Young Person–to–Mother Violence: An Integrative Review of Evidence from Australia and New Zealand

ABSTRACT

Mothers are consistently reported as a victim of violence or abuse from a child at higher rates than fathers. Despite this, the safety implications and impact this violence has on mothers continue to be obscured within research and policy frameworks, due to a generic focus being placed on “parents” as victims. This review employed a mixed-methods integrative review methodology to examine Australian and New Zealand research relating to young persons’ violence towards their mother. Six themes were extracted, which included mothers being the common target of violence from a child; mothers experiencing both partner and child domestic violence victimisation; mothers experiencing blame, maternal guilt and loyalty; access to formal support; mothers being responsible for arranging treatment for their abusive child; and mothers contacting the police as a last resort. The findings highlight a need for further research examining the pathways to violence utilising multiagency, longitudinal data for both a mother and her child.

IMPLICATIONS

• Clearly labelling a young person’s violence towards their mother may help break down the shame, guilt and fear mothers report and their reluctance to seek help.

• Early intervention programs, one of which has a clear joint mother-and-child focus and others which have separate mother and child foci, are needed.

• Multidisciplinary research that incorporates information and experiences of mothers and children across multiple longitudinal data sources is needed to examine trajectories towards violence and impacts for both mothers and their children.

KEYWORDS:

• Child-to-Mother Violence
• Mother Abuse
• Family Violence
• Mother Blaming

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).