DadTalk

What would you do if your child attacked you?

Accountant Mary Taylor endured the tyranny of her son Jack's monstrous behaviour until the day he held a knife to her throat.

She suffered his door-slamming rages, his physical assaults and volleys of verbal abuse.

But when Jack - her once bright and biddable middle child - threatened to kill her, Mary called the police.

Jack, now 20, was charged with assault and left the family home in South-East England he shared with his Mum and two siblings to live in a B&B.

But his behaviour was too much for the B&B owners and he now lives in a squat.

'Jack will appear in court on the assault charge soon and I dread facing him,' says Mary, 47, a widow.

'He calls me in tears saying he'll commit suicide if I don't drop the charges, but what can I do? I love Jack, but I can't like him. He's driven me to the brink of a nervous breakdown.'

Mary's case is not unique. Alarmingly, it is not even rare. She is one of a rising number of parents who are enduring terrifying physical attacks from their children.

Charity Parentline Plus's report this week revealed the scale of the problem, from which no social group is immune.

In the past two years, it has received 22,537 calls from parents struggling to cope with their children's extreme behaviour. Almost 7,000 of those who contacted the charity reported physical abuse, while 14,000 cited verbal aggression.

Girls and boys are equal offenders. Neither are the problems confined to the tricky years of adolescence, say parents, some of who are dealing with toddlers' uncontrollable rages. More worryingly, even adult children - still living at home - are lashing out at their parents.

Read the rest of the article from The Daily Mail.