• Friend of the Family Radio Show
• Ask Dr. Susan
• Free Parenting Videos
• Tell a Friend
• Bookmark Us!

Abuse and Neglect Chapter 2

I'm Dr. Susan Turben. Welcome to the second chapter of our Chapter Book. This is Chapter 2 of a 5 part series on Neglect and Abuse.

"The Guide Book for Caring Adults Who Work with Neglect and Abuse"

A chapter book created for professionals and parents who deal with the maltreatment of children in homes, agencies and child care settingsChapter Two emphasizes two assessment skills: conversational instruction and priority goal setting, based on family concerns. These skills are not generally associated with professional pre-service training. However, continuing education curriculum for state personnel preparation does emphasize these interpersonal skills, because communication is the key to effective relationships with families who seek help from specialists and professionals from many disciplines.

Introduction: Chapter Two focuses on using the family story model as the method for understanding the meaning of conversational instruction. Conversational instruction requires you to listen to a story of a family's life and understand their issues, concerns and priorities. Rather than conducting a structured interview and writing down answers to questions, you will be able to employ the family story technique in order to adjust quickly to a particular family's life style. Once that happens, the meaning of "family" becomes a valuable group of people, a series of life events, and a unique familial culture, rather than a client or patient. Those are the pluses of the family story model. I will use the family stories of two foster children to demonstrate.

Cory's family story: Cory is the younger son of parents who benignly neglected him, preferring the other child whose personality was passive and compliant. This meant that Cory was ignored most of the time and harshly disciplined in between times. Cory was on his own, left to his own devices. His energetic curiosity and high energy got him in trouble. At the age of ten, he was on the streets, in and out of juvenile court, and he was severely abusive with teachers and peers at school. He had no friends.

Cory is in foster care with Chris and George, professional foster parents who have three grown sons and another foster son, Ben, who came to the home about the same time as Cory. Cory says foster care was a godsend, a savior, and "saved his life." He still has violent outbursts occasionally, but he has a mental plan he uses to control his emotions, and he is proud of his progress. Even so, he feels angry that his memories of life at home with his parents and brother are negative. He remembers harsh punishments, being ignored, and wanting attention. He remembers how his neighbors gave him little things, like a birthday present, a jacket from Sears and other personal things. Cory talks about his foster mother as a wonderful person who let him cling to her clothes, like Velcro, and even sleep with her for several months, until he got adjusted to normal family behavior. He is grateful for his older foster brothers, who gave him a rough time, but showed they actually liked him. He remembers a day when they asked him to get up at five in the morning to deliver papers with them. He thought that was cool. (But the next day his foster mother didn't think it was cool, when she went in to get him up and he wasn't there!)

Cory loves the "hood. He says he "feels safe here" but still thinks of his family and the old neighborhood. He has no contact with his brother or parents, but Cory's memories are that his family did nothing but criticize and yell at him. His brothers said he was stupid, but they didn't mean it; the teacher praised him for his math "talents." Maybe Cory's parents don't remember it that way, but what he recalls is what shapes his life and both developmentally and academically.

Notice that Cory tells his story in the context of community. Family and neighborhood stories belong together. Communities have rules, just as families do. Neighborhoods where every parent works, where kids take care of each other after school, or where there are no children in the "hood" because they all go to after school care programs, each have different sets of rules.

Ben's family story:
Ben has been in the same foster home as Corey. They have been a family for six years, since Ben was just an infant. He was placed in foster care because of repeated battering and abuse by his teenage parents. One day a neighbor called social services and reported the new teenage father for boasting, "I got hit growing up, and my son will get the same." When Ben was only an eight month-old crawling infant, he picked up a piece of paper and put it in his mouth. The father bragged that he hit the baby, saying, "He won't try that again."

A social worker from job and family services came to the house, took out a pad and pencil and started writing down a "family assessment." He spent an hour at the house. He said his assessment was that the family needed parent education and the teenage dad needed a job. Dad said he worked on and off, and that he always put bread on the table for his wife. He threatened the social worker, telling him there was something the social worker to do, "Get out of his house." The worker said, "I can't do that. I am responding to a report of threats that you injured your infant." There was no conversation, no family story, nothing to help the situation, so the worker said, "Do you know you can't hit your child?" The father became hostile and threatening, saying, "Get out of my house." After the worker left, the father went to the neighbor's house and threatened to kill him. The police were called.

The next day, a female social worker brought job-training forms to the house. The father wasn't there, and she asked to see the infant. The mom said she wasn't allowed to let her inside because of "what happened yesterday." The social worker noted bruises on the mom's arms and, after she left the house, she reported the situation. Two days later Ben was rushed to the hospital by his mother, and immediately removed from the parents for physical abuse and severe battering. The mom told police that she meant to go to a violence abuse shelter months before, but couldn't get up the courage. She was glad the neighbor had spoken up.

Conversational instruction:
If you listen and talk in a conversational manner, you open up many options for establishing effective family relations, addressing family concerns and solving situations and problems. Learn to use a conversational tone of voice by practicing a friendly but not intimate pitch, voice register and body language. Talk back and forth, taking turns talking and listening. Listen more than you talk. Practice talking and listening in front of a mirror.

These core elements of conversational instruction are not "fluff" or obvious. It takes practice and work to establish healthy relationships with families based on two (or more) way conversations. Avoid "I am the expert; you are the needy client" or "my-way-or-the-highway" pronouncements. Professionals can still share knowledge and expertise, while acknowledging they are not the experts on any individual family's life.

Conversational instruction is a better way to move into any family's life and observe and verify adult behaviors. Only then can the need to change take place. Use your best conversational "concerned" tone of voice, and explain that you are respectful but firm about giving alternatives to harsh punishment. That is a valid step toward mutual problem solving. Think to yourself, "This family needs me to offer practical advice. Say to yourself with conviction: "This family is in charge of its own destiny, but I have the tools and knowledge of child development and non-violent options to help them find a better way."

Family stories allow you to engage families in give and take conversations. As a necessary evil, practice making a list of personal family traits for a hypothetical family. I'll give you a few scenarios to choose from! Pretend you are a family who comes from another country, and live in a housing project for seniors. Your parents live there because dad is the custodian. Man, you hate that place. You have no friends because there are no kids your age. Or you are a drug addicted thirty-something mom with two kids, living in a trailer. Your family is too poor to afford bus fare to the Y, even though all your kid's buddies work out there on weekends. Or pretend your parents fight constantly and the neighbors call the police frequently, but never do anything because it is a so-called "nice" neighborhood. Your family's clothes are the butt of jokes in the school where your children go.

Draw a picture of a fictitious family tree. What is the effect of the family and the community on the drawing you made? You most probably drew lines and circles to indicate relationships between people, agencies, schools and other places that are part of a family's life. Did you put temperament or emotional states are on the family tree? If not, practice creating a family's world on paper, and make it as complex as possible, because each family unit is every bit that complicated. Families are worlds, not institutions. Ben's story is a good one to draw out as a family "world map.

Examples of conversational directions: Here are some examples of conversational directions to take when talking with families in abuse and neglect situations. Imagine you are sent to deal with the initial report of abuse. "Get out of my house" is dad's priority. Did you make an effort to have a conversation before you left? If you were the social worker who made the initial visit in Ben's family story, the answer is definitely no! Challenging the dad (by saying, "I can't do that") means you learned nothing and did nothing. You failed to focus on the dad's priority or on your own need to set a plan in motion.

Instead, make a common sense family assessment by taking a conversational approach. Tell dad what you heard, what you need to see, why the neighbor called, and other observational facts you know. Include positive comments about the neighborhood or family. Tell your reason for being there, even if dad knows it. Say it again. Tell your side of your story. Have a conversation, listening to his statements, relating to him that you hear what he is saying, and commenting that the law requires suspected abuse be reported by members of any community at any time. Thank him for letting you be there, even if you are required to do so.

Say, "I'm here for a good reason, let's talk. Tell me whatever story you want to share." Ask about how he and his family members were raised. Say, "I am here to give concrete examples of alternatives to hitting and yelling. You don't have to do what was done to you." Be sure your comments reflect concrete ideas, such as "hitting hurts, it injures children, battering is not necessary, it's preventable," and give alternative options. Calm down the situation by depersonalizing the problem and assuring him you will be there to observe his appropriate behavior, as well as help him stop unacceptable behavior. "Here," you say, "is a list of alternatives we can work on, immediately."

Say, "I'll tell you what I saw and heard about the report and complaint. I'll talk, then you talk." Listen, but also share comments like, "Since I've been here, I see your temper, hear threats." Say, "I heard the tiniest sigh in your voice because deep down you knew I am here to help-that's good. I saw that 'I can't get rid of her look.' That's really positive to me."

Start a conversation about the possibility that the baby and mom are afraid of his behavior, are hiding, or may have been told not to come out of another room. Give dad a chance to explain, complain, and tell about his background, his story. You are observing, so you stick to what you see and hear, and what you want to see and hear. Say, " I want to be sure to see that the baby will not be hit. I want to hear the words that tell me he will not be yelled at or abused. Now, tell me your ideas and what you will do to protect him."

Say, "I'll call to be sure you are ok, but you tell yourself, 'no more hitting.' That is what I am writing down, our conversation and agreement on that. See? I assess what I see and what I hear and I appreciate your telling me your story." Say what you believe, and be credible. "I believe hitting teaches kids to hit back. Yelling teaches kids to yell back and what does that do?"

Chapter III - Abuse and Neglect