent. Such manipulations can either be financial, physical, or psychological (Jun et al., 2011). It is a form of abuse of power because adolescents attempt to use coercive controls to dominate other family members. Parents become victims of adolescent violence in cases where their children threaten and use violence especially when their needs and demands are not met, which may include damage to house fittings and possessions (Desir & Karatekin, 2018). At times, they might use emotional and psychological abuse with an intention to wear their parents down. It might take up all attempts of humiliating, degrading and embarrassing their parents. In some cases, children threaten to leave home especially if whatever they want is not met.

The presence of child/adolescent to parent violence and abuses generate a host of other related risks including dysfunction, harm and trauma as prompted by domestic abuse in home settings, regardless of whether current or even in the past history. They can possibly be prompted by mental health difficulties for either the child/adolescent or parent, substance misuse among the household members, forcing children to participate in abuse by the perpetrator, as well as issues of negative eternal peer influence. It is important to adopt better ways of re-positioning violence towards parents and guardian (fatal or non-fatal) from the family violence literature margins towards a better position that cultivates a more conceptualized and balanced control, and strategies to curb, all other forms of family violence. The above recalibration is important as violence against guardians and parents has a direct correlation with other configurations of family violence, and earlier experiences of child abuse by parents. Clearly, there is need to attend to gendered dimensions regarding violence against parents. Concerning perpetration, evidence highlights that male are the most perpetrators of violence against their parents, at a confirmed ratio of 9:1 for parricide, and at an estimated ratio of 8:2 for the case of non-fatal violence. In terms of victimization, both mothers and fathers have been subjected to an equal risk of fatal violence (Holt & Shon, 2018).

Based on the research, the following are the recommendations for considerations;

• As reviews suggest, factors stimulating adolescent-initiated parent abuse are cultivated from diverse systems that are beyond he characteristics of an individual. Basing on an ecological perspective, issues of parent abuse by youths is influenced by a multiple contexts, like culture, family and peers. There is a distinct dearth of intervention and prevention programs that are particularly steered towards addressing adolescent-initiated violence against guardians or parents (Holt, 2016). Provision of diverse family therapy interventions as the optimal treatment and control measures for parental violence or abuse is important. Funding such programs is of importance so that victimized families can have a ready access to quality remedy services that can put a stop to future incidences. Suggestions regarding effective adolescent-initiated parent abuse treatment approaches should be derived from strategies and approaches that have been ascertained to be efficient in the reduction of negative results associated with parent violence (Desir & Karatekin, 2018). The aim is to foster more positive parent-child relationships. Ideally, plans must be executed to improve the general family functioning by identifying and further resolving the existing negative interactions among family members.
• It is important to merge efforts with better psychotherapy service providers that protect parents against incidences of family violence by adolescents. These therapy bodies can liaise with government supported agencies in fighting for parental rights against fatal violence by children (Amanda & Phillip, 2018). Different power hierarchies and relations can be executed to affirm the norms that prohibit aggressive acts towards parents, and employ more authoritarian styles in stopping this form of violence. The treatment should be culturally appropriate to ensure that it fosters a more positive parent-child relationships and inhibit the existing violence against parents across racial/ethnic groups. The strategies should employ primary prevention strategies and avoid the use of corporal punishment because the likelihood of it reducing violence is limited.