Child to parent violence and aggression: Reviewing the research

Child to parent violence and aggression: Reviewing the research Child-to-parent violence and aggression (CPVA) is described as a form of family violence characterized by a pattern (as opposed to a single incident) of violent and aggressive behaviours in children and youth towards their parents or primary caregivers. These behaviours may have several consequences, including: triggering fear, grief, and other emotions; experiencing a loss of control; negatively impacting both individual and family well-being; and generating new behaviours in parents, siblings and other family members or caregivers in order to avoid physical violence or verbal altercations [1–3]. While there are other terms for this phenomenon (e.g., parent abuse, youth violence), CPVA is the most widely used terminology. Compared to other forms of family violence, CPVA is relatively understudied, and there is limited recent research on this phenomenon in a Canadian context. This report synthesizes the findings of a scoping review that resulted in 162 peer-reviewed articles on CPVA that were published between January 2009 and March 2022 as well as an analysis of statistical information on victims (parents or siblings) of youth violence in Canada between 2009 and 2021. 2023-10-27 Department of Justice Canada OG-GO@justice.gc.ca Government and PoliticsHealth and SafetyLawChild-to-parent violence and aggressionfamily violencereport Child to parent violence and aggression: Reviewing the researchHTML https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/rp-pr/jr/cpva-vaep/index.html Child to parent violence and aggression: Reviewing the researchHTML https://www.justice.gc.ca/fra/pr-rp/jr/vaep-cpva/index.html Child to parent violence and aggression: Reviewing the researchPDF https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/rp-pr/jr/cpva-vaep/pdf/RSD_RR2023_CPVA-ReviewingtheLiterature-en.pdf Child to parent violence and aggression: Reviewing the researchPDF https://www.justice.gc.ca/fra/pr-rp/jr/vaep-cpva/pdf/RSD_RR2023_CPVA-Reviewing-the-Literature-fr.pdf

Child-to-parent violence and aggression (CPVA) is described as a form of family violence characterized by a pattern (as opposed to a single incident) of violent and aggressive behaviours in children and youth towards their parents or primary caregivers. These behaviours may have several consequences, including: triggering fear, grief, and other emotions; experiencing a loss of control; negatively impacting both individual and family well-being; and generating new behaviours in parents, siblings and other family members or caregivers in order to avoid physical violence or verbal altercations [1–3]. While there are other terms for this phenomenon (e.g., parent abuse, youth violence), CPVA is the most widely used terminology. Compared to other forms of family violence, CPVA is relatively understudied, and there is limited recent research on this phenomenon in a Canadian context. This report synthesizes the findings of a scoping review that resulted in 162 peer-reviewed articles on CPVA that were published between January 2009 and March 2022 as well as an analysis of statistical information on victims (parents or siblings) of youth violence in Canada between 2009 and 2021.

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