Our parent survey: the background and hoped outcomes

PEGS Admin • Jan 25, 2023

This week, PEGS released its second annual parent survey. The responses are submitted anonymously online by parents who are experiencing CPA and, to the best of our knowledge, are the largest surveys of their kind undertaken to date in the UK. Each survey was completed by roughly 200 parents or caregivers – meaning while the experiences described by the respondents won’t be reflective of every single person’s experience of CPA, they do give us a good insight into the types of behaviour happening, professional support sought and the impact upon households.

What’s the purpose of the survey?

Knowledge is crucial if we’re able to build up an effective network of support systems for parents, carers and guardians. Alongside the vital research being undertaken by academics in the UK and beyond, PEGS has supported a large number of parents over the last three years and so we’re able to reach out to those people in order to gather information about their experiences.

The surveys add to the existing range of research and statistics, and help us develop a more accurate picture of Child to Parent Abuse and its impacts. As well as being able to present the report to frontline professionals and decision-makers, we also carefully analyse the responses to ensure the services PEGS offers are in-line with what parents are telling us they need.

What do we ask and why?

The survey broadly seeks to ascertain information about the household demographics, the types of behaviours being experienced and who they are displayed towards (for example, siblings and pets as well as parental figures), and about the child themselves.

We ask how old the child was when the parent felt their behaviours escalated beyond ‘typical’ challenging or boundary-pushing into CPA.

This helps us evidence the need for support for all parents no matter the age of their child, and also shows us how long before some families seek support. To bolster our knowledge about this, we also ask parents to tell us how much time elapsed before they reached out to a professional.

And that’s because in an ideal world parents would feel able to seek outside assistance as soon as they felt they needed to, and any professional they approached – a teacher, GP, social worker etc – would be equipped with the knowledge and ability to respond appropriately and effectively, so that support was put in place for that parent.

We enquire about the impact upon the parent, from a social, health, and career perspective, and we also ask which professionals they’ve been in contact with and how supported they felt. It’s important for us to understand who families are likely to approach, so that we can concentrate on upskilling those people. Responses about how supported they felt help us to understand what parents are asking for, and how to bridge the gap between what’s on offer currently and what the ideal situation would be for those families seeking assistance.

What do we hope will happen?

We hope the survey will prove insightful for professionals, help inform decision making going forward, evidence the need for joined-up support and effective CPA policies, and help raise more awareness of CPA.

Because waiting months or years to seek help only to find inadequacies or a lack of understanding within the system isn’t okay. Being blamed for behaviours you are experiencing isn’t okay. And the more of us who are aware of the reality for many thousands of parents in the UK today, the more we can do to call for better support.

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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