Do you think ‘near’ abusive parents watch the news, and think of changing their behaviour?

[EddyF]

I couldn’t think of a title of what I am trying to really ask. I guess I would be interested to know/discuss if parents who are on the slippery slope of parenting (I.e, not downright evil) but not practicing good enough parenting; do you think they get touched by stories they see on the news regarding children being abused/murdered? I guess neglectful parents.

I can’t think of anyone not affected by these stories, and I wonder if these stories can be the catalyst for change in some people’s parenting.

I also think that those who are in the frontline of protecting children, they’re also expected to manage the chaotic nature of the caregivers, thus making it difficult to solely concentrate on the child’s needs. I know someone who states they often have to deal with crying/or angry parents, and the needs of the child has to be explicitly brought back to the forefront, but this takes skills and awareness in that moment.

I guess my question is: do you think parents who are not nurturing their children in a correct way, can they have a lightbulb moment when such tragedies occur and want to do better?

@CallMeNutribullet yes my Mum was the same. Very articulate, interested in world affairs, watched the news, ran poetry festivals (!), baked for school fairs etc etc - on paper a very intelligent, normal middle class woman. Behind closed doors she was schizophrenic, an alcoholic and a narcissist. Those cakes she baked for the school fair- god forbid I touched them myself or even looked at them. I remember hiding one behind my back as I was so desperate to try one and she caught me. It was horrendous. I spent my childhood scared and permanently hungry.

But yep she’d watch the news every night.

I think No too.If they are in a position to require serious intervention then I believe they are too far gone to be re educated or reformed, The children in these households seriously need to be removed, If parental feelings of love,nurture and protect are not there then they aren;t. I reported a family once and although SS were very quick of the mark they were fooled and they believed in the show that greeted them. This was dreadful neglect and they stayed involved for 3 months and left as it wasnt total neglect. I dispaired, I still do. The parents I reported were family and we now wath them in every aspect and they do just enough and its not good enough,they are lazy and ineffective and without the rest of the family the kids could easily be failed again,We dont let that happen. It is a dreadfully broken system. These parents will never change just supply lip service when needed

@Jessie75

There are parenting classes being provided by some councils in this country .

No. My parents saw these things as a justification for their own abuse eg ‘we are good parents as we’ve never left you alone for days/ other people kill their kids/ at least we just hit you with our hands, unlike that person who beat their kids with sticks’ etc.

@Jessie75. It’s easy to make political comments.

But::

www.gov.uk/government/news/20m-to-provide-more-early-help-for-vulnerable-families

Includes parenting classes

[quote NeverDropYourMoonCup]@50shadesofcatholic from being one of the children of the woman who did this over every news report of an abused child. She didn't come from an abusive home, by the way, so that can't be blamed for it.

Whatever she did was perfectly OK. It wasn't done by a boyfriend or stepfather, so it couldn't be abusive. It wasn't done with sticks except when it was so it couldn't be abusive. It didn't leave visible marks because she'd learned from the older ones that got social workers interested, so that was OK. And threatening to melt one's face off with a hot iron held millimetres from you wasn't abusive because it didn't actually touch you. And we were clumsy. Stupid. Horrible. Completely different to those scummy young girls with low IQ and dodgy boyfriends. Completely different.[/quote]
So sorry you dealt with this. I relate so much, even down to the threat of putting a hot iron on my face. But what was I crying about? She didn’t actually do it. 🤷‍♀️ My mum took pleasure from hurting us emotionally and physically. It was a power trip to her

There's a thread on here at the moment where a poster criticises her 5 year old nephew and concludes that he is a little sod, her sister (his own mother) calls him a little shit.
This is a 5 year old.
As a society and certainly as a MN community, we should start by calling this out. No child is a little shit.

Sadly I doubt it .The problem is these people cant cope with being a parent.Then dump it all on poor child until everything becomes their fault! Then feel justified in hitting /child abusing and so on .TBH It makes me feel physically ill .Couldnt sleep well last night. All I could see when closing my eyes ,was poor little Stars lovely face and beautiful blue eyes .It is truly heartbreaking .I love children and was a Nursery School Teacher .She had her whole life before her .I hope that her Stepmum is jailed for life .Sadly it wont bring Star back though .

I think ( hope ) cases like Arthur and Star must be very rare ,the thought of physically abusing children to the extent those children suffered must be abhorrent to most people
I'm sure there are far more parents though that are neglectful ,not caring enough that their children attend school regularly ,letting them roam around at all hours etc

I doubt it. Abusers rarely think they are abusive. At most, they think they're flawed heroes who have been driven to it.

@DeadbeatGasbag

I think they probably are much more likely to think "see I am not that bad, I'm nothing like those really horrific cases you see on the tv".

This, sadly

No. Neglectful and/or abusive parents don't think they're neglectful and/or abusive. Particularly if the abuse is emotional and therefore much harder for the victim or others to identify as such.

Speaking from experience.

I have done myself. When I had depression I was quite emotionally abusive towards my children in terms of explosive shouting which would scare them. It wasn't necessarily the news but I learnt a lot about gentle parenting and I tried to undo the damage in me from my own abusive upbringing and change myself.
Im recovered from my MH problems and I'm now a much better mum.

@Heruka

I don’t think so. As ime the majority of neglectful parents are doing the best they can, with a history of trauma and terrible parenting experiences of their own. They generally don’t see themselves as neglectful and love their kids, just don’t have the capacity to give ‘good enough’ care. The evil child torturing people are much rarer and pathological so I don’t think much will change them.

I think I agree with this

Jessie75 Dog licences were scrapped in 1987 but I take your point.

No, I think the situation with abusive partners and those who permit the abuse is very complex. Even if the abusers recognise or find similarities between their own situation and the tragic cases, they will practise denial. They will probably think, 'Oh I know we smack, punish, are strict with our child/ren, but it is nothing like that!'.

It could be that one of the parents will hear alarm bells and seek help/advice, only to be told, 'Well, there are no bruises or broken bones, so it's not really serious' or 'We are wasting our time with your family. We have cases of serious abuse to deal with'. Thus, important early signs are missed.

Indeed, people did contact the police and social services in both the tragic serious cases currently being reviewed.

Oh and it could even be the case that children themselves can recount abuse, and social workers can come to the house and decide everything is OK without even seeing the children. Believe me, this happens.

These tragic and terrible cases (Arthur and Star) are probably at the very worst end of the spectrum of abuse that is being overlooked in the UK today. Often the abuse continues when children are somehow 'off the radar'. In lock down or in the context of a pandemic when many children may lose direct contact with vital networks, I think it is likely that cases of 'hidden' abouse are escalating.

abuse not abouse

No. I don't think they see any of their behaviour reflected in the news stories. They see themselves as completely different because they believe there is always something that justifies their actions. The ones who carry out extreme abuse and end up in the news also think their behaviour is justified no doubt. There was a thread on here yesterday where a woman admitted to biting her toddler but thought that this was "fine". This was one of the things that Star's mother also did, and yesterday Star’s case was all over the news and MN so I doubt she could have missed it. The woman on the thread was actually trying to gauge opinions on whether her partner’s behaviour was abusive, so obviously no awareness whatsoever of her own actions being harmful.

I don't think it will be a wakeup call to any parents, for all the reasons above.... but I am hoping it will be a wakeup call to social services! I appreciate all the issues around caseloads and budget cuts, but it feels that there are some basic common sense improvements that could be made (eg if there is more than one report about a child, should make it much harder to close a case, and the need to not take parents at face value!).

I don’t think so - most justify their own behaviour to themselves.

For example, I once had a discussion with a man I had to spend a length of time with through work. He was saying similar after a different child abuse case in the news; couldn’t understand how some people can hurt children, if someone hurt his child he’d be punching the lights out of them etc etc. This was a man who’d been convicted of making distributing indecent images of children under 12.

I doubt it. Having worked in a field for many years where we were inextricably linked with children's safeguarding and had to deal with many troubled families the majority of them had poor/no insight. There were 2 types in my experience, the families where they weren't cruel or deliberately unkind but very vulnerable and disadvantaged themselves and sometimes responded to intensive support, then the cruel sadistic families who would be masters at disguised compliance and would seem to respond but would actually be doing completely the opposite. Unfortunately the social workers often became enmeshed in their toxic systems and couldn't see the wood for the trees.

These families can't be helped. As professionals working with vulnerable children were need to be supported by our organisations to be able to challenge families toxic behaviours without fear of reprisal. This engagement with the family at all costs and keeping the child with parents above all else is wrong and harmful. Cases need to be kept open longer, history taken into account and children removed quicker. Charities like the nspcc and Bernardo's have been saying this for years.

My parents certainly wouldn't have. My mother sees these cases now and says Oh poor little children, forgetting what she did to her own. She would have got angry and turned the TV off so we couldn't compare ourselves, if it had happened when we were younger. She did that with anything about Children in Need type TV etc as it was.

My mum will never admit what she did to my brothers and to a certain extent me.

My brothers were eventually taken into care and I was left in her care and she really messed with my head

If you ask her why you get the tears, or it never happened, we made it up etc, my brothers were evil little shits who made her life hell…they didn’t.. they were confused scared little boys who had crap parents

Abusive parents don’t realise they are abusive parents, in denial totally

@StellaGibson118

I have done myself. When I had depression I was quite emotionally abusive towards my children in terms of explosive shouting which would scare them. It wasn't necessarily the news but I learnt a lot about gentle parenting and I tried to undo the damage in me from my own abusive upbringing and change myself. Im recovered from my MH problems and I'm now a much better mum.

That takes a lot of courage to do and to talk about. Kia kaha