Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dzt6s Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T03:39:26.821Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Practitioners' Constructions of Parent Abuse

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2012

Judy Nixon*
Affiliation:
Sheffield Hallam University E-mail: j.nixon@shu.ac.uk

Abstract

Drawing on data collected as part of a qualitative study on parent abuse, this article explores how child to parent violence is constructed by professionals working within the three related domains of youth justice, domestic violence and child protection. The article, a discussion piece, charts the continuities and contradictions contained within practitioners’ understandings of this form of family violence, focusing on how the problem emerges, the causal explanations employed and their impact on practice responses.

Type
Themed Section on Exploring Parent Abuse
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Agnew, R. and Hugley, S. (1989) ‘Adolescent violence toward parents’, Journal of Marriage and the Family, 51, 699711.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Billig, M., Condor, S., Edwards, D., Gane, M., Middleton, D. and Radley, A. (1988) Ideological Dilemmas: A Social Psychology of Everyday Thinking, London: Sage.Google Scholar
Cottrell, B. and Monk, P. (2004) ‘Adolescent-to-parent abuse: a qualitative overview of common themes’, Journal of Family Issues, 25, 8, 1072–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Downey, L. (1997) ‘Adolescent violence: a systematic and feminist perspective’, Australia and New Zealand Journal (ANZJ) of Family Therapy, 18, 2, 70–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Edenborough, M., Jackson, D., Mannix, J. and Wilkes, L. (2008) ‘Living in the red zone: the experience of child-to-mother violence’, Child and Family Social Work, 13, 464–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harbin, H. and Madden, D. (1979) ‘Battered parents: a new syndrome’, American Journal of Psychiatry, 136, 1288–91.Google ScholarPubMed
Holt, A. (2011) ‘“The terrorist in my home”: teenagers’ violence towards parents – constructions of parent experience in public online message boards’, Child and Family Social Work, published online before print 18 March 2011, doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2206.2011.00760.x.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Howard, J. and Rottem, N. (2008) It all starts at home: Male adolescent violence to mothers: A research report, Melbourne: Inner South Community Health Services Inc.Google Scholar
Hunter, C., Nixon, J. and Parr, S. (2010) ‘Mother abuse: a matter of youth justice, child welfare or domestic violence?’,Journal of Law and Society, 37, 2, 264–84.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Nixon, J. and Hunter, C. (2009) ‘Disciplining women and the governance of conduct’, in Millie, A. (ed.), Securing Respect: Behavioural Expectations and Anti-Social Behaviour in the UK, Bristol: The Policy Press.Google Scholar
Tew, J and Nixon, J. (2010) ‘Parent abuse: opening up a discussion of a complex instance of family power relations’, Social Policy and Society, 9, 579–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thapar-Bjorkert, S. and Morgan, K. (2010) ‘“But sometimes I think . . . they put themselves in the situation”: exploring blame and responsibility in interpersonal violence’, Violence Against Women, 16, 3259.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed