Report on Child to Parent Abuse (CPA) and the impact to those with sight and hearing loss.

Michelle John • Mar 05, 2024

PEGS has released a report on Child to Parent Abuse (CPA) and the impact to those with sight and hearing loss.

The anonymous survey was funded by the Vision Foundation with the aim to gain an understanding in how many parents, carers and guardians who are experiencing Child to Parent Abuse, have vision or hearing impairments and who are unable to access support services.

There has been a rise in awareness of child to parent abuse over recent years, however there is still a long way to go, these surveys and reports help to shine a light on something that is still often overlooked or not accepted as a form of abuse. The PEGS team have supported in excess of 5000 parents, carers and guardians since March 2020 and are seeing around 300 requests for support each month.

The report, which you can download below, shows the types of abuse being experienced in households where CPA is occurring, its impact on parents, siblings and the wider community, the dynamics of households and the level of professional support people feel they are receiving.

PEGS Report

This survey revealed that 1 parent in every 23 has sight loss and 1 in every 28 has hearing loss. There needs to be more work done to provide awareness, support and increase understanding of the challenges these parents face when trying to access help.

For the third year running it was idenfited that women were more likely to experience abusive behaviours from their child with almost 100% of parents who completed the survey idenfited as female.

With 80% of parents being between 36 – 55 years in age and the dynamics of the household saw over ¾ were genetic parents.

We saw a 5 % increase in parents experiencing abuse from their child sharing how they first noticed the abusive behaviours starting when the child was aged 5 years old and over half of the children displaying abusive behaviours are male. CPA can occur regardless of the child’s age, both minor aged and adult aged offspring have been identified as showing abusive behaviours.

In order to understand the reality of experiencing abusive behaviours from a child and the challenges parents face, we asked parents to share the forms of abuse they are subjected to. 5% of parents had been experiencing child to parent abuse for over a decade.

CPA can be in many forms, such as physical, emotional. Coercive and controlling, economic and financial, digital, harassment and stalking, and even sexual abuse too

Almost a quarter of all parents are being physically harmed daily, an increase from 2023 and over ¾ are experiencing threatening, intimidation and controlling behaviours towards them.

The impact to families and also communities was explored with over 75% of parents saying their child shows abusive behaviours outside of the home. 50% of Siblings are being physically harmed a and 4% of parents had shared how the family pet had been killed by their child. This is a 3% increase from 2023.

Sadly 64% of parents have had contacted stopped by family or friends due to the behaviour of their child, further increasing the risk and isolation of families, 94% of parents reported feeling isolated or alone and for 97% of parents, they have had to completely change their routines or lifestyles

Parents have been asking for help from various professionals and sectors, with an overwhelming 93% of parents saying they would approach education settings when they started to see behaviour beyond that of what would be seen as ‘typical’. With CAMHS and the G.P being approached by over ¾ of parents. It was also highlighted that 80% of parents had thought about asking for support from a professional but changed their minds – 50% thought professionals wouldn’t understand and 50% didn’t want their child to have a criminal record. 45% of parents said that when they had asked for support previously, that professionals had not been helpful.

The report shows that there is so much more services, communities and societies need to be doing to support those impacted by child to parent abuse. Without awareness, training and specialist support families will continue to be unseen and unheard and ultimately someone will lose their life

PEGS released a report into Child to Parent Abuse and school holidays in the latter part of 2023, you can read that report here: https://www.pegsupport.co.uk/pegs-releases-report-into-child-to-parent-abuse-and-the-impact-during-the-school-holidays

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Grandparents can be abused too.

By Amanda Warburton-Wynn • 03 May, 2024

'Oh, we love having the grandchildren, especially because we can give them back!' How many times have you heard that? But have you heard 'We dread our grandchild coming to visit, we never feel safe until they've gone home'? Child to Parent Abuse is increasingly a topic of research but there is currently no formal definition and, if the consultation carried out by the Home Office in 2023 results in one, it's likely that grandparents won't get a mention in the main title. Of course, the age of grandparents can vary hugely but for those in the older age groups abuse from a child can be hard to understand and even harder to speak about. Whilst in many cases abusive behaviours are not linked to a health or mental health issue, some of the diagnoses involved in some cases of child to parent abuse weren't known until fairly recent times – ADHD was first recognised when mentioned in a National Institution of Clinical Excellence (NICE) report in 2000! Children who we now categorise as being victims of abuse and trauma were often just seen as 'naughty' back in the day and their behaviour needed to be dealt with by punishment. It's essential that we now recognise when children are asking for help – even if that is demonstrated by negative behaviours – but the impact of these behaviours on the whole family needs to be considered. Information Now say that In the past two generations, the number of children being cared for by their grandparents has increased substantially from 33% to 82% - almost two-thirds of all grandparents regularly look after their grandchildren. The UK Government add that 41% of mothers are working full time so it's clear that grandparents are spending more time with their grandchildren than ever before. There are myriad reasons for this including the changing demographics of an ageing population where many grandparents are now more physically active so spending time with grandparents can be more fulfilling than in the past (anyone else remember sitting in silence listening to the adults talk and drink team and hoping it would be time to go home soon?) But for all those positives, abuse of older people is a negative that's featuring more and more in research and in the news. Whilst several studies on both domestic abuse and elder abuse victimisation have reported that adult sons or grandsons, and a smaller proportion of adult daughters or granddaughters, are perpetrators in around half of all abuse against older adults (see Bows et al . 2022), there is little research into abuse by grandchildren who are aged under 18. One reason for this is likely to be the reluctance, by family members, professionals and society as a whole, to label children as 'perpetrators' or 'abusers Parents experiencing abuse from children have told PEGS that the abuse most commonly starts before the age of six and often continues post the child turning 18. It is probable that some children who display abusive behaviours towards parents will also abuse their grandparents but it's possible that some children abuse grandparents only. What is pretty much definite is that grandparents will feel the same emotions as parents if a child is abusing them – shame, guilt, worry about consequences of speaking out and concerned about causing problems within the family, especially if they appear to be the only targets of the abuse. It's also common to look for a reason for the abuse, something that has happened to the child perhaps or something that the grandparent has/hasn't done and to try to rationalise the abuse. As well as more research, there needs to be more recognition from organisations working with older people – statutory and voluntary – that Child to Parent Abuse can and does include children abusing grandparents and those grandparents need support. Abuse from a child is often no less dangerous than abuse from an adult so it shouldn't be laughed off or seen as grandparents not having enough 'control' over their grandchildren. More awareness of the issue, more open discussions and acknowledgement of the impact of this type of abuse will hopefully lead to appropriate support for grandparents who come forward to ask for help, and more of them doing so. Amanda Warburton-Wynn is an independent researcher and consultant specialising in support for domestic abuse and sexual violence survivors with disabilities and older people. You can find out more about Amanda and her work on her website www.awdaconsultancy.com