Domestic violence and family dynamics

1
Domestic violence and family dynamics
2
Parenting continuum
3
Interventions to move parents along the parenting
continuum
Caring dads
Whos in Charge?
4
Which of the following are abuse?

• Smacking a young child for running on the road
• Hitting a young child with a slipper for running
  on the road
• 10-year-old boy gives 12-year-old brother a black
  eye in a fight
• 10-year-old accidentally gives 4-year-old brother
  a black eye while play fighting.
• 10-year-old deliberately giving his 2-year-old
  brother a black eye.
• A baby biting his mother.
• 10-year-old biting his mother.
• 10-year-old saying I hate you! to a parent.
• A parent says I hate you! to 10-year-old
• A teenager who has seen his dad hit his mum for
  years attacking and injuring his dad when dad has
  been yelling at mum again
• A teenager attacking his dad because he wont buy
  him a motorbike

5
Family agreement

• Selecting goals
• Consequences and rewards
• What ifs
• Safety plans

6
Steps for ordinary child discipline

• Modelling
• Giving clear instructions as to what you want the
  child to do
• Giving praise and attention for good behaviour
• Ignoring bad behaviour
• Confrontation - NO, dont do that followed by
  firm authoritative instructions
• Incentives star charts work for younger
  children set them up for agreed behaviours and
  maintain them consistently until better habits
  have formed. Incentives charts work on older
  children with agreed rewards when the child has
  earned enough points from agreed goal
  behaviours. Contracts may also work with older
  children.

7

• Consequences
• offer choices and speak of the logical
  consequences first (eg. if you make the choice
  to wear only a t-shirt then you will end up cold)
• for more serious issues where you are not willing
  to allow choice insist that the child must first
  do before you will co-operate with her in any
  way.
• negative consequences for bad behaviours (eg.
  Confiscation of toys for younger children)
• Family rule discussion for older children sit
  down as a family and discuss the problems.
  Gather your childrens ideas about what are the
  key problems and how to address them. Try to
  reach compromise and agreement.
• Time out - time out should not be an alternative
  to completing a task, but a consequence of bad
  behaviour.

8
Modelling

• Who is important in your childs life?
• What behaviours from you set good examples of how
  to communicate with these people and how to
  manage frustration?
• How you rate yourself on a scale of 1 to 10 in
  communicating and managing frustration with
  others - especially those important to your
  child?
• How can you appreciate others who are important
  in your childs life to the child (eg. Other
  parent, foster carers etc?)

9
Praise

• Get them to share ways they remember being put
  down or felt they were negatively labelled as a
  child
• How did this affect them?
• How did they feel to person to said those things
  to them?
• How do they do that to their own child?
• How can they praise their own child both for
  specific skills and attributes but also for
  specific behaviours. Ask them to log praise for
  their children in the coming weeks.

10
Caring dads child centred parenting

• Establish long term goals of discipline to
  teach certain values and behaviours even when the
  parent isnt there to teach self control
• Consider specific examples of behaviours the
  father finds challenging and/or has punished
  ask in whos interest is it to change this
  behaviour? How child ?_?parent centred is it?
• Compare the goals with impacts of the punishment.
  In whos interest is using this method of
  discipline? How child ? ? parent centred is it?
• What better ways might you achieve the goals?

11
Whos in charge?

• Your influence
• Other parent
• Relationship between parents
• Step-parent
• Brothers Sisters
• Other relatives
• School
• Friends
• Any other people
• TV, other media
• Temperament (elements of personality your child
  was born with)
• Physical appearance, size, health, age reaching
  puberty
• Free will childs own choices
• Specific events
• Any other influences
• (give your influence 10 points and use this as a
  standard against which to measure others
  influence - you can do this on specific issues
  such as violence - you can work out the final
  influence you think you actually had on that
  issue)

12
Impacts on children

• Attachment styles
• (eg. Howe, D (2003) Attachment disorders
• in Attachment and Human Development (53)
• pp265 271)

13
Understanding childrens communication

• girl 5 - always plays up at bedtime
• boy 11- steals sweets and then more precious
  things
• Girl - 9 - breaks her parents precious things
  intentionally
• Boy - 6 wets bed and sometimes urinates in the
  corner of his bedroom
• What might the child be trying to communicate?
• What can parents say to child?
• What can they do?