There’s a long-running debate among those who work within the domestic abuse sector, and specifically those dealing with Child to Parent Abuse, about what we should actually call it.

There are all sorts of variations and – over time – some key organisations have actually changed the name and acronym by which they refer to this type of abuse.

At PEGS, we’ve used CPA since we launched our services in 2020 and we intend to continue doing so. We felt it might be helpful to explain exactly why.

We use the term child rather than adolescent, child and adolescent, or any other variation – because we’re describing the relationship between the person displaying the behaviours and the person on the receiving end of the behaviours.

It gives an incorrect perception if we use adolescent, in our opinion, because so many families are experiencing this behaviour from children well under the age of 13. In fact, over a quarter of the parents who PEGS surveyed at the end of 2022 said they were experiencing CPA before their child was 6.

And, at the other end of the scale, abuse does not necessarily stop once the person turns 18 or 21. Sadly, we see adults continuing to display these behaviours towards their parent(s). But once you become a parent, that person is your ‘child’ forever, so regardless of whether the ‘child’ is 5 or 50, we believe this term covers all persons displaying CPA.

We use the word parent to cover anyone who has a caring role or responsibility – so this includes carers, guardians, grandparents or other family members who have taken on the primary caring role (kinship carers), foster or adoptive parents, step-parents etc. PEGS’ services are available to anyone who has a parental role.

And finally we use abuse rather than violence (or violence and abuse). This is because: all violence is abusive, but not all abuse is violent. CPA can include behaviours such as coercion and control, taking out credit cards in the parent’s name and running up debts, or spreading lies about them online. None of these are violent acts, but they can form part of the abuse the person is experiencing.

Child to Parent Abuse is – we believe – an inclusive term which covers all abusive relationships between a person and someone they have/had a parent role towards.

If you’re impacted by CPA, do reach out to our team – click here to find out what services PEGS offers to parents. Or if you’d like more information, simply go to our Understanding CPA page.