Parental abuse
When parents abuse (also parent battering ) are violent attacks and aggression of children and young people to their parents understood. The spectrum of violence ranges from verbal and physical violence such as threatening , insulting , blackmailing , stealing and torturing to serious bodily harm . In rare cases, the children commit homicides against their parents.
consequences
Other family members such as siblings can also suffer from the situation. Many parents (share) withholding this behavior of their children out of shame , fear of further violence and accusations of not being able to bring up properly and of having failed. This, in turn, ensures a high number of unreported cases in society and means that those affected often do not seek family therapy or other help. The children and adolescents often lack adequate rules, boundaries and sanctions in the parent-child relationship , which means that they partially have power over their parents and thus create an inverse hierarchy in the family. The youngsters are usually overwhelmed with their role and sometimes also dissatisfied, but they don't want to give it up because of its attractiveness and power.
statistics
Scientific research on violence by children against their parents is rare. In a violence report published in 2002 by the Austrian Federal Ministry for Social Security and Generations , Maria Steck and Brigitte Cizek from the Austrian Institute for Family Research presented the few studies on the subject.
In a German study by Anke Habermehl published in 1994, around 48% of the parents questioned had experienced violence from their children, 20% of the parents questioned in the previous year. In a 1981 US study, 18% of children hit their parents within a year.
According to Habermehl, the frequency of acts of violence by children against their parents decreases with increasing age. 55% of parents with the oldest child under the age of six experienced violence. For parents with children over 18 it was only 5.2%. However, the severity of the violence is increasing in some cases. From the age of about 14, the parents are beaten up. The higher the number of children in a family, the greater the frequency of violence against the parents.
With regard to the gender distribution among perpetrators and victims, the various studies contradict each other. Depending on the study, daughters or sons predominate as perpetrators and mothers or fathers as victims.
causes
The Swiss psychologist Eva Zeltner interprets the phenomenon as a misunderstood parental love, which is due to material affection and over-provision of the parents as well as an overly friendly relationship with an anti-authoritarian upbringing and emotional dependency and fear of loss of the parents. Parents therefore do not appear stable enough to their offspring and become victims . In addition, puberty and the social environment can lead to increased violence. Emotional loneliness due to parental absence can also increase the adolescent's potential for aggression. As a result, the offspring do not have enough respect and empathy for their parents.
The situation can be intensified by contact with peer groups , addictive behavior and the already learned handling of violence and antisocial behavior . A parent who is also violent towards the other can also be seen as a role model, so that the offspring can take on this ( learning on the model ).
Furthermore, the isolation of the family from the outside world and a general psychological instability or other weakness of the parents as well as a low tolerance for frustration and a generally high aggression potential of the offspring can contribute to this.
Therapy and Help
Affected parents should seek professional therapy or start family therapy with their offspring . In the event of acts of violence, the youth welfare office or the police can be contacted. There are several anonymous advice centers for affected parents.
Web links
- Information (PDF, 331 kB) on elternnotruf.ch
literature
- Esther Zeltner: Family crime scene: Young people abuse their parents, HSA, 2005
- Sabina Haradinaj-Duss & Tanja Trösch: When minors exercise violence against their parents: Prevention, early detection and early intervention options for social work in cases of parental abuse, Lucerne University of Applied Sciences, Social Work, 2010
- Lynn Greenwood: Violent Adolescents: Understanding the Destructive Impulse, Routledge, 2018
- Reinmar Du Bois: Youth crises: recognize - understand - help, CH Beck, 2000, ISBN 978-3-406-42111-2
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e "Parent battering" - violence from children to parents: violinfo.at. Retrieved October 7, 2018 .
- ↑ a b "I don't want to see the hatred in my eyes anymore" . In: www.t-online.de . ( t-online.de [accessed October 7, 2018]).
- ↑ a b n-tv news: When children beat their parents . In: n-tv.de . ( n-tv.de [accessed October 7, 2018]).
- ^ A b Hans Joachim Schneider: Particular problems in criminology . Walter de Gruyter, 2009, ISBN 978-3-89949-662-8 ( google.de [accessed October 7, 2018]).
- ^ Maria Steck, Brigitte Cizek: Excursus: Violence of children against parents . In: Federal Ministry for Social Security and Generations (Ed.): Violence in the Family - Violence Report 2001 . Vienna 2002, p. 184–188 , here: 185–186 ( violinfo.at [PDF; 2.1 MB ]).
- ↑ Interview: Robin Schwarzenbach: «Wrongly understood parental love» | NZZ . In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung . September 22, 2014, ISSN 0376-6829 ( nzz.ch [accessed October 7, 2018]).