Language Matters—What We’ve Learned during the First Year of Talking about CPVA
By Lauri Cabral
Chair of the Child to Parent Violence and Aggression Working Group at Adopt4Life
One year ago, Adopt4Life set out to open a conversation with parents, families, and the professionals engaged with them, to explore a topic that was being referenced as “child to parent violence and aggression”. We had sensed for some time that an increasing number of parents and caregivers in our Parent2Parent Support Network community were struggling with what appeared to be escalating incidents of harm and safety concerns in their homes. We had earlier become aware of credible, evidence-based research and findings internationally that spoke of these issues, and we felt it was important to bring forward.
One year later, we’ve learned a lot. Hundreds of parents, caregivers, and professionals have shared their stories and experiences with us, and they prove that our instincts were right. A significant number of families who are parenting children (whether by adoption, kinship, or customary care) who have experienced significant trauma and loss, are living with responses that cause harm to both the child/youth and to members of their family. Often, there is a complex history that interferes with the child’s ability to accept comfort or security from their primary caregivers which may result in the child harming themselves or others in their family. Internationally, CPVA is recognized as not being an adoption-specific issue; it occurs in all kinds of families.
We’ve spoken to more and more families (there are currently 70+ Ontario families in our private online peer support group for adoptive parents/kinship caregivers experiencing CPVA), and we’ve also been witness to parents and caregivers sharing the impact these challenges have on their child, themselves, and also siblings, grandparents, and other family members. The feedback from parents has been overwhelmingly consistent:
Finally. I feel heard and seen for the first time.
This gives me the understanding that I am not alone.
I’m better able now to talk to my child’s doctor/ counsellor about what’s happening.
I didn’t know there were so many other families living this too. I’ve been so ashamed.
I know now that my child isn’t behaving badly; they’re struggling and we all need support.
As we’ve listened to parents, caregivers, colleagues, and other partners in child welfare and social services here in Canada, we’ve also learned another key lesson: language matters.
This is an incredibly difficult topic to talk about openly, without shame or blame, and without stigmatizing either children or their parents/caregivers. The words that we choose to describe these issues, the underlying factors, the families who are impacted, the fear and hurt that families often experience, and the children and youth at the center of the conversation—all of those matter, and ensuring that we respect the intrinsic human value of everyone involved, is so critically important.
Concerns have been expressed about the language of “Child to Parent Violence and Aggression” or “CPVA”. There is a sincere desire to frame the conversations in a positive language, and with greater context on what conditions often exist in a child’s early life that contribute to their responses to past traumas. These concerns are important to hear and reflect on, particularly when considering the underlying fears about the potential harms in labelling, shaming, or stigmatizing a child who is acting in a way that does not define who they are. This struggle is not unique to our dialogue in Canada; in countries around the world where this topic has been extensively researched and studied, there are many descriptors applied (‘violence’, ‘abuse’, ‘aggression’) which may raise concern about stigmatizing vulnerable children and youth.
Language matters. How we talk about this difficult subject is important. How we continue to connect families, parents and caregivers, therapists, children’s mental health professionals and advocates, child welfare advocates, and community support networks—those all matter. Emerging Canadian-specific data on family violence is suggestive that the occurrence of CPVA may be even higher than we originally anticipated, re-enforcing that there is still so much for us all to explore. It’s critical that we continue to seek out and identify a varied toolkit of strategies, supports, and resources that can be considered for their effectiveness in supporting individual families’ needs.
Language matters. As we continue to work and partner towards both a provincial and national Canadian effort that brings increased awareness and understanding of this issue, including the help that families and children need in order to heal from these traumas, it’s important that we (parents, professionals, advocates, first-voice experts) all work together to evolve the language and terms that we’re using. But what matters most is that we all keep talking. Our children need us to… and the urgency to act on their behalf is one we simply can’t disregard.