Tag: adoption trauma violence child on adult

“Violence is trauma dressed up as anger”

This is a guest blog. It concerns child on adult violence.

I bloody love that dog. None of these dogs are the particular dog in question. He prefers to stay off Social Media.

‘I so intimidated’.

That came through as a text whilst I spoke with two burly police men in body armour.

This was from the child that had been dragging me around the house by my hair and had been so violent and aggressive that I had finally had to call the police. They wanted to talk with him and I had to go and get him from the corner of his room where he was cowering clutching a cuddly toy. He came out to speak with them still clutching his toy.

He was 10.

No one wants to call the police on their child. Many of us don’t like calling for any help at all.

That was the beginning of the end of the violence as it did make a big impression on him. He saw real evidence that someone else, not just me and his father, believed that his violence to me was wrong and unacceptable.

I had a victim support helpline that I used a few times and I think I was lucky that the police took it so seriously. Although they did say I couldn’t really call them again for a child being violent. So I just continued to call my husband and he kept coming home from work on the days when it was all too much.

Another step in the end to the hitting came when I had to take our son with me to the physio. He had hit me and shoved me so often that my back had finally gone. My physio was Irish and our son had decided that he had a lot of time for anyone Irish.

If you have any leverage with a kid, use it!

So he watched the physio take care of me for the half hour and show real concern for me. It made a small change in our son’s perspective of me and that others thought I was worth bothering about.

The real end to the violence came when our lovely Labrador had just had enough of watching me get hurt.

He put himself between me and our son and warned him off. He would have to get through the dog to get to me. I bloody love that dog. He saved me.

He saved our son too.

If our son had remained this violent I have no doubt he would be in prison. Or have become an abusive partner. And he is not.

He is becoming emotionally intelligent. He and his girlfriend are working on how to be emotionally available to each other.

It’s been a long journey but there is now more than light at the end of the tunnel, I think we may be through the tunnel.

“I think we may be through the tunnel”