Episode 12 Play and Child on Parent Violence

Welcome to this week’s episode of Pondering Play and Therapy, where Julie and Philippa think about an important and often difficult topic—child-to-parent violence. In today’s episode, we explore the complex relationship between a child’s anger, rage, and violence, and how these behaviors can fit into the broader context of their development. While it’s normal for children to experience intense emotions at different stages of their growth, for some families, these aggressive behaviors can escalate and become a source of fear and isolation.

The question we’re pondering today is whether play can play a role in addressing these challenges. Can it serve as a therapeutic tool during moments of heightened aggression? How can play be woven into the parent-child relationship to foster connection and help manage emotions during difficult times?

Join us as we explore how play, in its many forms, might support moments of connection, understanding, and strengthening bonds between parents and children facing these struggles

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Transcript

The transcript is created in the editing suite; at this time, we don't have the time to make corrections.

Play and child-on-parent violence

Julie: Welcome to this week's episode of Pondering Play and Therapy with me, Julie. And me, 

Philippa: Philippa. And this week, we're going to be talking about child-on-parent violence, which we've thought quite a bit about this. How important this topic is and how it links possibly to some of the episodes we've done previously.

So one of the first ones we talked about was psychological safety in play. And if you're a parent who's experiencing violence from your child, then we were wondering about how psychologically safe you would be to engage in play. Or does play help you to engage and be psychologically safe? We did talk about this in that episode, but we didn't particularly look about child on parent [00:01:00] violence.

And we also were thinking about rupture and repair, and sometimes it might not be or feel safe enough to do a repair with a child because we talked about in those episodes that actually it's really important that the parent initiates that repair, that the parent is available for that repair.

But actually, if your child is violent and aggressive to you, you might not feel or have the emotional capacity to initiate or even accept that repair. And also the last episode that you and I did, Julie, was about parental guilt. I wonder about parents who experience violence from their child, if they experience guilt because of that or maybe Blame themselves that maybe there's something that they aren't doing that makes their [00:02:00] child more violent or guilt that they can't help them and they can see that they've got muddles They can see that they're struggling, but they just don't know what to do and The support for child on parent violence from my experience can be quite limited and the conversations around it can be quite limited and your world can begin to shrink really.

So, That's what we were thinking today we were going to discuss Julie. 

Julie: So yeah, in that episode a couple of weeks ago when we talked about can play happen when you are psychologically unsafe, and we mainly focused on the child, but we also thought about can play and playfulness bring you to a state of safety.

So you might be feeling physically and [00:03:00] psychologically unsafe, but playfulness might be able to bring you to a state of safety, psychological and physical. So in the past, we've particularly thought about the child in that situation. And here we're thinking about the parent, the parent who feels physically and psychologically unsafe in the presence of their own child, and wondering about can play and playfulness, whether that's initiated by the child or the parent, can that help both parties get to a place of safety?

physically and psychologically. And that's what we're going to explore today. And what we want to do is begin to think a little bit about developmentally, for the developing human, where does aggression and violence and anger [00:04:00] happen within those stages of development. And I can imagine, I can think about a one month old, a six month old who is rageful because their food has not come when they were expecting it.

Rageful because they're cold, rageful because they're not being touched, rageful because there's a loud sound going on. And we know and accept that a baby will scream, will flail around their limbs, their legs and arms will move their body as much as it can move when you're a month old. And we accept that and we see that and there's generally a lot of empathy for that little one, really little one who's screaming and moving around and, kicking and their fists screw up, their faces screw [00:05:00] up.

There's generally empathy towards that. Oh, what is it you need? Let's pick you up. Oh, my goodness. I didn't get there on time. Oh, gosh. Yeah, you've got a really soggy nappy there. I'm so sorry. Let's put you back together again. And then we have that other stage, it's not that it stops happening, it's continual development.

Once the toddler is standing and active and has some words, we have that stage, 18 months to 3 or 4, where the young child Is really expressing rage in a much bigger way. The shouting is louder. They can run, they can kick, they can throw things, they can break things. And in this country, and we're thinking about in the UK.

In parts of the UK, and certainly in my upbringing in the way I've taught with other professionals, I've [00:06:00] often named that as the terrible twos. I think it's seen as terrible for the adults. I don't know that it's that terrible for the child. It's developmentally what needs to happen. I know from colleagues from other countries, Italy, Greece, and other places, they're really puzzled that we call that terrible twos.

They just go, that's what two year olds do. That's part of development. And generally, we help that little one come out of that dysregulation by soothing, by empathy, by playfulness, by giving them a bit of space, letting it run its course. And we accept that, 18 month to four year olds Often that's their expression of rage and aggression and it comes out in quite violent movements.

That if that [00:07:00] toddler wasn't two, but they were 22, and doing those same movements, they would really hurt somebody. But they're a two year old, so on the whole, the adults around them can manage that, can scoop them up, can be around them, can make the place safe. So what we're beginning to think about now is when you've got an older child, say six, seven, eight year old teenager, an older child is physically very dysregulated, and is aggressive with their movements and with their voice and with their language and that is directed towards the parent.

How frightening that can be, I think, for the child and young person and also for the adult. You've got a two year old coming to you in rage, Most of the time, I could manage [00:08:00] that. I'm much bigger than that two year old. I know it's not going to last forever. I know it developmentally, this is what's happened.

If I've got a 12 year old coming at me, then I could feel my fear responses kicking in. I'm going to be frightened of what's happening there. And so that's the area we're going to think about today, and it's often referred to as child on parent violence. 

Philippa: I think, Julia, I would just add that teenagers often, there is a level of aggression in the way that they develop, isn't there?

Because their brain is starting to reboot. They've got those emotional responses. So teenagers, just because of what's happening in their brain, which is a really great opportunity. But Information goes into their emotional centre first, and it can take about 15 or 20 minutes really to get to their thinking part of the brain.

So often you will get an emotional [00:09:00] response quickly, won't you? And again, not all teenagers. But, often parents will experience some level of stomping up the stairs, slamming the door, slamming out the house, maybe even, you're the worst parent in the world, or I hate you, or I wish I was, lived with Johnny's mom, they'd be better.

There's a level of intensity, to teenagers. That is, again, developmentally appropriate, isn't it? And even in the middle age group, I think their cognitive development, there's a level of frustration that comes for them when they're learning new things, when they are trying out new things, and some of them they're going to be really good at.

And some of them, they're not going to be good at, and that's what middle aged childhood is about. It's that, jack of all trades, master of none, you're trying everything out and there's a level of frustration that, again, can come with throwing things, it can come with a level of shouting at the [00:10:00] parents.

But all that in those age ranges are typically develop and happen for a reason there is a reason why those things are happening. It's linked to development. It's linked to emotion. It's linked to, them finding out where they fit in the world and how to do things. When we're talking about child and parent violence, we're Talking about something that is a little bit more than that, aren't we?

We're talking about something that is, is more aggressive because it can be frightening if you've got a six, six foot, 14 year old and they're slamming the doors in the house. It can trigger your, fight, fight or freeze for a moment. Can't it? But, I guess in a typically developing house.

It, lasts for a few moments, there's a bit of grumbling, might be a bit of effing and jeffing, and it's all over and done with. [00:11:00] But we're talking about something that's a little bit more than that, aren't we, when we're talking about child and parent violence. 

Julie: We're thinking about the situations where it's atypical, where it's maybe happening very frequently, or it's happening over a long period of time.

So lasting a year, lasting two years, and where it's really breaking down the relationship between the parent and the child. And when the parent is beginning to anticipate with dread and real psychological fear that real fear around being with their child. So coming home from school, the child comes home from school.

Oh, I know. The last three months, every day, my child has come home from school. She's kicked me, she's sworn at me, she's thrown [00:12:00] her school bag at me, she's broken something in the kitchen, she's stomped upstairs, and she's seven. That would be more atypical behaviour. And it's wearing, it's devastating for both the child and the parent to have got into that really horrible pattern where the parent is then dreading meeting the child at the end of the school day.

And perhaps living in hope that today is a better day and it won't be like that. But that fear of the violence that might be coming towards me. And we were talking in a conversation earlier before we started recording that sense of parallel with adult domestic violence. Officially domestic abuse happens with, over 16 year olds in a domestic situation.[00:13:00] 

I don't know if under our regulations, under our laws and our acts, whether child on parent violence even features in our court system in our laws. But for the parent to be feeling that fearful of their child, anticipating the violence, anticipating the being shouted at day after day after day after day, month after month after month.

So not the odd blowout here and there, which happens in many, many typically developing families, but that real hard grind of unsafety. each day and being nervous of the people in our families 

Philippa: and that has in itself implications for families because we start to change just [00:14:00] like you said about domestic abuse in adult relationships, you can start to withdraw from your community so your support becomes less.

One, because it's maybe not something that you feel able to talk about because you might feel that people won't understand, or that you'll be judged as being a bad parent, or that there's something wrong with you, or that there's something wrong with your child, and that your child will be blamed, and you don't want your child to be blamed.

You might want support, but you don't want your child to be demonized, and I think the lack of support that there's often out for child on parent violence. in itself can feel, for parents and families like, well, this is something that I have to deal with internally on my own without seeking that support network.

Because what support is there? And if you, [00:15:00] have, families or support around you that haven't experienced it. I think it can be really difficult for people to comprehend just how pervasive child on parent violence can be. Because when you're saying, oh, my six year old or my seven year old hits me, people think, oh, well, that's all right.

They're just six or seven. But actually, parents can be very bruised, very hurt, quite scared of the aggression that can come out of a six or seven year old. But when you say it, people are, oh, wow, that's all right. Just tell us to stop it. And it just isn't that simple, is it? People hide it from their families.

They wear clothing so you can't see the bruising. You start to maybe not go to places, even fun things like parties or play dates and stuff like that because you're worried that maybe there might be an incident when you're out and [00:16:00] people see it or that you know your child is really good at masking when they're there, then they're going to.

take that mask off as soon as they get home and that they are going to explode. So as a parent, you can feel very, very isolated, around your, you're just everyday community. And then when you're talking about older children, they can be demonized, can't they? And often it's they don't want to hurt their parents, but it can feel like that as a parent, I imagine that they are targeting you.

And that's, that can be hard, I think. 

Julie: And that's why we wanted to bring this out in this episode, because It's so rarely spoken about, child on parent violence. It's so rarely in social media, it's so rarely in a newspaper, that a child is hurting their parents. Because it so often [00:17:00] comes with a sense of huge shame for the parent.

I am the cause of this, I have made this happen, I am a terrible parent. Or if it's an adoptive family, I was approved to be the parent of this child and I'm failing. I'm not living up to the expectations of those who match me with my child. And that then makes it more and more hidden. And as you said, that then cuts that family off from any support.

Philippa: Yeah. And I think even if people ask for support, the understanding of it sometimes can be minimising it while do a parenting course. Play with your child some more. Just go and do this. And it's not that simple, it's quite complex. Child on parent violence. There's two people in this who are very, very vulnerable.

The parent is, can be scared, [00:18:00] can be worried, can be withdrawing from the relationship because of the aggression the alternative of that is the child is also experiencing, emotional dysregulation. They can often feel like, the lack of connection with their parents. So they're trying to get back into a relationship.

But, like we've talked about that repairing and wanting to repair, and it's always the adult's responsibility. And I still think that is, but I can totally understand that if you've just been battered by your 10 year old and you've got bruises and you're. jaw hurts because they've thrown something at you.

That going back and saying, okay, mate, do you want chocolate now? Shall we go and watch something on the TV or let's take you to football? It's just something, one is you don't want to do because you're hurt. Secondly, you might be quite worried about because [00:19:00] you don't know if that's going to happen again.

But then for the child, they're left like we talked about before with this. big rupture and nobody's now repairing it. So the only way that they can interpret it is this is because I'm a bad kid because I do these things and I do these things because I'm a bad kid and then that leads to more disconnection and Then how do they express that?

Maybe they don't have the words, so next time there's, more aggression. Neither party wants it, but it can be very difficult to unpick that, can't it? I just think it's a very, very complex, set of circumstances that often lead to child on parent violence. 

Julie: So the question then is what to do when My child [00:20:00] or a child that I'm caring for is tipping into that dysregulation that is going to end in violence towards me.

Where can play and playfulness at all be part of that? And I'm wondering about this concept of distraction, which I can see often might work with a two year old. and can snap a two or three year old out of their developmentally typical, aggression and violence and anger states, as I can suddenly say, Oh, look at the cat.

What's the cat doing? And that can flick them out of that state really, really quickly. I find with a six, seven, eight year old, that doesn't work so quickly. They've usually gone too far down the line. They are so flooded with adrenaline, so [00:21:00] flooded with anger, that it's really difficult to try and suddenly snap them out of it and say, Oh, look, it's the ice cream van coming down the street. So one of the things I can do say in a therapy room or with children out and about is think about that concept of limit setting or setting a boundary or, getting in quickly and using not distraction, but targeting an alternative to what the child might want to do. So I can really.

acknowledge what they want to do and really acknowledge the feeling. Gosh, you're feeling so furious with me. You think I'm the worst mum in the world right now and I'll use the energy to match the child's energy in my voice and then give them an alternative. For [00:22:00] hitting me that will still give them that power and aggression and violence.

But it's not about hurting me and there's something about sometimes changing the language. So rather than saying you can't hit me. Because that's in a sense is winding the child up to say, you watch me, I can hit you. Or if you're saying, you can't throw that paint all over the floor. That kind of says to a very dysregulated child.

Watch me, I can paint everything, the walls, the ceiling, you, and so if I slightly change my language to say, I'm not for hurting, slightly odd language, isn't it? I'm not for hurting, or the floor's not for painting. I often find that really stops a child, they go, what, hang on, what? The floor's [00:23:00] not for painting, suddenly I'm talking about the floor.

I'm not talking about me and the child. I'm talking about the floor where I'm saying I'm not for hurting. So I'm not saying you can't hurt me because actually the child can hurt me. They are hurting me. But if I say I'm not for hurting, I'm not for kicking, I'm not for throwing things at, there's just that shift in language. can give you a tiny little window of about three or four seconds to be able to then really acknowledge with the child, you really want to do that. And you are absolutely furious with me. I think you've had an awful day at school and I picked you up a bit late. You are furious. How about and then target another way that if they're doing something with their fists, finding something for the child to do with their fists.

If it's their legs that have kicked off. literally kicked [00:24:00] off, find something for their legs to kick. If they're into screaming, find something else they can scream at and into. So I'm not trying to do what I do with a two year old, which is immediately pull them out of it and distract them, because I find with, certainly with a middle childhood, school aged child, that's not going to work.

Might do for some children. I've not found it worked so well. But if I can really acknowledge their huge rage and not dismiss it, not dismiss, diminish it, but say, you are really, really furious. You want to kick my shins. You want to pummel my shoulder. I'm not for hurting. That's what we do. And I do it with the child.

Because actually my regulation will also be off peak, I will be also quite highly energised by then. And I've found certainly in the therapy room, excuse [00:25:00] me, in the therapy room, when a child has got really, really, really furious with something, and they're about to smash a table, toy or paint the wall or, slap me, I need to come in and say, I'm not for slapping.

There's no hurts in here. And immediately to find something else for them to slap. If I'm trying to say now, calm down, it's okay. If I come in with a soothing voice, I find that they can't even hear that. I need to almost hook their energy. So if they're really sky high, I'm still regulated, but I raise my voice.

I use the same tone that they're using. I think of it really like a piece of music. So if they're playing a piece of music that's hard rock music, then there's no point me playing a little bit of Mozart [00:26:00] on a twinkly piano. They're not going to hear that. I need to come in with a hard rock, even though it might not be my style of music.

And then I can gradually help them to come down, but I need to hook them where they're at. and then help them come down. But I'm always looking at what is their body wanting to do right now. And can I help their body do that in a way that's safe for them and safe for me and safe for the resources I have in my room or in my home.

But if I come in saying calm down, no, let's do less safe hands. Let's close that fit I've never found that works. No, I need to capture The music of what they're wanting to express. Yeah. 

Philippa: I think it's that attunement, isn't it? It's attuning to [00:27:00] where they are. And I think about it as, if I've had a really stressful day or somebody's, caught me off when I'm driving and I'm really stressed and I come in and say, Julie, let me just tell you.

And you say, oh yeah, that sounds really bad. I'd be like, no, Julie, you don't get how bad it was. And I need you to say, oh my goodness, Philippa, that sounds like the most horrendous day you've ever had. And I'm like, oh my goodness. And it's that your conveys the tuning, isn't it? And then, you can just, this is what I think, you can start off like, oh my gosh, that's so bad.

And then you can use your voice into, and then, oh, let's just think about it. So that's co regulation when we've talked about that before, it's like having the baby close to you, being a little bit stressed because you don't know what's wrong with them. They can feel your heartbeats. They can feel your muscles.

They can hear your tone. And then it's like, oh, you. You've got a wet nappy, that's okay. I can now manage that, I know. And they can hear your [00:28:00] tone, they can feel your body. And so you can regulate that child through your presence, not through what you're saying. You can be saying anything, really, to a degree.

It's the tone, the body language, the attunement to that child that then brings them back down. And sometimes at that point, it's just about trying to connect and not have a conversation. We've talked before in these episodes about Relate, regulate, reason. And I think what we're talking about here is the relate.

So, I get your feeling. And your feeling is valid. Not what you're doing, but the feeling that you have. 

Julie: Yes. 

Philippa: That you are valid to feel angry, to feel frustrated, to feel sad, whatever it is you're That is a valid feeling. And I [00:29:00] I'm getting that. So we've regulated them, we've related to them, and then the reasoning bit, you can do another time.

You don't need to do it in that moment and I wonder sometimes if play can help with the reasoning, but not in that moment. So we can use playfulness to distract and to, to throw things, beanbags at a corner or cushions at the sofa to get rid of that energy. But I wonder if we can also use play, following on, to build, the repair and build the joy back in because one of the things that I wonder happens when you've got child and parent violence is you get into it's a term that's often used called blocked care.

I think for Child and parent violence, the caring for the child, not practically, so you practically know I need to feed them, I need to put them to [00:30:00] bed, I need to take them to school, I need to, you can do all these things that the child needs because your brain says, this is what I need to do. What you're losing is the attunement to that child, that I can see where you are, I can feel where you are, and that I want to be with you in this, I want to be engaged with you, the more, connective stuff can be lost.

And I wonder if play can just help to bring moments of joy moments of connection, moments of, Okay, so I did for five minutes feel like, we had a parent and child relationship that I want. A parent and child relationship where we were together focusing on something and it doesn't, I'm not talking about being overly happy in that because you still might have that feeling of this is yucky and this is hard, but maybe [00:31:00] you can, color or for a teenager, you can send them a meme.

And they send a smiley face back. Do you know what I mean? It's just those moments where maybe there's a second or a few seconds where you're connected in a way that hasn't got this intensity that can come with living in a house where there is violence. And I wonder if play can help with that.

Maybe play can help with noticing doing something playful, whether you're baking together or, cooking together or watching the child do something where you can just notice as yesterday was really hard for you. You were really angry. It was really scary for me.

And, my arms still a bit sore where you hit me. But I know that you were really angry about that. I wonder if there's an easier [00:32:00] for you to show me that you're angry. So there's no judgment, there's no blame, but you are saying actually, that hurt yesterday, we're not letting them get away with it, but I wonder if play can soften that a little bit?

Do you know, does that make sense? 

Julie: When both parties have had that time, perhaps separately or parallel to one another, to just let all those big hormones, all those feelings that have been generated in the violent to just drain out and that can take hours. It can take a day for that to drain out.

And I'm thinking of the parallel of, you've gone for a job interview and you've really built yourself up for that, getting this job. You had a great interview. You've almost convinced yourself you've got this job. Then you get the phone call that says, Thank you very much. We enjoyed the interview, but actually somebody was a stronger candidate, and [00:33:00] it can have absolutely devastating sort of physical feeling of disappointment or anger within us as an adult that doesn't just last that day.

It might seem Still last overnight till the next day or several days. It takes a while for these feelings to, I think, drain out of our bodies it's like a drug that we've taken. And it takes a while to, to lessen. And it's in that period of it draining and lessening that, yeah, those little playful Just almost a sort of wink or a, whatever you have with your child or the person that this has happened with, finding out your own sort of little repair language.

And it could be different with each child. It could be different across families. So in a sense, nothing we [00:34:00] say is going to work for most families because they're the things that have worked for us in our families. For me, it might just be singing a song or, pulling an arm or, tweaking a shoulder or something, and you've got the things within your own family.

But what are the things? within your setup that momentarily bring you back into connection that say, I've not forgotten yesterday. You've not forgotten yesterday. I'm still here. You're still here. I still love you. I still want to be in connection with you. and yesterday hurt, that all of that can be present together, especially if there's something parallel going on.

I think your image there of, maybe somebody grating the cheese while somebody else is making the sauce, it's parallel stuff. The little playfulnesses, [00:35:00] playfulnesses, if that's the word, that go on, say, on a car journey or on a train journey where you're both looking out the window together.

And you're not facing each other, but you're parallel. There's something, you're not within direct eye contact, because I think that can be really intense, too quickly. But in each other's proximity, but aware that your shields are probably wanting to still be up. You're still a bit nervous around one another.

Child, not quite sure how you're going to react. You're not quite sure if the child's going to hurt you again. But being in proximity with one another, focusing on a common task where you're parallel to one another, that can be really, really helpful as a step towards the repair. 

Philippa: Yeah.

When you're thinking about that, Julie, [00:36:00] I was thinking all that. It's so true that playfulness, that connection is so important for the child and for the parent to be in this relationship. What I was thinking was, some parents experience this violence over and over and over every day. And actually, if they were living with another adult, we would be supporting them to think about, How do they leave that relationship because it's unsafe for them and actually what we're saying is for this relationship because it's your child you have to stay in it.

Or, well, it would be better to stay in it. And for some parents, the violence becomes so extreme that they can't stay in it and that children are cared for away from home. You're still their parent [00:37:00] and you're still connected to them. And I think play and connection can help with that when a child can't remain in the house for whatever reason.

But I think that was just I was just really thinking about that it's such a dichotomy really is that we don't want anybody to experience violence. Nobody should be hurt in their home. Nobody should be fearful in their home. But when you've got a 10 year old, there's often reasons why that violence is occurring.

And as a parent and that can be a birth parent, it can be adoptive parent, it can be a grandparent, it can be somebody who's in that parental role. I guess the best thing for the child is for that parental figure to remain in there, to remain connected, to remain as a parental presence, because that is the safe way for them to work through it.

How do parents [00:38:00] live with that every day at a level and not knowing if and when it's going to change? Your world shrinks with it as well, so you don't talk about it, you haven't got any support, you haven't got any respite. At what point does that become intolerable for you as a parent?

There are times where children can't continue to be cared for at home. I think play can be important to keep that connection there. And the other thing, I'm sorry, I'm just, my mind is all over the place. The other thing that I wonder is about parents using play outside of that relationship to build their emotional resilience.

So actually being able to say that this relationship with my child is precious to me and I am committed to it and I'm in it and I'm going to work through it. But. I also need something for me, [00:39:00] something that helps me be in this relationship. And I wonder if play can be part of that, whether it's music, whether it's sport, whether it's, I don't know, something that you do with your friends, your colleagues, your family, walking, do you know what I mean?

Something that is outside of that violent relationship, that gives you a little bit more resilience to, to be in the relationship whilst you're working through it. 

Julie: And also thinking for the child who, maybe for all sorts of reasons, hasn't had enough chance to practice aggression, practice negotiating, practicing, testing how strong they are.

Practicing how to make mistakes, practicing arguing, maybe the child, we could think also about the child, where else can the child be learning some of those [00:40:00] skills because these are life skills to learn how to argue and disagree and not hurt one another, to learn how to allow an angry feeling to come up but to be expressed in a way again that doesn't hurt somebody or that can be heard by somebody else.

So you know going back several steps to think what has happened for this child or what stages of development might happen. be delayed, might have they missed out on, for all sorts of reasons, that meant they didn't do some of that two year old stuff, which is learning where my limits are, learning what I mean to the world and what the world means to me.

Maybe at three, four, five, ten, I didn't do lots of rough and tumble play. I didn't do lots of arguing and negotiating as a seven or eight year old in a group with friends who were my friends [00:41:00] one day and not my friends the next day. That's the classic, seven, eight, nine year old. Play negotiations that go on and it might be that what's happening at home is the sort of very potent Version of all of this that hasn't had an expression earlier on or elsewhere so thinking about What else could be happening in the child's life at school or in a club or with other relatives that allows lots and lots of practicing of anger, negotiation, mistakes, shame, rage.

All of that in a way that isn't all targeted at one parent and it is often one parent if there are two parents in the household can often be one parent who receives all that aggression, but in some ways, can it be diluted by being spoken [00:42:00] about in the wider family with the school to say, This is what's happening in my family and how does the school receive that? Do school staff know about child on parent violence? What are their views about it? Do they blame the parent? And can they think with the parent? about what can happen in school that might allow the child loads and loads of practice of that, that they've maybe not had the chance to learn earlier on.

Philippa: There's actually, there's a, I'm just thinking about support and this links to that, how there's, nonviolent resistance, and one of the things that they talk about is, using supporters and seeking supporters. And using things like schools and clubs and wider family.

So that shrinking that we've talked about where it all comes in [00:43:00] and it's just within the home starts to widen it out and you get this support from other people that are saying, we can see that you're struggling to the child. We can see that you're struggling. It's not okay to hit your dad.

Let's think about how we help you. So it's not about blaming and shaming the child. It really is about saying, we're here to help you. We're here to help your family. How are we going to do that? Maybe you need, some PSHE, whatever they call it now, or, a physical outlet or whatever it is that they can offer. And it's that widening of the network, the supporting of the network, like you say, rather than the shrinking of it. And that can for some families be very helpful to take away the isolation, to take away the shame that the child can often feel once they've regulated.

Because in the moment they're being violent, but once they're [00:44:00] regulated. They can know that what they did was hurt their parents that they really love and they really didn't want to do that. And then they go into that shame and then the bruises there that they can see all the time or the TV's broken.

And, so that shame is pervasive within the family and parents or grandparents, whoever it is. They can feel the shame of this is going on in their house. Whereas if we can widen it out, seek those supporters, we can all together support the family, the child, and often, seeking outside help can be helpful for families.

Julie: Yeah, to not have that isolation and shame, both for the child and the parent. And part of what we're hoping to do with episodes like this is, to make topics known [00:45:00] by parents, professionals, those working in education, those working in child care and in social services, to say we need to be surrounding our families together.

One therapist or one social worker or one school teacher isn't going to fix this. It's how do we think systemically? How do we use our joint skills and our different angles of helping families to support them? And I think that's probably a good place to stop for today. 

Philippa: Absolutely. So thank you for listening to this episode.

I'm sure it's a topic that we will come back to at some point. If you have any thoughts or views, on this subject, we would really, really like to hear them. So please get in touch with us. We've got social media accounts on Instagram, Facebook. blue sky. So please drop us a message [00:46:00] or on our website.

Thank you very much for listening. 

Julie: Bye bye.