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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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."

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.

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.

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.😢

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.

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?

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.

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.

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

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 do not think we can generalise here. Perhaps one never can when discussing human behaviour.

My experience as a school-teacher has shown me very clearly that many parents are unable to see faults in their children, or indeed any difficulties the child might have ,be they learning difficulties, or behavioural issues.

I suspect to a certain extent we all see our children as extensions of ourselves, that our love for them, and theirs for us, blinds us to a certain extent to the less acceptable sides of them, and that guilt if a child, whether as a child or and adult, does something wrong also plays a part.

And of course this applies to the love between spouses as well.

I think there have to be limits, not to our love for parents, children, husband or wife, sisters, brothers, friends, but to our tolerance of their behaviour and that the limit must be reached, when we see them either harming themselves, or harming others (including us).

Enabling a drug addict, or an alcoholic (to take two common examples) is surely wrong, as whatever the addict may say, it is not in their best interest that we help them to continue along their self-destructive path.

Nor can it ever be morally right to conceal that anyone, family member or not, is potentially or actually harming others, is contemplating a crime, or has committed one.

In most countries, it is a crime not to report a crime that you know has been committed,or one that is being contemplated.
Concealing crimes will probably lead to you being charged as complicit, or an accessory.

In our lifetime, attitudes have changed regarding many things that we were brought up to believe were wrong. Many of these changes are all to the good, but,l ike anything else, tolerance can be carried too far.

So to my mind, there needs to be limits to our tolerance, and we need to make moral and ethical decisions when confronted with cruelty in any form, or criminal behaviour.

But there should not be limits not to our love, but to any acceptance of wrong-doing. It would be the epitome of selfishness only to love those who treats as well! But by actively concealing wrong-doing, we are subject society as such, potentially, or in actual fact to it.

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.

@Sago easy to blame the parents but they did report their son and tried to get help, the system let them down, as it does so often with MH. He was also abusing his parents so like all abuse victims their heads would not have been in a good place.

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.

is there something primal

I dont think so.

I knew a set of parents who, though well aware of the chilrens' shortcomings, still thought they were the most wonderful children on earth.
And also, expected others to be and do the same with their own children.

No thanks!

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.

That’s similar to the plot of ‘Adolescence’ isn’t it? It was the right thing for any parent to do.

There have been several cases of parents turning a blind eye to any evidence that their child is a paedophile.

As parents we never want to believe the worst about our children not just because we love them and see them as part of us but also because society is very quick to blame parents, particularly mothers.

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.

Of course there should be limits and boundaries, but in practice, I'm sure we've all seen the lengths some parents will go to for their children. I'm thinking of one case in which a mother helped her son cover up evidence of a murder.
And it's not always a case of poor parenting - as others have rightly pointed out, a child can come from a very solid, loving background and still end up committing a heinous crime. Hopefully none of us will ever have to find out how our limits might be tested in such situations.

I think that children can come from a very solid background and then fall under the influence of mind altering drugs, peer group pressure whatever and the family relationships breakdown. Whether that was the case with RK or maybe he was always extremely difficult he certainly appeared to rule the roost. Interestingly I was reading about the daughter of the late Angela Lansbury as a teenager, she started behaving very badly, stealing from family, taking drugs etc. she had fallen under the influence of a very dangerous man, that man was Charles Manson. Angela Lansbury took the extreme measure, and of course she had the means, to do that, to move the family from California to Ireland and in doing so probably saved her daughter from becoming part of his murderous cult.

I think you can look at your adult child and see them but you also feel that baby in your arms, totally vulnerable, totally relying on you. It is hard to ignore your baby.