Child-to-parent violence: frequency and reasons for the aggressions against parents

In the present study, we developed a new version of a self-report that assesses child-to-parent aggressions, the Child to Parent Aggression Questionnaire-Revised. This questionnaire, in addition to evaluating the frequency of various forms of physical and psychological child to parent aggression, also evaluates the reasons for the aggressions. A total of 1274 adolescents (654 boys and 620 girls, between 14 and 18 years) took part in the study. The results showed that girls carried out more child to parent aggressions and that these attacks are more common against the mothers than against the fathers. Furthermore, the results indicate the most frequent reasons for those attacks, which are grouped into three factors: instrumental, affective and defensive. The three factors have excellent internal consistency. Numerous differences emerged according to the sex of the adolescents. For example, home arrival time is mentioned more often by girls than by boys in reference to attacks against the mother. Girls also indicate self-defense and feeling misunderstood as the most frequent reasons for aggression.