AIBU to ask what more I can do for traumatised children?

Arguments are articulated, insults are a cop out.

Which I get as it’s a difficult thing to argue against, that children should be protected above all else.

@Longtimelurker1980it was well made she summed you up perfectly. You’re naive and supercilious if you think you’re an expert on supporting children as you’ve clearly demonstrated zero discernment or comprehension of domestic abuse. Back to the drawing board.

Great argument, well made.

You really are a fucking prick to double down on kicking someone who has already been through so much.

Quite a lot of ignorance about domestic abuse

OP, please don't blame yourself. Any harm caused is down to the perpetrator alone

@Longtimelurker1980 if you're a teacher, I find it worrying that you blame OP for failure to protect. That's a very outdated attitude. I haven't heard social workers use that language for around 20 years

No I targeted you as you were the first to start the victim blaming. How has op failed her children? As a victim of domestic abuse trying to mitigate and protect your children from of, there is no right option because at that stage all you can do is damage limitation. I assure you every decision that woman made would be the best she could at the time for those kids and NONE of this is her fault and she has certainly not failed her children!

OP I don't know that you have said anything which is making people give the advice about not parenting out of guilt. It's more that it's a common pattern in situations like this and it can cause problems so people are just wanting to reiterate it is useful advice. Letting the stress behaviour go unchecked because the child is struggling or giving in to demands by the children etc. It is well meaning, but it doesn't ultimately help.

If you have your set of rules and you're working on specific behaviours that is OK. You don't need to "address" every problem behaviour immediately, sometimes that is too much. But you should have a very rough road map in your head e.g. if you are currently giving a (minor, temporary, token) consequence for violence like headbutting, kicking and hitting, but you are currently ignoring behaviours like spitting, shouting, swearing, throwing, and the vague idea is that once violence is eliminated or reduced you will move onto other physical things like throwing and spitting - that makes sense. And it would not be helpful to e.g. give 12 consequences because the child did 12 different things in an outburst because they were having a stress/threat response. You can just do one because it was one incident. The purpose of the consequence is not to stop the incident in its tracks and generally you have to let these things run their course in the moment and just do your best to keep yourself and everyone else safe.

I've met several children who were adopted and had horrible starts in life. They became very difficult teens whose behaviour was horrendous, at times, because there were no firm boundaries and the adoptive parents gave in to their demands to try and make up for their abusive starts. Please don't do this. You cannot change the past but you can put the necessary support in place, plus plenty of outlets for them to experience positive role models and have good times.

It sounds like you have all the right support in place or lined up. It's just going to take some time and patience. Recovering from trauma isn't a quick fix. I wish you and your DC all the best 💓

Why have you aimed this post at me??

I'm not sure who it's meant for but obviously you have the wrong poster.

All you can do is remain calm, also know that children can't learn when heightened like that so there's no point reasoning with a child who is in that state. Contain them somewhere safe until they are calm and talk about it afterwards. Taking calm slow breaths yourself usually mean they will monitor you and trying move slowly and deliberately and not raising your voice. Like dealing with with a. Frightened animal.

Afterwards discussing what the feelings were and how better to deal with them. On repeat. It'll gradually improve. My eldest is neurodivergent but I think trauma causes a lot of similar behaviour (he has some medical trauma too so may be part of his issue)

Their whole lives in living memory.

However that is simply semantics. Plenty of life still to live!

I grew up with an abusive dad, there are 5 of us, were in our 40s now, we've all been to counselling as adults, none of us with hindsight have much blame for our mum who tried her absolute best in a very difficult situation balancing the needs of far too many people with far too little support.

Also we're all great, all bar 1 married with children and all 5 in professional careers having grown up very poor. Get them counselling now, stay calm and patient

Your point that they are mirroring the violence they witnessed is putting a lot on them. They are kids with limited impulse control, your ex was an adult with a fully formed frontal lobe, their actions are not remotely comparable. My kids have never witnessed violence and get both have gone through hitting phases. Keeping yourself calm and not getting triggered will be a lot of your management strategy.

Good luck

Sorry if it's already been suggested but have a read up of therapeutic parenting. It's part of the training for adopters etc when trauma is involved.

Nothing really useful to add but well done for getting out. Be kind to yourselves

I’m sorry you’re going through this, but I just want to say I completely agree with a PP: do not parent out of guilt, you need to keep some form of authority and they need to have consequences for their behaviour towards you.

I was in the same situation as your children and my mother would never have allowed us to get away with bad behaviour. On the other hand, I overcompensated out of guilt with my own DD (different circumstances but still) and now I think it did her no favours in the long run.

You’re doing everything you can and doing your best. It’s very difficult to escape abusive relationships, so you’re already ahead of the game. Be proud.

There really is some ignorant and cruel comments on here.

Op I have been where you are and it is incredibly hard, it will be hard for a long time but I'm sure you already know that. Just remember that you are not the one who inflicted this on yourself or your children, he is fully responsible for this entire situation. But you are the one who will make the difference for your children and turn their lives around. Lots of love, security, making them feel safe and know that you're not going to hurt/abandon them. You do of course need to hold very firm boundaries, they will have to be more firm than usual, no swaying or compromising. Same reaction every time to the behaviour and it will gradually lessen and things will look brighter. Come back to this thread in a year, or two years and I can guarantee you will see a big difference in that time.

You'll get there op, don't forget you are also traumatised so give yourself grace.

Wow, congratulations on getting out and already being so proactive in getting yourself and dc support. You sound like a bloody brilliant mum to me.

Just a thought with the rewards/ consequences and rules as you mentioned 'good days'. A day is a long old time for any young child to 'be good' and even longer for a tired parent during school holidays! There will inevitably be ups and downs every day with plenty of terrible moments along the way so try not to let the bad moments be the focus. It's probably much easier to create a positive atmosphere and all feel a bit happier if you (old cliche here) catch them being good as often as you can rather than give consequences for bad behaviour. 'Being good' can really be anything that you find acceptable or normal behaviour that you want to encourage. Label the behaviour - tell them what's good. e.g.
Dc1 you put your shoes on straight away when I asked you! Good girl, let's put a marble in the jar!
Dc2, well done, you've picked up nearly all your lego, just a few pieces left to go, thank you!
Both dc, you've played so nicely together for the last 5 minutes. You both talked kindly and happily. Let's put 5 marbles in the jar!

I'm not saying to ignore bad behaviour either. Try natural consequences in the moment (activities paused, or removed, 'time in' for a disregulated dc) and talk it through when things calm down.

Aim for at least 3 X positive comments for every 1 negative comment you make. It might all feel a bit fake, praising what's actually normal and expected and I'm not promising that it will have a magic effect on improving their behaviour but I do promise it will make you and them feel more positive. At the end of an up and down day it really helps to have noticed some of the moments that weren't terrible!

@MultiBead we stay so long because at least when you are all under the same roof you can mitigate the vile cunt to a degree. Because you know if you leave you may be killed or your children may be killed. If you leave you have to hand your children over for unsupervised contact to an angry man who drives at over 100mph when he’s angry. Because post separation abuse is never ending so you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t. Because these vile cunts aren’t nasty all the time, they’re actually the nicest person you could meet 95% of the time and your children love them and maybe you didn’t have a dad yourself and would have given anything to have one, maybe getting shouted at isn’t the worst thing…. I could go on. Shame on anyone blaming the op (I have sympathy for pp who has this view due to their own abuse I can’t comment on their opinion as it’s personal to them) when you have NO IDEA the predicament. And don’t think reporting it and asking for help from services will make a difference it actually just pisses them off worse and you’re left to deal with the fallout. I’m 5 years free and the abuse is still ongoing despite criminal charges. If you’ve not been through it, respectfully… your opinions are utter shite 👍🏻

I am horrified by some of the responses on this post, particularly from fellow teachers.

I am so sorry you have gone through this OP, it will take time for you all to heal.

My mum was the victim of DV growing up, as children we witnessed and experienced so much and were very damaged by it. As an adult now I have been able to have so many grown up conversations with my mum about what she experienced and the truth was she was so controlled she had no choice. For her, she had no phone of her own, no access to money and was regularly beaten. She was told if she tried to leave, she would never see us again. Whilst angry I'm my teens for her 'allowing' us to live like that, I have come to realised that DV is so much more complicated than that. Like many other women, she simply didn't have a choice.

OP, you are in for a rough road and you are going to have to put your big girl pants on and deal with it head on. I wish you the best of luck. You have taken the biggest step, be proud of that. There are women all over the UK that are never able to make that step.

For those on this thread that lack understanding about domestic violence, please either educate yourself or don't comment on something you have no idea about. Women's aid have some really information and resources if you want to learn more about domestic violence and how difficult it is to leave.

This is great advice. Set out your family manifesto in writing, in view, so you can refer back to it as needed. You can include positive things like 'in this family we...laugh together, enjoy silly dances, have movie nights', etc as well as the more behaviour and mutual respect ones such as '...we don't...call each other names, shout at each other, hit each other, spoil our home'.

It will take time, with the therapy and support, and there might be bumps in the road as you and they find your new normal and try to process the past.

I understand the guilt...I have it with my son for different reasons. We can only effect now and the future. Try to be kind to yourself and focus on a brighter future.

As we all know, it’s not always that easy to leave.

I do agree.

My first GP record was when I was in utero, and was lucky to even survive after my mother had been ferociously flung down the stairs.

The dynamic was 50 percent my mother and my father.

Worked in social care too. I am of the belief the professional help is secondary, completely and utterly secondary. The main long term outcome in all of this will be a mum who parents on instinct and not stupid five point scales.

They will be screaming out for some boundaries, not a permissive style where someone names their emotions. I’m all for validating children’s feelings but I’m not sure when that became the gold standard treatment and priority in trauma services.

They need to feel securely attached to their primary caregiver. They can only do that if the primary caregiver drops the guilt and truly moves forward in life. Stops relying on services and schools when their impact is a lot lower than people presume. I would definitely suggest some counselling for mum and I keep repeating myself here but she is essentially now allowing her children to abuse her.

We do not need to accept abuse of 7 and 5 year olds. Mum needs to model strength, self respect, rules, boundaries, consistency. If that doesn’t happen, a session with a learning mentor at school, quite frankly, is going to do sweet fuck all.

Sort it now when they are 7 and 5. Not 17 and 15, it’s far too late then. There is hope.

I have nothing more to add.

Because I didn't have the means, he would lock me in the house with no phone access, he also controlled me in all ways, made me feel like I was the problem and that no one would believe me. I was also told wrongly by a police officer that any "historic" abuse (as in anything that hadn't happened within that past week or so) they wouldn't be able to do anything about. I was scared for mine and my children's lives, it is not always that simple. I consider myself to be an intelligent person but he emotionally and physically abused, manipulated and controlled me.