After violence - putting things right

If you’ve used violence or been abusive to your child’s mother, you will almost certainly need to do things to put right the damage.

The first step will need to be to learn not to be violent or abusive in any relationship, even if your relationship with your child’s mum has ended. This is important for your child’s sake.

You may no longer be with their mum, but you will probably have to see her – this must be free of violence or abuse. You will have another relationship one day and you need to be able to do this without being abusive – again, for the new partner’s sake but also so that there is no danger of your children seeing you be violent or dealing with the aftermath. Also, programmes usually have sessions about the effects of the violence on your children and what you can do about that.

• Click here for information about calling the Respect Phone Line for immediate help and information about what you can do about your abusive behaviour.
• Click here for information about how to get on a programme to stop being violent and abusive.

If you have already been on a programme to stop your abusive behaviour and if the programme staff agree that you have changed, you may also find it useful to attend a parenting programme. There are some which have been specially developed to follow on from the first programme to look in more detail at how to be a good dad after you have stopped being abusive and violent.

In the mean time, there are some things you can do now, to start you thinking about what happened from your child’s point of view and what you might do to try to put this right. Doing the things on this page isn’t enough, but it’s a start. You will really benefit from being on a programme which can help you in more detail over a few months, so that when things get tough you can have some help.

Think about and write down what your child might have heard, seen or picked up on when you were being violent or abusive to their mum. If it helps, think of a particular incident. Maybe they heard noises, shouts, cries, perhaps their mum in pain, or the police coming. Maybe they saw your hurting their mum, or her injuries, or her upset face the next morning. Think about where they were. It’s likely this was close by – in the next room or just upstairs. They will have heard something and they may well have seen something. They will have picked up on atmosphere – children are really good at that.

• How do you think that this felt for them?
  
• What did they have to do to deal with these feelings?
  
• What might this have taught them about how you think things should be for their mum and for them?
  
• What sense might they have made of this?
  
• What effects might this have had on them?
  
• What might they feel about you now as a result?
  
• What will you have to do differently and consistently to try to repair this for them?  

Think about how your abusive behaviour might have affected your parenting. Maybe the children didn’t know how to trust you. Maybe they walked on eggshells trying to guess at your mood. Maybe they were so scared of you they just did everything you said straight away and you didn’t see this as a problem at the time.

• Were you inconsistent in your discipline?
  
• Did you undermine your ex partner’s authority to the children?
  
• Did your behaviour result in your children being afraid to talk to you honestly?

• Contact Respect Phone Line
  
• Contact your nearest programme to stop violent and abusive behaviour
  
• Think about what you need to change about yourself to make your parenting consistent, safe and non-frightening for your children
  
• Think about how you are going to make those changes
  
• Find out more from pages on Dads' Space or the Respect website or from other parenting websites.
  
• Think about what help you might need to stick at what might be a difficult and slow process and where you are going to get that help.
  

Next: Dealing with your child's anger towards you