Abusive Parents Are Helped, Not Judged : Groups Help Them Care for Children Properly

As a child, Joan could never predict what would trigger one of her mother’s rages, so she was always on guard, bracing herself for the sting of a belt.

When Joan became a parent, she vowed she would never resort to violence with her own children. But one night about a year ago, when she was still trying to get her strength back after the birth of her second child, she lost control.

Her 4-year-old son, Daniel, threatened by his sister’s arrival, had begun wetting his bed and vying--mostly in negative ways--for his mother’s attention. Exhausted and overwhelmed by the demands of caring for two little ones, Joan finally went into the kind of rage her alcoholic mother used to inflict on her.

“I’m sick of this!” she screamed at her frightened little boy.

And then, she said, she beat him with a belt for about five minutes, leaving bruises on his arms and legs.

Her remorse was as intense--and quick to surface--as her anger. In tears, she told Daniel: “Mommy is so sorry. I shouldn’t have done this to you. Mommy is going to call for help.”

She phoned a 24-hour crisis hot line and admitted, “I’ve done a horrible thing. I beat my little boy.” And within a week, she was attending meetings of Parents Anonymous, a self-help group that offers emotional support and guidance for people trying to break family patterns of abuse.

Joan, a 35-year-old Orange County resident who requested anonymity, shared her story recently with a group of about 70 students--mostly young, single mothers--at Rancho Santiago College in Santa Ana.

“I don’t look like the kind of person who would beat a child with a belt, but I was at the end of my rope,” she told them.

However, she added, “I got help, and my little boy hasn’t been beaten again.”

Joan was introduced by Shirley Lui, a licensed clinical social worker who leads one of Orange County’s three Parents Anonymous groups. Lui said the groups--which meet weekly in Santa Ana, Anaheim and Laguna Hills--are part of a national self-help network “for parents who lose their cool with their kids.”

The groups, sponsored locally by the nonprofit Holy Family Services Agency in Santa Ana, offer a safe place to talk about the stresses of parenting and learn non-abusive methods of caring for children, Lui said. (For more information about this free program, call (714) 835-5551.)

Lui noted that those who join Parents Anonymous must agree to stop using physical punishment.

“There’s a difference between punishment and discipline,” she said. “Punishment hurts. It’s confusing, and it doesn’t teach the child anything.”

Lui said that many of those who seek help through Parents Anonymous were abused as children. Because they had such poor role models, “they haven’t had an opportunity to learn effective parenting skills,” she explained.

They see themselves slipping into their parents’ pattern of abuse but don’t know how to change.

Most Parents Anonymous participants are getting help through individual counseling as well as the support group, Lui said. Although some attend the meetings under court mandates, most are there because, like Joan, they know they’re at risk of being abusive and want to protect their children.

Whatever parents say during group sessions is confidential, but the professionals who oversee the groups are required to report cases in which it’s clear that a child is in danger.

Joan urged the Rancho Santiago College students to contact Parents Anonymous as soon as “the red flags go up.”

“Don’t be afraid to get help,” she said. “Parents Anonymous isn’t a big-brother agency that takes your kids away.”

On the contrary, she stressed, Parents Anonymous gives those who have abused their children--or been on the verge of violence--a chance to step forward without being judged.

“I don’t feel any shame,” Joan said. “And I’m getting my son under control without hurting his self-esteem.”

Joan and her husband, Robert, who also suffered abuse as a child, have learned a lot in the year that they have been attending Parents Anonymous meetings.

For example, Joan pointed out, they’ve discovered that rules and consequences carry more weight with their son than threats and angry outbursts.

“We didn’t know how to discipline our children with love,” she said.

They’re also learning to recognize when they’re on the edge of losing control so they can back off before it’s too late.

Joan said she recently called a mother in her Parents Anonymous group because she had come close to spanking Daniel when he disobeyed her. Talking to someone who understood how hard it was to resist that impulse helped her regain control, she said. After the phone call, she no longer had the urge to hit her son. She took away his TV privileges instead.

Sometimes, when she’s about to lose her temper, she tells Daniel, “I’m having a bad time right now so don’t come near me.”

Joan hates having to distance herself from him, but, she explained, “sometimes I just have to--it’s better than abusing him.”

Although she acknowledged that she still has a lot to learn, she knows she’s on the right track because her rambunctious son has settled down considerably in the past year. Joan’s sister recently marveled at the change in him, observing: “He’s so well-behaved. He’s a different kid.”

Joan explained: “That’s because we’re different parents.”

She said it’s a relief to know that if she’s having a problem with her kids, she can discuss it at the next Parents Anonymous meeting and get ideas from the other parents as well as the group’s counselor.

But not everyone is willing to open themselves up to the kind of scrutiny that goes on in this support group as parents admit their faults and explore ways to change.

While Joan and many others see the group as an anchor that keeps them from drifting back into abusive patterns, some are scared off after their first meeting, according to Kelly Fry, a marriage, family and child counselor who leads the Parents Anonymous group in Anaheim.

They find out quickly that there’s no hiding in these groups, where the discussions tend to be both candid and intensely emotional.

During a recent Parents Anonymous meeting in Anaheim, one couple resumed an ongoing argument over how to handle a difficult 16-year-old. The woman started by telling the group, “I’m tired and I’m ticked.” She accused her husband of being emotionally abusive with his stepdaughter; he claimed she was overly indulgent.

“You walk around acting like you hate this child,” she said.

“Why do you cater to her when she doesn’t earn it?” he asked. “She gets rewards when she’s screwing up.”

Fry intervened: “Your daughter has managed to make sure she’s the center of attention all the time. I wish I had as much power as she has in your family. You need to work on this together and not allow her to be the cause of a rift between you.”

The couple agreed to think about what Fry had said. By the end of the meeting, the tension between them had dissolved. They admitted it hadn’t occurred to them that they were allowing their teen-ager to drive them apart, and they left with a determination to try to address the girl’s problems as a team.

Another frustrated parent at the Anaheim meeting on this night was Kristen, whose 3-year-old son is having trouble adjusting to being without her on the three days a week she spends at her new job.

“He’s angry,” Kristen said. “He told me, ‘Mom, you’re going to work because you don’t like me.’ ”

On one recent day when she came home eager to make up for lost time with her son, he stood in front of her, looked her in the eye defiantly and relieved himself on the floor.

Kristen, appalled because her son had already mastered toilet training, lost her temper. She yelled at him, placed him on the toilet and left him there for 10 minutes. “He just swung his legs back and forth and laughed,” Kristen said. Looking to Fry for direction, she added: “I know he wants my attention. I just don’t know what to do.”

“I understand your frustration,” the therapist said. “But instead of yelling at him, go in the other room and take a deep breath. Then come back and ask him, ‘What are you supposed to do when you have to go to the bathroom?’ ”

Fry advised Kristen to continue instructing her son calmly until she gets his attention. “And don’t look at what he does as a personal affront to your ability to be a parent,” Fry added.

At the end of the meeting, Kristen explained that she came to Parents Anonymous a year ago because “I was totally scared. I was doing everything my mother did to me and I hated it.”

She said she was neglected by her mother, who was chronically depressed and often turned, in tears, to her little girl for support.

Kristen was dismayed when she found herself, as a new parent, feeling as helpless as her mother. “I’d sit and look at my son and just break down and cry, thinking, ‘I don’t know how to deal with this.’ I knew what kind of parent I wanted to be, but I didn’t know how to get there.”

Kristen, who is in her early 20s, finally realized that she wasn’t grown up enough to be a good mom, and that she’d better get help. She said Parents Anonymous has taught her, among other things, that “you can’t raise a kid when you’re a kid yourself.”