What are the limits on parental love and should it have limits?

Sago

Unfortunately it’s very often poor parenting at the root of the problem.

How AR had come to dominate the family home in such a way has to be down to a complete lack of boundaries.
The photograph of the families living room said it all.

Our daughter became very rebellious after leaving university, she came to live at home, she had a good job but had a female friend who was a bad influence.

We gave her 4 weeks notice to leave our home, we didn’t want her younger brothers thinking her behaviour was acceptable.

She left and moved into a flat a few miles away, we helped her move and it was all reasonably amicable.

It was the best thing we ever did.

She now realises what an entitled madam she had become!

The attached picture is the Rudukabana family living room..

Guessing you was the perfect parent then🙄.... I see lounges far worse than that in my role...and they are deemed 'good enough ' ....I've seen parents terrified by their teenage children ....and its not all down to 'bad parenting ' ....many families have so many ACES that they start on the back foot anyway when it comes so parenting

…the family’s room
There’s only 1 family.

Prisons are full of people whose parents didn’t draw a line. It’s human nature, though I’m not saying that it’s right.

I think many parents with problem children know that they will be blamed and condemned if their children become deranged and commit dreadful acts.

Sago's comments about parents not setting limits is not necessarily true. Some of these children have had problems since toddlers, but for many it is a sudden change at adolescence, when a ordinary happy boy,(and it almost always is boys) suddenly becomes 'Kevin, the teenager' (the Harry Enfield character), even when this is just ordinary teenage rebellion, it can be very difficult to deal with.

When it goes beyond that as in a number of cases recently, and the boy becomes fixated on violence, parents have and do often seek help, but the one thing they do not want is for their son to get a criminal record, for something they see as a phase he is going throgh and will grow out of.

Peter Hitchins, the right wing journalist and commentator believes that there is a strong link between extreme violence in some adolescents and the use of cannabis. 12-14 is the age that many adoelscents first experiment with drugs. 12-14 is when children move into the most active physical and mental stage of adolescence

Modern skunk cannabis is very strong. A third of current cases of psychosis have cannabis consumption as their cause and the brains of adolescents are very vulnerable. As the details of the man arrested for the awful train stabbings comes out, I cannot but wonder where and how his symptoms of psychosiss started and what triggered it.

LOUISA1523

Sago

Unfortunately it’s very often poor parenting at the root of the problem.

How AR had come to dominate the family home in such a way has to be down to a complete lack of boundaries.
The photograph of the families living room said it all.

Our daughter became very rebellious after leaving university, she came to live at home, she had a good job but had a female friend who was a bad influence.

We gave her 4 weeks notice to leave our home, we didn’t want her younger brothers thinking her behaviour was acceptable.

She left and moved into a flat a few miles away, we helped her move and it was all reasonably amicable.

It was the best thing we ever did.

She now realises what an entitled madam she had become!

The attached picture is the Rudukabana family living room..

Guessing you was the perfect parent then🙄.... I see lounges far worse than that in my role...and they are deemed 'good enough ' ....I've seen parents terrified by their teenage children ....and its not all down to 'bad parenting ' ....many families have so many ACES that they start on the back foot anyway when it comes so parenting

I see lounges far worse than that in my role...and they are deemed 'good enough'

Houses with weapons around?

If I went into a house that looked like that and it had young children in it, I would be sacked for not raising concerns/seeking support for family, etc.

paddyann54

I don’t know about evil but my parents dealt with my sister and her husband who became alcoholics.
Over two decades my parents paid deposits for rental flats,for their children’s clothes,.Took her and the kids in for months at a time to try to get her away from him ,had her steal from them .
Sent my younger sister and I to her with cash when she phoned saying she had lost her purse …a regular call .Eventually they sent me with bags of food and clothes instead of cash .
It was the most difficult decision of their lives when they needed to step away from her.My father had heart attacks caused by the stress .He died and my sister died 10 months after he did by choking on vomit when she was drunk ,her husband was unconscious and woke too late to Save her .
Tough love wouldn,t have worked,she was besotted with him hadn’t drank alcohol until she met him .
My parents adored her and thought helping was what they should do. I,m sure there are many families who do the same.

How very sad, I’m so sorry you all had to go through this.😢

agnurse

I think it's important to make a distinction between loving your child and agreeing with or even enabling their behaviour.

As an example, I have family members who have made choices that are contrary to my personal values. I still love them, even if I don't agree with their decisions. Now, in these cases, fortunately, they are not illegal actions so I am not faced with that decision. However, I do think there is an obligation not to enable people and in some cases to report their behaviour if there are serious risks. (For example, if a parent found out that their child was driving drunk, I think they have an obligation to report to prevent injury.)

Thank you agnurse. Your post says it all. Would also widen ebacblingthis to addicts.

Especially Alcoholics who can be incredibly destructive not only to the themselves and loved ones.

icanhandthemback

In my father's family everything was hushed up, even paedophilia, on my mother's side, we tend to overshare but fight for help. When my half brother died of a drugs overdose, my father insisted everyone was told that he had had a heart attack and refused to go to the Coroner's hearing or take part in the investigation into what had gone wrong. His mother covered up his lapses by hiding the evidence in a neighbour's bin so that his rehab councillor wouldn't know and wouldn't ever admit he was an addict.
When I was a kid, my father wouldn't acknowledge my existence once my parents were divorced because he didn't want people to know of his first marriage.
I think we can certainly blame the parents in AR's case for not getting him the help he needed but anybody in this country who has tried to get help for their children will know how hard it is. Even if you manage to get seen by a "professional" the treatment is usually limited after the initial appointment to a set amount of time with absolutely no regard to need. The professional services are so overloaded, it is bound to fail.

The parents did try to get help for their son. He was known to the authorities. He had been on the radar for a long, long time and nothing was done about it. He was referred to the anti-extremist programme Prevent on three separate occasions between 2019 and 2021 over his general obsession with violence.
Lancashire Constabulary officers responded to calls from the teenagers home address five times between October 2019 and May 2022 relating to concerns about his behaviour.

There were also repeated referrals to safeguarding services, children’s social care and adolescent mental health services and a referral to the youth offending team after AR’s conviction for a violent offence.

There’s going to be a public inquiry to “ stop anything like this from happening again” but nothing is going to stop the parents from feeling that they have been very badly let down when the findings are revealed.

Allira

^I think it's important to make a distinction between loving your child and agreeing with or even enabling their behaviour.^

Good point agnurse

I think Rubanaka was known to the authorities but the father wanted everything kept quiet and hushed up. Perhaps they felt ashamed?
It must be difficult to deal with a family who refused to share information and would not take advantage of any help which could have been offered.

Years ago a referral to a Child Guidance Clinic would have been the preferred route where specialised and co-ordinated help would have been available for both child and parents. It seems this is not the case any longer, perhaps with cuts in services. The waiting list for CAHMS is long and the service, as far as I know, is different in concept.

The father and mother had called the police four times to report their sons scary behaviour. Those calls details are all in police records that came out in court. The police, social services, psychiatric and education services had all been involved with the boy's extreme problems for years.

Hardly a family " keeping quiet " or "hushing it up."

eazybee

There was a case recently when a teenage boy stabbed and killed another boy, fled the scene and went home; his father took him to the police station and he was recently convicted.
That is what has to be done, that must have been terrible, but not so terrible as the life of the family of the boy he had murdered.

There was a similar one in our area, where the mother rang the Police.

In the case of criminal activity, I think parents have a duty to their child, as well as wider society, to inform the Police (if that's appropriate) that their child is likely to, or has, committed a crime. AR's parents didn't and now the son, who they say they loved, is locked up for life - not what any parent would want. If they'd done something before, maybe that could have been prevented, those girls may not have been murdered, and AR would have, hopefully, had the treatment, as well as punishment, that he needed. Hiding deviant behaviour does no-one any favours, the perpetrator included.

So, yes, I would report my child in those circumstances. That's love.

I think the parents named above are the exception to the rule. It has been suggested that the guard in the recent train incident is awarded a George Cross for his heroism. Are we to see as failing any passenger who did not show such heroism?

Most parents are aware he damage getting a criminal record can be to a troubled child's return to normality, so I do understand why they do nto want polic involved, obviously I am nott alking about situations where they have committed a violent crime.

In the AR case. the family fled the massacres in Ruanda, where many family members were killed, and it was said in court they knew only one other Ruandan family in the UK. I think the family were already suffering with alienation.

But my aim was this thread would be more general, although this case would inform it,with others.

butterandjam

Allira

I think it's important to make a distinction between loving your child and agreeing with or even enabling their behaviour.

Good point agnurse

I think Rubanaka was known to the authorities but the father wanted everything kept quiet and hushed up. Perhaps they felt ashamed?
It must be difficult to deal with a family who refused to share information and would not take advantage of any help which could have been offered.

Years ago a referral to a Child Guidance Clinic would have been the preferred route where specialised and co-ordinated help would have been available for both child and parents. It seems this is not the case any longer, perhaps with cuts in services. The waiting list for CAHMS is long and the service, as far as I know, is different in concept.

The father and mother had called the police four times to report their sons scary behaviour. Those calls details are all in police records that came out in court. The police, social services, psychiatric and education services had all been involved with the boy's extreme problems for years.

Hardly a family " keeping quiet " or "hushing it up."

Hardly a family " keeping quiet " or "hushing it up."

That is not what I said. You've changed the meaning.

Yes, the authorities, The Child and Wellbeing Service, were involved but at the enquiry, it was stated that Rudakubana's father asked that information about his son should not be shared with the Youth Offending Team.

Places at two special schools were offered; the family declined to accept them.
Visits to the home were made and concerns expressed, but very difficult to enforce support without parental consent.
In this case the blame does lie squarely at the parents' door; only concerned when he threatened them.

Travelling into a rough area a couple of times a month is depressing .
I'm appalled at the cruelty to children .
They sit on the bus - pale faced and sad and aren't allowed to interrupt their mothers who are either talking very outlying or glued to their phones .
I have reported incidences a few times .
One mother threatened to throw her son off the train , because he asked for a biscuit .
Another mother repeatedly called her little daughter a f-----g little c--t for walking too slowly .
But I know plenty of extremely loving and caring parents with children ,who have playedcteuant from school,stolen from then,attacked them,trashed the house and are on drugs or alcohol or both .
I don't think that they are guilty of poor parenting.

I wonder about genetics .

It's unconditional love M0nica.

Some parents continue to love and support, not condone or excuse, but support their children who've committed the most heinous crimes; the father of Jeffrey Dahmer springs to mind.

I must be a bad parent because when one of my daughters was being verbally abusive to me for almost 10 years I had Darth Vader as her ring tone so I could warn myself who was calling.

I used to tell my girls if they ever commited a crime I'd take them to the police station but I'd pay for the best lawyer I could. (my brothers committed mild criminal activity and my mum enabled them)

Not a bad parent Maggs a sensible one; forewarned is fore armed.

eazybee

Places at two special schools were offered; the family declined to accept them.
Visits to the home were made and concerns expressed, but very difficult to enforce support without parental consent.
In this case the blame does lie squarely at the parents' door; only concerned when he threatened them.

If you read posts from desperate parents on Mumsnet it seems so hard to get support. I wonder how some get offered help when others are desperate but ignored.

Why can those knives be bought on line. So many ordered but from where. Whoever are guilty of supplying dangerous weapons as should the manufacturers shoukd be clised down and stopped from trading again, they are responsible too.
If my son had knives delivered, I wouldn't want him or the knives in the house and would most definitely get the police, there is a huge difference about loving your child and assisting in their manic behaviour which can damage others,. You don't weaponise for fun. Time after time we hear if the failure of the system in such cases and lessons are not learnt and I am sick of hearing empty promises. Our responsibility as parents are of course to the child but to wider society.. I couldn't live with the guilt of enabling him. Esmay’s comments are so very sad, poor children having such parents, can you imagine their home lives, they will grow up thinking that is normal. What sort of parent uses their child
as a verbal punchball like that, someone who's been bought up like that.

The porblem with the internet is that the company supplying the knives may well not be based in Britain, so cannot be shutdown by our rules.

They probably should ban selling knives online, even kitchen knives, so that at least some control can be made but knives large and small are in every kitchen, so if a person wants to carry one it’s easy.

Society has decided that discipline and control has been relaxed, allowing gangs to roam the streets and drugs in common use, which is very often the cause of knife crime.

It’s in our hands vote for proper responsibility, discipline and control the criminals who just laugh at the police.

You cannot ban online sellers who operate from other countries, like the USA, China or similar.

M0nica

You cannot ban online sellers who operate from other countries, like the USA, China or similar.

They could be stopped at customs, well probably not all but some. Maybe laws to prosecute people who ordered them. Might slow it down.