parenting courses

now rã³isã­n o'hara is with us in studio again to discuss parenting issues today we're going to take a look atchild to parent violence which according to experts is a growing social problem rã³isã­n we'veheard of domestic violence but it's usually seen as something betweenadults but there's another dimension to this that's right sean and it is really is starting to think that such athing is happening within homes in ireland but it is and it'ssadly a growing concern of a lot of leading researchers inthis field now

it's less of a taboo sean so a lotmore people are talking about it and the research is ongoing butpractitioners who are working with families like social workerspsychologists and the like are saying that they are hearing moreand more cases like these people, of parents living in fear of their child oradolescent son or daughter been consistently violent or aggressivetowards them. many parents are at a loss as towhat to do, a lot of them won't talk about it because understandably they'reembarrassed

and a lot of practitioners are at aloss as to how to deal with this but that ischanging and that is thanks to a researcher in galwaywho i spoke to. yeah, but what takes it beyond the level of normalteen age aggression where you may get a bit of i say aggression may get name-calling andyou may get maybe an odd thing thrown in extreme situationseven is that we're talking about or something much beyond that? it's absolutely beyond that i mean eventhis morning my 5 year old called me a big fatso and it does hurt

and lot of us are used to thatbecause he wasn't happy with the way i was telling him to rush out to school and you know we're all used tomoody temperamental teenagers no, that's not what we're talking abouthere. child to parent violence as some of the academics call it some othersrefer to it as parent abuse but anyway you know it's when a child is behavingviolently towards the parent on a regular basis or when there's a constant threatof violence you know so the key difference i suppose

is a you know to normal behavior is thisfear factor that they talk about it when the parents are afraid of the childwhen they're afraid to challenge the child or to set down key rules in thehouse for fear of that child's reaction soit's when the parents feel disempowered really youknow when there's a threat of their son ordaughter at damaging properties damaging themselves. so would it would involve violence asopposed to just aggression and shouting and being abusive that kind thing. it does yes it really does it take to

talk about physical violence but i mean... very often the threat of violence can be as bad as the violence itself. it's everything you know it'sa threat of harming themselves as well of harming another child or ofdamaging property so its aggressive violent behavior. andyou spoke to one parent of i think it was a teenager ah girl whose violent behavior was such that the the mother decided she needed help. yeah now i interviewed this ladywho's attending a training course which we'll talk about a little bit later which isdeveloped

especially for parents of violentchildren. it's a new thing. it's a training courseto help them deal with, get the skills skillsto cope with this and um you know in the interests ofthe child we decided to put her words to anactor's voice um but it is quite harrowing as you'llhear the description she gave to me of the sense of fear that she she has on a dailybasis ah trying to cope with her child who isviolent towards her regularly.

trying to read moods, trying to keepthings calm that'd be our biggest challengetrying not to push any buttons so that we don't spark anything off. justdon't press the triggers and start an argument. i've gotten beatenup, have been covered in bruises. i've had tolock myself into the bedroom or into the bathroom to mind myself. she'llhit she'll bite, she'll headbutt, she'll kick anything whatever way she can there's notalking her down when she gets like that. thankfully it'snot as frequent as it was before

it would have been several times a dayat one stage now we might have a couple of incidentsa week but now it's more verbal it's not asphysical. we still have some blow ups of physicalviolence now and again but thankfully that's less frequent. we have great times. we have a good laugh a lot of the time but when she's in that zone i wouldget frightened if i'm on my own with her when i knowshe's in a bad humour, i would do everything i can to make surethat everything is light

and happy. i would ignore certainbehaviours because i know that if i push thatbutton that i mightn't be able to mind myself. gosh, that's a dreadfulway to have to live your life with and for a loved one.one mother's experience of child to parent violence. it's absolutely harrowingreally. are there any statistics on this rã³isã­n?yeah, there are. figures from the united states show that something like 18 percent of two-parentfamilies and 29 percent of one-parent families experience

this type of violence. and those are thecases recorded by police so presumably there's a lot lot more. um now here inireland parentline which has provided confidential helpline for parents in irelandfor the past 20 years noticed an increase in callsrelating to anger aggression and abusive behavior bychildren and adolescents. so they started recording these calls in 2011 and last year the greatest number ofcalls from concerned parents was in relation to

this specific case, reason. so in fact parentline record increase of35 percent in calls of this nature to their helpline compared to two years previously. that is quite an increase, it surely is. now roisã­n it doesn't appear to be confined to any particular socioeconomic group or does it? no it doesn't and that's what theexperts are telling me that it's not related to social class our parents' educationand there is in fact some evidence that's violence

to parents is actually higher amongfamilies with better off parents sean which is quite surprising you might say. i mean one leading australian based researcher in this field, eddie gallagher has worked with hundredsof families in this situation and he talks about 'over entitled' children. children whogrew up getting used to what they want all thetime and frequently you know that they are children middle-classfamilies and when they come to the age

11, 12 and 13 he reckons these children can resort toviolence to get control you know sothat's one theory. right now you also spoke to somebody closer to home. that's declancoogan in nui galway. he's involved a big study onthis area uh, or in this area. yes, declan coogan, he's also a memberof unesco child and family research centre. nowhe's currently as you said leading the irish part of an eu funded projectcalled, responding to child

to parent violence. um you know andthey hope to address you know the needs practitioners who want to giveparents skills to cope with this and find out more about the causes forthis behavior so that they can implement policies in societyto address it. um, now he tells me that he sees a lotof families which develop a habit aggressiveinteraction over the years and that that can lead to child to parentviolence and he says in relation to a minority of cases domestic violence played a part in

family history but that's only in a minority ofcases. now, coogan is very keen on getting themessage out to parents there that who are reluctant to seekhelp due to you know, understandable embarrassment and that it's not their fault and there is help available. i have worked with both parents and withchildren and also my colleagues who do similar work find the same thing- that even if children are using violencethey aren't happy and certainly the parents who are the targets of child to parent violence

are not happy. they're afraid they'reashamed and they're embarrassed because there's a strong sense among parents that if they talk about this they'd be blamed they'd be seen as bad parents and that's not at all the way we see the problem. in our society if if children are areseen as bad tough or rough children the first thing we tend to do is blame the parents. so it's understandable that parentswould feel, oh i can't talk about this but it's my fault and one of the key messages of ourresearch and of this project is that it isn't your fault but there are thingsyou can do as a parent to help change

how things are in your family. that's declan coogan there. he wasactually a neighbour of mine. he was in my class in the jes in galway. he often did my mathfigures for me, of a winter's night but anyways look he's now developing this program available to practitioners and aiming to helpparents deal with this predicament. that's right he developed a programmecalled non violence resistance. it's pioneering therapy really sean which gives parents the practical skillsto deal with this behavior in their home. now um thistherapy was originally based on a

philosophy of gandhi resisting violencein a peaceful manner and was brought into family system environment by an israelipsychotherapist. so it's all about giving parents tools to give their child a message thatthey are no longer willing to put up with this behavior and that they're going to resist it byall means except being verbally orphysically abusive back to the child which sadly probably is what happens. one thing you haven't mentioned here so far or maybe it's implicit in what you're saying, what about calling the guards? yes, i did, that lady who spoke to me earlier on did tell me that she was

very close to it on a number ofoccasions but this is the thing, what to do with your child? it's yourchild you can't get a barring order against your child you have a responsibility and a right tomind them so they're at a loss really as to what to doreally. so anyway you have this center it's lechã©ile. yes, it's lechã©ile mentoring youth justice support services in limerick which are funded by the probations services. now this runs ah, it's one of the center's,many centers throughout the country

which provides this course to parents whoare in this situation. and lechã©ile, i spoke to its coordinatoralan quinn and he explained the techniques. one of thefirst things we help the parents do is help to look at how they can de-escalate a situation because typically people will deal withaggression in one of two ways: one would be that they would give in, inorder to have the peace and quiet restored and that just teaches the child thataggression works and helps them get their own way. and thethe other way the parents often would react to aggression would beto

get aggressive themselves and getdefensive and that just also escalates into further violence so we teach them almostlike a middle ground where they can still maintain anemotional closeness to their child not react violently but that thereare consequences firmly put in place so that if the child continues the behaviour that the child knows various things willhappen. and one of those things that would happen would be um we encourage the parents to get asupport network around themselves and the child is aware that these peoplein

the parents' new support network aregoing to be informed every time the child behaves in anaggressive manner so it going from a place of secrecy intonow a place where public opinion can help influence the child to stop the behaviour.so that's alan quinn there in limerick of the mentoring andyouth justice support services. any word on how effective that is? yesapparently it's quite effective i even spoke to some of the parents whoare attending that course and the woman who we heard

earlier on has told me that it hashelped them hugely and you know she attended... this is the woman with the teenage, the violent teenage daughter, it's a 10-week course and she's nearlyfinished the course with her husband and they said that you know the violentepisodes have disappeared and they don't escalate, you know they've given them thetools to cope with it non aggressively with the behaviour. shetalked about the bubble of silence which i think a lot of parents couldactually use when their child is taunting them are calling them hurtfulnames to have a bubble of silence and let thechild know that you don't hear what

they're saying to you. and she says a lot of these techniqueshave helped them and it's not just that she says he finds it a great source ofcomfort to know that she's not alone in this andthat she went to so many other parenting courses and she actually felt worse she told me leavingthem than she did attending them. this one has changed all of that. it'sshown her that she is not alone and there's an awful lot to help out there. so just on that point for people whohaven't yet had the benefit of some

support or ah training in dealing with thesesituations, for people who are worried about thebehaviour of their kids, in summary what's the advice? yeah first andforemost have the courage to speak to someoneabout it. you don't have to deal with it alone. there's parentline there, it's a confidential service where you can talk and get some information. you can get some information as well from lechã©ile.ie website and ah also

make sure, be careful to seekhelp to rule out any mental health diagnosis i thinkthat's important to say cause this is not a mental health issue. so i think that'simportant. rã³isã­n thanks for that report. and just one piece of reaction from a listener, as a teenager my daughter gave us hell, now doesn't say whether that entailedviolence or whatever but it says

later we discovered she was being badlybullied in school it was all girls fee paying she is now a model compassionatecitizen. well, well done to you for endurance and patience and no doubt a lotta of love shown to that young teenager. rã³isã­n o'hara, thank you very much indeed for coming to studio.