Of course, we welcome CPA being given such a prominent platform and hope many more people are aware of the issue as a result of the show – although it’s sad that the issue was being highlighted in response to a large rise in incidents being reported to the police. The point was even made during the programme that reported incidents have doubled in recent years.

There are various important points which were highlighted, which we’d like professionals and the general public to keep in mind going forward:

It doesn’t matter how old the child is – one call was made in regard to a man’s son who was in his 40s, while another was about a 15-year-old. While not shown on the programme, we also know that many much-younger children are displaying violent and abusive behaviours to their family.

CPA has a severe impact on everyone in the household – viewers heard how siblings were sometimes being targeted during incidents, and the parents spoke frankly about the effects on their health and wellbeing.

Parents still love their child – we always say at PEGS it’s the behaviour the parent doesn’t want, not the child, and that was echoed by the parents who were desperate for more support for their children, and were often calling the police as a last resort and because they were scared rather than wanting their child to be punished.

We feel the distinction between teenage behaviour and CPA could have been made more clearly at points – some of the police officers and call handlers talked about the respect they had for their own parents, and teenagers causing trouble because they were bored. 

However, it was clear the behaviour they went on to show (such as criminal damage and threats to kill) went far above and beyond regular teenage behaviour.

Pushing boundaries is a fairly normal part of childhood – but abusive and violent behaviour isn’t – and that’s why we need to educate the public and professionals about CPA, and the fact parents aren’t to blame for their child’s abusive behaviour (so telling them to simply discipline their child isn’t the answer).

During one incident, two police officers were originally fairly sceptical about why the mother had called the police; but after hearing how she’d been driven to the point of considering suicide after years of violent behaviour from her son, they realised just how desperate she was for support.

One of them commented: “she must have tried numerous ways of dealing with it but normally when you call 999, it’s a last resort, and this was a last resort.”

There is a big difference between rebelling and committing criminal offences – and sadly support isn’t always available for parents where the behaviour has escalated beyond the norm. One mother said she’d attended more than 1,000 meetings but had found it was difficult to access support, especially once her son had become an adult.

If you’re impacted by CPA, please request to join our closed Facebook peer support group, or come along to our online drop-in sessions held twice a week.

If you’re a professional who’d like to find out more about CPA, please email hello@pegsupport.com for more information about the range of training PEGS offers to organisations across the UK.