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COPYRIGHT 2004 Western States Communications Association
Episodes wherein adolescents verbally, physically, or emotionally abuse their parents require scholars to consider the relational dynamics in these family systems. The purpose of this study was to explore adolescent-to-parent abuse through the victims' reports, identifying recurring issues to increase understanding of this form of domestic abuse. Data were drawn from in-depth, face-to-face interviews with 20 parents whose adolescents had verbally, physically, and emotionally abused them. A qualitative/interpretive method was used to analyze these data. The results identified the following issues: (a) the progression and escalation of abuse episodes; (b) abused parents' perception of their parental role within the family; and (e) abused parents' perception of their parental role outside the family. These findings reflect how adolescent-to-parent abuse impacts family relationships.
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Helen lived in fear of her teenage son. Helen's son threatened her, saying that if he was big, he would hurt her. He pushed her, pinned her against a wall and slammed her elbows in the door.... He also verbally abused her. When Helen and her son argued, he would threaten to tell people at school that she abused him. As a parent, she felt isolated. "The public tends to think 'What's wrong with those parents who can't control their children'?" "I feel like I failed raising this child," Helen said. "On the other hand, I did the best I could." (Schuett, 1999, p. 7B)
THIS EXCERPT PROVIDES a brief glimpse into a phenomenon many individuals do not know exists--adolescent-to-parent abuse. The statistics reporting incidents of adolescent-to-parent abuse refer specifically to physical assaults on parents by their adolescent children. The National Family Violence Survey reported that, in the U.S., 18 percent of parents were victims of physical abuse at least once in a one year time period; 2 1/2 million parents were struck by their adolescents; and 900,000 of these parents have experienced severe physically abusive episodes (Straus, Gelles, & Steinmetz, 1980). Since these findings were reported, little research explored other dimensions of adolescent-to-parent abuse. Because most researchers exploring domestic abuse agree that a definition of abuse needs to include the verbal and emotional aspects to accurately describe the type of abusive interactions occurring within families (Cahn & Lloyd, 1996; Cornell & Gelles, 1981; Gelles & Straus, 1988; Infante, Sabourin, Rudd, & Shannon, 1990; Pagelow, 1984; Price, 1996), it is especially difficult to venture a guess about the extensiveness of adolescent-to-parent abuse episodes. Based on these arguments, the assertion can be made that some parents who experience verbal, physical, and emotional abuse by their adolescents are not reporting these incidences (Blum, 1997; Gest & Pope, 1996; Harbin & Madden, 1979; Price, 1996; Sheehan, 1997).
The few psychology and sociology researchers who have explored adolescent-to-parent abuse have focused on measuring the relationship between personality factors of the parent and adolescent, possible biological causes, and the possible socio-economic impact on relationships (Harbin & Madden, 1979; Heide, 1995; Hemphill, 1996; Price, 1996; VanOostrum & Horvath, 1997). The lack of a communicative approach to the phenomenon of adolescent-to-parent abuse is problematic because communication factors are essential when differentiating between abusive and non-abusive relationships (Lloyd & Emery, 1994). Communicative interactions are the key to maintaining or terminating social bonds (Baxter, 1985), and in adolescent-to-parent abuse the messages sent and the meanings perceived are part of the catalyst by which interpersonal communication contributes to and creates family dynamics and climates. Therefore, adolescent-to-parent abuse cannot be isolated from the context of interpersonal communication and the role it plays in family relationships. Exploring adolescent-to-parent abuse from the communication perspective allows the framing of these messages in the context they occur.
Additionally, because family violence can be interpreted as a form of communication (Cahn, 1996), exploring adolescent-to-parent abuse communicatively directs evaluation to how messages impact the family relationships. In families where adolescent-to-parent abuse occurs, verbal intimidation and threatening messages may become common interaction patterns (Price, 1996). Therefore, researching adolescent-to-parent abuse episodes from a communicative perspective allows the identification of interpretations of these abusive messages and their impact on family members. This provides a platform from which researchers and family counselors can begin to justify descriptive and prescriptive solutions to this problem, and thus, begin to repair these adolescent-parent relationships. Accordingly, the purpose of this study was to explore adolescent-to-parent abuse episodes through the victims' reports and to identify interpretations of the meanings abused parents assign to verbal, physical, and emotional abuse episodes.
Review of Literature
Defining Abuse
Defining abuse is a complex procedure because many of the terms are used interchangeably across disciplines (e.g., violence, aggression, abuse), and they often share many commonalities. Sheehan (1997) argued that abuse could be "an aggressive imposition of will by a variety of means: physical, emotional, psychological" (p. 83). Abuse is also argued to be an "ongoing, repetitive pattern--psychological, emotional, or behavioral--of pain infliction" (Spitzberg, 1997, p. 177). For this study, the term abuse is conceptualized to include verbal, physical, and emotional means of inflicting hurt upon another that violates socially accepted standards.
Verbal abuse. Verbal abuse refers to a verbal attack on another individual (Gelles, 1987; Kinney, 1994; Vissing & Bailey, 1996), and may be a predictor of physical violence (Infante & Rancer, 1995; Infante et al., 1990; Price, 1996). Adolescent-to-parent verbal abuse is a destructive form of communication that focuses an implicit attack on the self-concept of the parent instead of the issue under discussion; it is the verbal maltreatment of the parent and involves the use of verbally aggressive behaviors (Infante, 1995; Infante et al., 1990; Kinney, 1994). Such aggressive behaviors includes accusations, rejections, refusals to talk, disconfirmation, attacks on character, competence, background, physical appearance, as well as maledictions, teasing, swearing, ridicule, and nonverbal emblems (Infante, 1995; Infante et al., 1990; Semic & Canary, 1997).
Physical abuse. Physical abuse includes acts that are intentional or perceived as intentional and that result in any physical harm against a person (Straus & Gelles, 1990). Examples of adolescent-to-parent physical abuse include hitting, kicking, shoving, pushing, slapping, biting of a family member, hitting with an object, beating up, or attempting to shoot, stab, or strangle another family member.
Emotional abuse. It is important to state that a difference exists between an emotional abuse episode and the emotional distress that occurs as a result of abuse (Marshall, 1994; Price, 1996). Although emotional distress is a result of physical abuse, "psychological violence more often appears to take the form of distorted communication patterns that blame, confuse, criticize, bind, or otherwise constrain another person" (Spitzberg, 1997, p. 179). Specific communicative behaviors, strategies, and situations constitute the concept of an emotionally abusive episode (Marshall, 1994; Price, 1996; Spitzberg, 1997). Emotionally abusive tactics undermine parents' personal or interpersonal competence, affects their ability to function in the typical parent role, compromises self-esteem, and instills the belief of negative personality characteristics resulting in emotional distress (Price, 1996).
Emotionally abusive behaviors specific to adolescent-parent interactions include anger or hostility over little or unpredictable things, emotional control (e.g., blaming parent for being upset), bind or dilemma (e.g., putting parent in a no-win situation), disconfirmation, withdrawal (e.g., becoming cold or indifferent), threats of impending physical assault, suicide, or self destructive acts (e.g., quitting school, running away, drug use, indiscriminate sex), reporting parents to child protection services for any physical restraint or aggression used in response to abusive behavior, and provocation by vulgarity and personal attack (Dodge, Bates, & Pettit, 1990; Price, 1996; Snyder, Schrepferman, & St. Peter, 1997; Spitzberg, 1997).
Characteristics of Adolescent-to-Parent Abuse
Two of the primary difficulties in studying adolescent-to-parent abuse are that the research available is quite dated and that which is available, focuses primarily on physical abuse. However, sociologists have presented common characteristics present in families experiencing parent abuse.
First, parents often avoid talking about abusive episodes because they were either blamed or blamed themselves for their own victimization (Cornell & Gelles, 1981; Schuett, 1999). Parents who share frequently minimize the seriousness of the behavior, express an inability to punish the abusive behavior, and often refuse to ask for outside help for themselves or their child. These types of responses may cause adolescents to perceive that abusive behavior toward their parents is acceptable, and, as a result, parents' sense of helplessness may become normative (Gehring, Wentzel, Feldman, & Munson, 1990; Price, 1996; Sheehan, 1997; VanOostrum & Horvath, 1997). Parents' lack of communication about their adolescent-to-parent abuse experience creates difficulty for those attempting to find solutions to this problem.
Second, the father's occupational level and the family income level are characteristics of adolescent-to-parent abuse. Families where fathers were white-collar workers experience the greatest severity of abuse by adolescents; blue-collar workers experience moderate abuse; and farmers report no abuse perpetuated against them by their adolescents (Cornell & Gelles, 1981). The most frequent and severe adolescent-to-parent abuse occurs in middle-income families, moderate abuse occurs in lowest income families, and the lowest rate of abuse toward parents occurs in highest income families (Cornell & Gelles, 1981). Whereas family stressors identified in the abuse literature do not seem to play a role in motivating adolescents to be violent toward their parents, adolescents suspended from school are more likely to perpetuate abuse toward parents than are their counterparts in school (Cornell & Gelles, 1981; Harbin & Madden, 1979).
Third, the physical size difference that might exist between the teen and the parent plays an important role. If an adolescent is stronger and larger than the parent, abuse is more likely to be initiated toward the parent (Cornell & Gelles, 1981; Harbin & Madden, 1979; Heide, 1995). These researchers found that more sons than daughters instigate incidents of adolescent-to-parent abuse; females and small boys often rely on speed and weapons to abuse parents. Mothers are more likely than fathers to be struck, and abuse perpetuated against fathers is usually the act of sons and more severe (Cornell & Gelles, 1981; Harbin & Madden, 1979). Interestingly, severe child abuse rarely plays a role in adolescents' abuse of parents, and adolescents that abuse parents often abuse siblings as well (Harbin & Madden, 1979; Heide, 1995).
Fourth, if parent abuse occurs when adolescents were between the ages of ten and eleven, rarely does the sex of the adolescent come into play; at this age, boys do not physically abuse...
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