Am I enabling or accommodating
Parents and caregivers often ask themselves this question, particularly when their child is neurodivergent or has a neuro-disability.
We understand that behaviour can be linked to brain-based differences. We are encouraged to think "brain, not blame." Yet when violence is part of the picture, separating the two can become incredibly confusing. At what point does understanding become minimisation? At what point does accommodation become enabling?
The emphasis on understanding behaviour through a health or disability lens can make it harder to talk honestly about violence. For many parents, it adds to the minimisation already happening in our own minds. Professionals, family members, friends, and the wider community often offer conflicting messages: accommodate more, set firmer boundaries, impose stronger consequences. These views appear different, but both can shift attention away from the violence itself. One risks explaining it away; the other locates the problem in poor parenting or inadequate boundaries. Either way, parents are left feeling blamed, scrutinised, and responsible for solving an impossible situation.
The violence may be explained or contextualised, yet its impact remains. Understanding the role of disability, neurodivergence, trauma, or mental distress is important, but these explanations should not prevent us from recognising fear, coercion, control, and harm when they are present. Disability-informed practice and family violence-informed practice are not mutually exclusive. Families affected by CPVA need both.
When my child was violent towards me, the lines often felt blurred. Was their behaviour a result of their neuro-disability, was it intentional, or was it both? These questions haunt me still. While children do not start out as perpetrators of violence, violence and coercive control can become powerful tools. When these behaviours repeatedly achieve a desired outcome, they can become reinforced and deeply entrenched.
I am certain my child experienced a dopamine high during her rages. The adrenaline, intensity, and sense of power felt good at that moment. If a behaviour repeatedly produces a neurological reward while also delivering control over the people around you, it’s easy to see how those patterns can become reinforced.
Some would argue that the child or young person needed more engagement or stimulation. Others would insist that stronger consequences were required. Both left me asking the same confusing question: was I failing to meet their needs, or failing to challenge harmful behaviour?
I was already doing everything possible to keep everything on an even keel. My daughter’s attention shifted rapidly from one activity to the next, requiring extraordinary levels of novelty, engagement, time, money, and emotional energy from me. No one person could realistically sustain that level of input day after day. I was superwoman until I eventually crashed and burned, and I have never fully recovered.
The violence was no longer simply an expression of distress. Increasingly, it felt like a means of exerting control, and it worked. When you are at risk, you will do almost anything to keep yourself safe.
For parents experiencing CPVA, the challenge is not choosing between blame and understanding. It is holding two truths at the same time: a child may have genuine and significant support needs, but the violence, fear, coercion, and control experienced by family members are real. Acknowledging disability, neurodivergence, trauma, developmental differences, or unmet needs does not mean ignoring harm.
Our focus on understanding disability or changing behaviour has made us reluctant to name violence when it occurs. When we fail to name it as violence, for whatever reason we think it’s caused by, we risk minimising the experiences of parents and caregivers living in fear - and make it harder for them to access the support and safety they need.