Introduction: Exploring Parent Abuse – Building Knowledge across Disciplines

There is an extensive body of literature on the ways in which the family home is often a site of conflict and discord rather than security and safety. Much of this work has focussed on the problem of domestic violence perpetrated by adults and how the state should respond to it (Home Office, 2009). Another form of family violence however, that of the abuse of parents (or those occupying a parental role) by their adolescent children, has not received such public (or academic) recognition (Hunter et al., 2010). In the UK, the issue of parent abuse remains one of the most unacknowledged and under-researched form of family violence.