To not want to look after my daughter any more

First of all we don't lock up disabled children anymore thankfully
And what do you think will happen if the Op takes their 8 year old to A and E and say they can't cope ?

Absolute rubbish, they wouldn’t do that.

This is why the residential facilities should have remained open.
I think it was better when that was an option - somehwere safe in secluded surroundings that kept everyone safe. Now for some completly unknown reaosn the emphasis is on "keeping the family together" often to the detriment of the rest of the family.

Next time she does something OP i would be looking at acalling the police, or taking her to A&E and saying you cant cope anymore.

That's a very utilitarian view of 'best outcomes' which is not holistic or systemic and absolutely not the 'correct' position. It might be the position you would advocate for your children but most parents don't feel the same and children's services definitely don't take that position.

”But as a last resort why would this be a worse solution than putting a child in care?”

@BabyCatFace Because children growing up in broken homes are more likely to suffer long-lasting adverse outcomes than those who grow up in stable two-parent households.

Families suffer natural breakdowns when the parents cannot make the relationship work. That is quite different from what you are proposing. By the time parents split up they have usually tried everything else available to them and there is nowhere else to go. Splitting up is a last resort because parents are fully aware that single-parent households can negatively affect the children, even though they try to mitigate this. There may also be detrimental effects on the parents themselves as they become financially disadvantaged and may resent the individual responsible for this. These outcomes end up as societal negatives.

What you are advocating is deliberately pushing negative outcomes onto those individuals (and therefore society as a whole) in order to lessen the negative outcome on one member of the family.

For a family of two adults and four children prioritising the need of one individual over the needs of the remaining five seems perverse. The maths simply doesn’t add up.

No I'm not missing that at all. Because that was never the question I was responding to. Of course families need help and they get help within what is physically possible for services to provide. But in the hypothetical event that a previous poster suggested where a child is being violent to their siblings and the parents can't manage that safely in the home, the hypothetical parents should not expect the state to house their child in foster care but should explore living separately and caring for the siblings across different households

is that clear enough? I never once said this is a good solution, or the first thing to try, or what people are expected to do. But it should be the solution that is considered before considering placing a child in care. Is that clear now?

@BabyCatFace youre missing the frankly obvious and much easier option of just bloody helping the violent child and their family. Children's behaviour can very often be helped and improved rather than just suffered and dealt with until they're old enough to abandon.
Maybe let them be seen by a psychologist or psychiatrist? Take medication? Have some therapy?
I appreciate that that is not under the control of SS.

Violence behaviour is far better addressed with medication than a (heart)broken family. Breaking up a family is traumatic and detrimental to all involved, including those you're suggesting it would help.

@BabyCatFaceI am utterly unsurprised you’re a social worker.

It's hard and shit of course. If they are in social housing and have a social worker allocated they might get help to be housed separately but otherwise it's as hard as it is for any other couple to separate and provide housing for children across two households.

Social work. Many many times I've been asked to take a child into care. I've had to tell parents to get to the office and collect their child before I call the police. I've sat in an office with a child until 9pm waiting for a family to find a relative for them to go to.

I don't understand why my posts about parents living separately has been so taken out of context. Obviously I wasn't recommending that as a good solution for any family. But as a last resort why would this be a worse solution than putting a child in care?

@Hibernatingtilspring You seem very reluctant to answer my question. I therefore looked to see if any studies had been done.

Surprisingly there aren’t as many as I would expect, those I have found all make reference to the dearth of studies probably being due to sibling violence being seen as a normal part of growing up. However they are at pains to point out that violence between siblings is very different from normal low-level squabbles and disagreements.

Unsurprisingly the studies into sibling violence show that the victims who grow up with violent siblings in the home:

• are more likely to develop substance abuse issues as adults
• are more likely to become victims of domestic abuse
• are less able to identify abusive relationships as adults
• are more likely to suffer relationship breakdowns as adults
• have poorer mental health and low self-esteem as adults
• have lower educational attainment and work success due to childhood belittling
• have riskier sexual encounters
• are desensitised to violence and may themselves become perpetrators
• are more likely to need support from state agencies in their adult lives

I’m surprised that social services do not take into account future harms when looking to ‘support’ families of violent children.

I can only assume that this is due to lack of awareness. Because otherwise social services are knowingly and deliberately putting the future well-being of those siblings at risk.

I completely agree the child shouldn't be put into care on a whim like posters are suggesting it should be the very last resort
But I'm not understanding how people can afford to run two house holds either .

Yes I get that. You're personalising what I've said for some reason when you really don't need to.
posters were saying that the child should be put in care if she's aggressive to her siblings. I said that she shouldn't, that if the only way to protect the siblings from the child is by the child not living with the siblings, the way to do that is by the parents living separately. I didn't say that was a good solution for any family, but it's better than the alternative that PP were proposing which was that the child goes into care.
of course having two households is expensive. I'm very aware, since I did that with my ex husband due to relationship breakdown. But people do it all the time. As you say they 'muddle through'. So if the hypothetical child needs to be separated from her siblings then the parents need to 'muddle through' to achieve that, not expect to be able to put the child in care.

And "professional experience" of what @BabyCatFace ?

Again, you're explaining nothing.

@BabyCatFacehow the hell would parents afford this?! We are behind on our mortgage on one house! When a child has this level of needs one parent can’t work. They still wouldn’t be able to work if they had 2 houses to run.

Youre not explaining how it's better, just making sweeping pronouncements without backing them up.
"It's better for the parents to live separately"

Better for whom and how?

And why do you think families should not be helped by SS, NHS or other authorities rather than be forced to split up?

Money
It's expensive to run two households lots of families just can't afford it
So in reality we just muddle along as best we can.

The 8 year old wouldn't get very far before the police came knocking if they tried that

Professional experience. I'm not sure what you aren't getting about my point here. Rather than take a child into care, the parents need to care for them. If they can't do that safely in one household, they need to create two households. What is not computing here?

You would seriously throw an 8 year old out on the streets ??
Please tell me you don't actually have children?

What is your experience of this? How are you coming to this conclusion?
I've explained my position above and have lived through the exact scenario. You're not explaining your position at all.

How what?
How do parents separate and run separate households? They just do, parents do it all the time. I don't understand your question.

@BabyCatFace but HOW?!

Agreed.

Of course it should be a last resort! But the suggestion was when a PP asked what the parents are supposed to do if one child is being aggressive to others and they can't protect the other kids. It's better for the parents to live separately than for one child to go into care!