Parents living in fear of domestic violence

A sold-out conference in Galway will examine the taboo subject of domestic violence by children towards a parent which family workers report is a growing phenomenon in Ireland.

Research in the US based on police records has discovered that 18% of two-parent families and 29% of one-parent families experience child-to-parent violence.

While there is very little research conducted in the field here, the support phone service Parent Line has recorded that incidents of child-to-parent violence has skyrocketed in the past two years.

Declan Coogan, lecturer in social work in the School of Political Science and Sociology at NUI Galway is leading the Irish arm of project rolled out in five European countries called Responding to Child to Parent Violence (RCPV).

He has been holding training courses for practitioners around the country such as social workers, family support liaisons, psychotherapists, psychologists and juvenile justice workers, to help them respond to the issue.

Declan describes child-to-parent violence as a reversal of power within families, where parents are living in fear of their children who are aged under 18.

“It’s fear, power and control. Parents feel they have no safety in their home. They consistently threaten, verbally or physically abuse, they issue threats to damage the property,” he explained.

One of the most difficult steps in getting to grips with the problem is to talk about it in the first place. “In this country we tend to blame parents if children go off the rails, so it’s very difficult to talk about feeling afraid of your child. If people hear this is happening just not to them it can help them open up. It’s the biggest barrier to talking about it.”

For more on this story, see the Galway City Tribune.