Adolescent Violence towards Parents: Maintaining Family Connections When The Going Gets Tough
Corresponding Author
Rosemary Paterson
Anglicare, Eastern Youth Services, 7–11 Shipley Street, Box Hill VIC 3128, Australia.Search for more papers by this authorHelen Luntz
Helen Luntz: works in Private Practice, Surrey Hills Consulting Rooms. Amaryll Perlesz and Sue Cotton teach in the Faculty of Health Sciences, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia.
Search for more papers by this authorAmaryll Perlesz
Helen Luntz: works in Private Practice, Surrey Hills Consulting Rooms. Amaryll Perlesz and Sue Cotton teach in the Faculty of Health Sciences, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia.
Search for more papers by this authorSue Cotton
Helen Luntz: works in Private Practice, Surrey Hills Consulting Rooms. Amaryll Perlesz and Sue Cotton teach in the Faculty of Health Sciences, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia.
Search for more papers by this authorCorresponding Author
Rosemary Paterson
Anglicare, Eastern Youth Services, 7–11 Shipley Street, Box Hill VIC 3128, Australia.Search for more papers by this authorHelen Luntz
Helen Luntz: works in Private Practice, Surrey Hills Consulting Rooms. Amaryll Perlesz and Sue Cotton teach in the Faculty of Health Sciences, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia.
Search for more papers by this authorAmaryll Perlesz
Helen Luntz: works in Private Practice, Surrey Hills Consulting Rooms. Amaryll Perlesz and Sue Cotton teach in the Faculty of Health Sciences, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia.
Search for more papers by this authorSue Cotton
Helen Luntz: works in Private Practice, Surrey Hills Consulting Rooms. Amaryll Perlesz and Sue Cotton teach in the Faculty of Health Sciences, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia.
Search for more papers by this authorAbstract
This paper explores some of the dilemmas, difficulties and decisions faced by mothers whose adolescent sons or daughters act in violent and abusive ways and refuse any counselling. A group intervention program, designed to assist these mothers in more fully understanding and addressing their adolescent's behaviour, was evaluated using both quantitative and qualitative methods. Self-report questionnaire data indicated that following the group intervention the mothers reported less violence in their homes, and significantly less personal anxiety and fatigue. However, these women continued to experience high levels of depression, and the reasons for this are discussed. These findings are integrated with information from post-intervention, in-depth interviews which indicated that participants valued the group experience because they realised that they were not alone, their problems were understood, and they developed a wider range of strategies to deal with their children's violent behaviour.
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