Children's Needs – Parenting Capacity - Digital Education Resource ...

70 Children’s Needs – Parenting CapacityA personality and borderline personality disorder also influences the abilityto control emotions. Parents may experience inappropriate or intense anger orproblems in controlling anger (Hill et al. 2005). Mothers with borderline personalitydisorder have been shown to have difficulty with sensitive and empathetic parenting(Newman et al. 2007). The impulsivity and rapid and extreme swings of moodcan be very difficult for children to understand and may leave many in a state ofperpetual vigilance. Extreme mood swings are particularly evident during periodsof stress such as when parents have to deal with fractious infants or difficultadolescents (Norton and Dolan 1996). Research suggests that compared to othergroups, children of mothers with borderline personality disorder showed a higherprevalence of emotional and behavioural problems and lower self-esteem (Barnowet al. 2006).The intake of drugs such as cocaine and crack or excessive amounts of alcohol canalso produce violent mood swings from, for example, caring, loving and entertainingto violent, argumentative and withdrawn. As a consequence, parents with a drink ordrug problem may behave in an inconsistent and frightening manner towards theirchildren (see for example ChildLine 1997).When parents are preoccupied with their own feelings they may experiencegreater difficulty in responding to their child’s needs, cues are missed and the parentappears withdrawn and disengaged (Martins and Gaffan 2000). Research suggeststhat the severity and chronicity of the issue affecting the parent is associated withits impact on parenting capacity (see for example Rogosch et al. 1992 for mentalillness; Forrester 2000 for substance misuse; Booth and Booth 1996 for learningdisability). In a quarter of cases initial assessments carried out by social workersfound substance misuse affected parents’ capacity to provide children with emotionalwarmth, a factor in 30% of cases where children lived with domestic violence, andin a fifth of cases involving a parent with a learning disability 4 (Cleaver et al. 2007;Cleaver and Nicholson 2007).Neglect of physical needsThe effects of domestic violence, problem drinking or drug use, mental illness orlearning disability may mean that parents neglect their own and their children’sphysical needs.Greg (aged 11 years with a learning disability) was not always cleaned aftersoiling himself, all three children were losing weight and there was often no foodin the house.(Social worker’s report about a single mother with a learning disability andher three children, quoted in Cleaver and Nicholson 2007, p.77)4The statistics provided are the result of a re-analysis of data gathered for two research studies: Cleaver andNicholson 2007 and Cleaver et al. 2007. The research did not cover children living with mentally ill parents and,consequently, such detailed information is not available.