Young People’s Accounts of their Violence and Abuse Towards Parents: Causes, Contexts, and Motivations

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Abstract Purpose The purpose of this study was to explore young people’s perspectives on using violence towards their parents – a perspective currently underrepresented in the child-to-parent violence literature, where the accounts of parents and practitioners are prioritized. Methods This paper reports on a thematic analysis of in-depth interview data from 13 young people aged 14 to 18 reporting violent/abusive behavior towards parents. The sample was drawn purposively from a larger mixed methods study involving 221 young people from education and youth justice settings in England, UK. Results Young people’s accounts of the drivers/contexts of their harmful behavior highlighted significant experiences of past and ongoing child abuse, domestic abuse, and peer violence. Aggression was described as being both reactive and instrumental, framed as a form of emotional release, a way of hurting or punishing parents (mothers), gaining control over privileges, space and movement, expressing distress, and defending or retaliating in the face of family abuse. The paper presents an ecological, systemic framework for explaining how intersecting factors such as stress, trauma, emotion regulation, parenting, gender, and communication appeared to shape the dynamic in these cases. Conclusions The findings highlight the need for sustained specialist and therapeutic support to improve the emotional wellbeing of mothers and children and address their past/shared experiences of trauma; support young people’s emotion regulation capacities; improve parent–child communication; and reduce intra/extra-familial stressors. The systemic and ecological model has potential to inform practice assessments and intervention approaches through focusing holistically on young people’s contextualized understandings of violence.

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