In the Introduction to this book, I talked about the scientific authority that researchers carry when producing knowledge, particularly about emotive issues that can shape people's lives so profoundly. I felt the responsibility of this throughout the writing of both the first edition and this revised edition. I am concerned about the risk of particular research findings being misused to develop policies or reinforce stereotypes that may further disempower, stigmatise and alienate parents, carers, young people and families. I hope that this book has highlighted the complexity of the problem. In particular, I hope that the book has emphasised that ‘victim’ and ‘perpetrator’ roles are not easy to assign, and neither do they easily align within the binaries of ‘powerful’ versus ‘powerless’, and the allocation of blame that often follows. I hope that this book has highlighted how both parents/carers and their children are powerful and powerless in all sorts of different ways, in different contexts and at different times – all while simultaneously attempting to exercise power against considerable personal, emotional, structural and cultural constraints. Given such complexities, this final chapter provides a brief overview of what steps are now necessary in policy, practice and research to develop existing work to address the problem of adolescent-to-parent abuse. Before that, a brief question about responsibility.

Whose responsibility?

This question has implicitly framed every chapter of this book, and it represents a particular challenge to our thinking about adolescent-to-parent abuse. Perhaps the underlying reason why we have so far struggled to understand and respond appropriately and consistently to parent abuse is because at its heart lies the unresolved issue of responsibility.