The anonymous survey was funded by the Vision Foundation with the aim to gain an understanding in how many parents, carers and guardians who are experiencing Child to Parent Abuse, have vision or hearing impairments and who are unable to access support services.

There has been a rise in awareness of child to parent abuse over recent years, however there is still a long way to go, these surveys and reports help to shine a light on something that is still often overlooked or not accepted as a form of abuse. The PEGS team have supported in excess of 5000 parents, carers and guardians since March 2020 and are seeing around 300 requests for support each month.

The report, which you can download below, shows the types of abuse being experienced in households where CPA is occurring, its impact on parents, siblings and the wider community, the dynamics of households and the level of professional support people feel they are receiving.

PEGS Report

This survey revealed that 1 parent in every 23 has sight loss and 1 in every 28 has hearing loss. There needs to be more work done to provide awareness, support and increase understanding of the challenges these parents face when trying to access help.

For the third year running it was idenfited that women were more likely to experience abusive behaviours from their child with almost 100% of parents who completed the survey idenfited as female.

With 80% of parents being between 36 – 55 years in age and the dynamics of the household saw over ¾ were genetic parents.

We saw a 5 % increase in parents experiencing abuse from their child sharing how they first noticed the abusive behaviours starting when the child was aged 5 years old and over half of the children displaying abusive behaviours are male. CPA can occur regardless of the child’s age, both minor aged and adult aged offspring have been identified as showing abusive behaviours.

In order to understand the reality of experiencing abusive behaviours from a child and the challenges parents face, we asked parents to share the forms of abuse they are subjected to. 5% of parents had been experiencing child to parent abuse for over a decade.

CPA can be in many forms, such as physical, emotional. Coercive and controlling, economic and financial, digital, harassment and stalking, and even sexual abuse too

Almost a quarter of all parents are being physically harmed daily, an increase from 2023 and over ¾ are experiencing threatening, intimidation and controlling behaviours towards them.

The impact to families and also communities was explored with over 75% of parents saying their child shows abusive behaviours outside of the home. 50% of Siblings are being physically harmed a and 4% of parents had shared how the family pet had been killed by their child. This is a 3% increase from 2023.

Sadly 64% of parents have had contacted stopped by family or friends due to the behaviour of their child, further increasing the risk and isolation of families, 94% of parents reported feeling isolated or alone and for 97% of parents, they have had to completely change their routines or lifestyles

Parents have been asking for help from various professionals and sectors, with an overwhelming 93% of parents saying they would approach education settings when they started to see behaviour beyond that of what would be seen as ‘typical’. With CAMHS and the G.P being approached by over ¾ of parents. It was also highlighted that 80% of parents had thought about asking for support from a professional but changed their minds – 50% thought professionals wouldn’t understand and 50% didn’t want their child to have a criminal record. 45% of parents said that when they had asked for support previously, that professionals had not been helpful.

The report shows that there is so much more services, communities and societies need to be doing to support those impacted by child to parent abuse. Without awareness, training and specialist support families will continue to be unseen and unheard and ultimately someone will lose their life

PEGS released a report into Child to Parent Abuse and school holidays in the latter part of 2023, you can read that report here: https://www.pegsupport.co.uk/pegs-releases-report-into-child-to-parent-abuse-and-the-impact-during-the-school-holidays