Abstract question about abusive relationships (sorry, but long)

[OptimistS]

As a survivor of domestic abuse, this is a subject close to my heart. Most of us are familiar with the statistic that says 1 in 4 women will experience it (and men too, as research is now demonstrating). What's even more alarming is that the 1/4 figure is based on official reportings of abuse, so the real figure is much, much higher, possibly as much as 1 in 2 - ALMOST HALF the population!!!

I don't want to get off topic here, but I think cases like Baby P and Shannon Matthews are the potential end result when you have generation after generation growing up with abuse dynamics going on in the family. Ideas about respect and individual rights, and most importantly the notion of empathy for another, get seriously skewed. There is a very strong link between child abuse and domestic violence. Just as there are links with juvenile crime. In my opinion, a lot of society's ills are the result of abuse rather than the increase in single parents or the lessening power of religion, etc etc. (Actually, if you want to be somewhat flippant, you could make a convincing argument that the world would be a lot better off if all victims of abuse left their partners, taking their kids, and we had a lot more single parents.)

What scares me most is that it is a disease that spreads among the 'healthy' population. It's not limited to the s0-called 'underclass'. I grew up in a very close, very happy and stable family. I remember my parents having 2 arguments from my first memories until the time I left home. There was a lot of love and respect there. Same with my grandparents. If anyone should have been resistant to abuse, it was me. The trouble was that because abuse was so alien to my family, I was never aware of how it worked. By the time I was, it was too late. My point is this: if it can happen to me, someone who society would generally regard as low risk, it can happen to anyone.

So what can we do about it? I am not a journalist or student. This is just a subject close to my heart. I am thinking about starting a campaign, but this is still just a thought. Womens Aid and the like tend to concentrate on picking up the pieces. We certainly do need more refuges and more education, etc. However, I'd like to see more prevention done, if that's possible. It may not be.

I am generally against a nanny state, but I am now seriously wondering if the national curriculum should scrap some of the more abstract subject areas and really start concentrating on healthy life development. Things like parenting, signs of healthy and unhealthy relationships, personal and social responsibility etc. These have traditionally been the remit of the parent, but I am beginning to think that perhaps those most in need of this sort of education are exactly those who won't get this at home. What do others think? Do you think this would work? Do you have any other suggestions?

I am really interested in what people think. So tell me...

Sorry to have left this for a couple of days. Very busy weekend. Good though! My children have just visited Father Christmas for the first time!

Custardo, I think the link between child benefit and parenting classes is an ideal one. Following something hardplace wrote about how much emotional development takes place in the first 2 years, your suggesting of parenting classes rather than waiting until children get into school, makes a lot of sense.

I still think that there is place within schools to discuss types of healthy and unhealthy relationship, but I believe that this is already being done to some degree under the name personal development (at least that's what they're calling it at my local comprehensive). Maybe this level would be adequate if compulsory parenting classes were introduced.

My goal with this is to think about ways, as a society, we can seriously stamp down on things like domestic abuse and child abuse. This isn't a debate on whether or not we should have classes on DV in schools. That was the first idea that appealed to me and a useful starting point for a debate. What I'm learning on here, and seeing different viewpoints is very useful and clarifying.

Going off topic here, but as a proponent of parenting classes but against the idea of schools intertering in family life, Custardo, just wondered what your idea were about educating children (boys as well as girls) about the reality of having a young baby, by getting them to have one of these crying dolls that have been piloted in America. None of my business and you don't have to answer, of course, but am interested in what you think?

Also going off topic here, and one of the reasons I originally posted this, was because of Frank Field's assertion that "Single parenthood is the recruiting sergeant for antisocial behaviour? which made my blood boil. I personally believe that one good single parent will do a far better job than two crap parents. It is the quality of parenting that counts, not the number or gender. It is a huge slap across the face to all those who have taken a step towards a better childhood for their children by leaving abusive partners. While there are many awful single parents out there, there are also many awful married parents. I think getting drawn into the single parent debate is completely unhelpful and fails to address the point that we should be concentrating on how to improve parenting, not demonising single parents.

I am changing my thinking as I write this, and Custardo has got me thinking about how much DV would naturally reduce if parenting classes were introduced?

There's a lot more I want to say, but I am going on, and on, and on, so I'll shut up and come back when I've thought about it and learned to express it more succinctly.

Thanks again though everyone.

Just responding with my initial thoughts on the last point in your last post OptimistS. Without direct experience of raising a child in an abusive relationship (I left the first time ex attacked me (again) after dd was born- she was 5 weeks old), between the pregnancy and now (he carried on being abusive towards me for a few months after we left), he has always been more respectful/careful with her than me, presumably because he had already long decided I was the root of all his problems, so not her. I wouldn't say that because of this she is immune to abuse from him, and I still worry when she is with him on contact visits (I'm ashamed to say I ran out of fight against him as he pushed it through court, it really felt like no-one was taking me seriously). BUT, my point is that parents who have good intentions and make efforts to improve their parenting may still carry on abusing their partner as they see that as separate. Teaching parenting is not the same as teaching about healthy adult relationships, and if they are inclined towards abuse anyway, there's no way most of them would accept that kind of teaching. I think if you want to stop an adult who has already started being abusive, that would probably take anger management counselling or the like, which again would require a willing volunteer (sorry, never seen it happen, only way I know people stop abuse is by leaving the abuser). That's why I think that sort of relationship education in schools is the only way you are going to get to a lot of kids whose parents are abusive. Otherwise they won't know much different and are fairly bound to repeat the cycle. Sorry for another long post!

I think self esteem and confidence should certainly underpin education, and can have a dramatic effect on peoples ability to respect others.

I think adults have the greatest impact on kid's self esteem.

However, as you and others have made clear, it is not going to stop everyone from experiencing a relationship that is detrimental to them.

Good points Debra. Can I ask how old your DD is now, please? I've noticed with my x that he's excellent with our DC. But they are only 2. I've noticed that he gets increasingly less tolerant with children as they get older. He was apparently very good with his eldest DD when she was little, but then beat her up when she was 17. I have this theory that it is because small children tend to hero-worship their parents and do not challenge their authority directly. A pre-school child is very much under a parent's control so the abusive parent has little need to display abusive behaviours to maintain control IYSWIM. As a child gets older, cheekier, more independent and more likely to answer back, that's when abusive behaviour can start appearing in the adult/child relationship I think. Do you agree? In my case, it is something I am very watchful of and I will keep watching for it throughout my children's childhood and their relationship with their father. Fortunately, he doesn't seem to want the responsibility of contact by himself and always comes to visit them at my house, so I am always around to unobtrusively supervise.

A good point about the victim in an abusive relationship becoming the focus point for all the abuser's disappointments/rage, etc. I think that explains how abusers are so often able to present such an amenable, reasonable image to the rest of the world -because others are not exposed to that side of their personality, only the victim is. Maybe this is why my x has managed to pull the wool over so many people's eyes for so long, but now that he has been single for longer than any other time in his adult life, it is slowly unravelling and he has lost a lot of friends and exposed his true nature to a lot more people in recent months.

I was interested in your point about the only way to really stop an abuser is to leave (as an answer to your own question about anger management). HAve you read the famous Lundy Bancroft book about abusers? (Why Does He Do That?). He very eloquently disproves the myth that abusive men do so because they have a problem with controlling their anger, and demonstrates very effectively that anger management has little or no effect with absuers. Far more effective is getting them to work on empathy and accepting that other people's rights are as valid as their own. Parenting classes can work alongside this, as part of effective parenting is to recognise that your children have as much rights as you do, and to empathise with their feelings, while at the same time recognising that boundaries have to be in place because chidlren do not have the life experience to set them for themselves.

If I am learning anything from this thread it is that to really tackle abuse in all it's forms a comprehensive programme is going to be needed. Parenting classes or relationship classes on their own are not going to work,though they will certainly help IMO. IDeally, these things need to run together.

My dd is 2.6, so I have no more experience than you. I agree that children become more at risk as they get older and more independent, but I am also worried at the moment as she is at a cheeky, curious stage where she is still learning the normal rights and wrongs, let alone his specific button-pushers, and she may upset him without meaning to. My ex also has children from a previous relationship, although for a number of years including all the time I was with him, he had no access to them, which he put down to reasons beyond his control .

With regard to exposing someone's abusive nature, this has happened somewhat in my ex's case also, although a number of his acquaintances are of the same ilk so they think his behaviour is fine.

I haven't read that book but I will try and have a look at it. I've just had a thought about the parenting classes maybe being more appropriate to help abusers' accept/acknowledge others' rights and feelings... how about parents/carers found guilty of abusing a partner or child being made to take the parenting course as part of their punishment? This would cover some of the loop in the 'compulsory with cb' idea (which is great imo) whereby it's often only one of the parents who claims (I think), so the other would escape doing the course. Obviously the problem with this is that it's reactionary rather than preventative, but the other option would be to try and identify and locate all parents and anyone who lives with children and order them all to enrol/participate (hardly likely to be accepted by the general public or practical logically).