Woman's Hour - Bullied by my kids; Alexandra Heminsley; Healthcare workers on the frontline

Episode Date: January 11, 2021

Listeners and practitioners offer advice and support to parents living with violent children. Pat Craven from the Freedom Programme, and Karina Kelly who advocates Non-violent Resistance join Emma.Author of Running Like a Girl, Alexandra Heminsley has written a new memoir about having a baby after much difficulty and finding out not long after that her husband is set on transitioning. She talks to Emma about this tumultuous time of her life.The Chief Medical Officer, Professor Chris Whitty, has said this morning that right now we are at the worse point of the epidemic in the UK. He said over 30,000 people who have it are in the NHS system at the moment. In a tweet he's said "the number of people in ICU is rising rapidly." So what about the army of healthcare professionals who are looking after Covid patients? What's the toll on them? We've already had emails from healthcare workers saying they're close to handing in their notice because of the strain and others describing the daily stress and pressure on the wards. Emma speaks to a paediatric nurse who's been redeployed to an adult Intensive Care Unit. and Nicki Credland, Chair of the British Association of Critical Care Nurses.

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. I'm Natalia Melman-Petrozzella, and from the BBC, this is Extreme Peak Danger. The most beautiful mountain in the world. If you die on the mountain, you stay on the mountain. This is the story of what happened when 11 climbers died on one of the world's deadliest mountains, K2, and of the risks we'll take to feel truly alive. If I tell all the details, you won't believe it anymore. Extreme, peak danger. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

Hello, it's Emma here with today's Woman's Hour podcast. Hope you enjoy. Good morning. Today we start the programme with a powerful dispatch from the very front line of our health service, an intensive care unit nurse, and a plea from the chair of the British Association of Critical Care Nurses. We cannot carry on like this, she says. The nurse we're going to hear from who got in touch with us says she feels out of her depth and finishes her shift feeling devastated because she's unable to take pride in the way she's cared for her patients. As she puts it, I have to simply be grateful if they're alive. We will hear her voice next and how she's doing. But it's something else she told us in her original email that I wanted to put to you this morning and get your take on. She says she feels this time around, in this version of lockdown,

that public support for her and her colleagues' work is less visible and offers of food and accommodation for those on the front line, which was so valued in the first wave, just aren't there. She says, I have plenty of nursing colleagues who are staying in hotels, paying out of their own pockets because they're working such long hours and can't face the difficult journeys to and from each work She says, is what should we, society, businesses, individuals and the government be doing this time around to help those on the very front line of our health service? Perhaps you've done something. What are you doing?

What are those around you doing? What do you feel could be done, ought to be done? And do you feel it is different this time around in terms of gratitude? Or perhaps you put this as part of the job. How do you see this and what do you think should be done you can text us women's hour 84844 text will be charged at your standard message rate or on social media we're at bbc women's hour or email us through our website do get in touch and tell us your view your experience what you think should be done and

if you think it's different also later in the, what to do when you find out your husband is a woman and wants to transition just after you've had a baby together. Alexandra Hemmingsley will be with us to tell us her story and how she's doing now. All that to come on the programme and are waiting to hear from you. Do get in touch. But this morning, the Chief Medical Officer, Professor Chris Whitty, has said right now we are at the worst point of the epidemic in the UK. Over 30,000 people who have COVID are in the NHS system at the moment. And in a tweet,

he's also written that the number of people in intensive care units is rising rapidly. What is the toll then on the army of healthcare professionals who are looking after COVID patients? In the last week, we've received emails from healthcare workers here at Women's Hour saying they're close to handing in their notice because of the strain and others describing the daily stress and pressure on the wards. But it was this note from Emma, a paediatric intensive care nurse who's been redeployed to adult intensive care unit that particularly caught our eye and we can now welcome her to the programme. Good morning. Good morning. Why did you feel you wanted to get in touch? I think I was listening to the programme when I'd finished a night shift and I was just feeling

generally demoralised, you know, and just I could hear a lot of people as understandably complaining about lockdown and feeling very upset but the fact they're stuck at home with their children and all of these things and I just felt a sense of wanting to get this message out there again that some people are are really struggling with this on the front line and not not even so much for myself but for my colleagues um seeing them really at breaking point and actually things continuing to get worse um that's kind of what made me made me want to get in touch there's a lot a lot to talk about there but if i may just start with and i know we're not going to name your hospital but if i may just get a sense of

what it's like in your hospital at the moment and how that's changed? Yeah, so I work in a really large London hospital. We have actually physical space for more patients. So it's continually opening more and more beds for intensive care patients. But obviously, the problem we've got is that there just aren't the nursing staff to cover those beds so we are being asked to stretch ourselves more and more thinly um people are volunteering i mean it's amazing you see you see consultants working as health care assistants and people are coming in to try and at least be bodies on the ground to help but the the people i mean and i don't consider myself one of the most highly trained because i'm not used to looking after adults. But at least I know how to look after a ventilated patient.

But for those who, those adult intensive care nurses are under so much pressure because even though they have people helping, it's just not enough. And they're sometimes looking after four or five ventilated patients essentially by themselves when it should be one-to-one. Can I just say if I may a huge thank you to you I mean and to your colleagues you know we're going to talk in more detail about how you're doing and and some of the other things you picked up in your note but even the way you just said you know I'm not as qualified because normally I'm I'm doing this on the paediatric intensive care unit side. You know, I'm sure I speak for many when I just say thank you. Thank you. That means a lot. Thanks. Because that's part of also what you're saying here, which is that you do feel perhaps it's a bit different this time around, don't you?

In terms of that, it's not that you're looking for recognition beyond, but just in terms of that awareness of what's going on here. Yeah, I can understand it because obviously everyone is so much more fed up with it this time around. And I think therefore the support that was there the first time is just not, people don't, yeah, they just, it doesn't feel anyway to us that there is the same level of support that there was the first time is just not people don't yeah they just it doesn't feel any way to us that there is the same level of support that there was the first time what would make you feel that do you think I don't know because I know I know there's been a talk of the you know the NHS clap coming back and that is is the kind of thing that a lot of nurses and doctors don't feel is helpful I mean I personally don't have is helpful I mean I personally

don't have an issue with it I think if people want to show their gratitude and they feel that's a way of doing it then I don't I don't see the problem but I know that a lot of people feel like what they really want is just for everyone to follow the regulations and what makes us angry is when we go you know on public transport and people aren't wearing their masks or you see groups of people clearly still not following the rules after all of this. Have you said anything to anyone, if you've seen them not following guidance? We are seeing, I suppose, people trying not to police each other

but to try and help us in this time. No, I haven't. I must admit I haven't because I because you're going to understand it I can understand when people have you know young people want to meet their friends and you do you understand how frustrated people are but no I don't I just don't want to get into those debates with people usually I'm too too exhausted too exhausted after let's talk about the work that that you're doing because I was also very struck by you saying

you feel fairly devastated at the end of each shift and you're unable to take pride in the way that you care for your patients as you usually do and patients are looking to you, aren't they, for assurances. Can you tell us a bit more about that? Yeah, so I think one of the hardest things for me is so obviously we're looking after ventilator patients but not all of them are ventilated and you get people who are there in very vulnerable positions and they look to you and they

they ask you do you think i'm going to get through this. And they're looking around, seeing people dying, seeing people crumbling, and you can't reassure them, really, because you just don't know. And I found that kind of the emotional toll of that, trying to reassure people, just really unbearable. And I also think, yeah, this idea that we can't give the care that we want to give. It's been spoken about many times before, but you see people in need and you can't help them. And at the end of your shift, you try and switch off from it. But you know, you feel you should have done more. You feel you could have been better.

You know, you feel you should do extra shifts to help your colleagues more. You know, there's just this constant sense of need. And even when I'm at home, I feel that I should be doing more if I can. Because also we should say your partner is also in this line of work. He's an anaesthetist under normal circumstances, but has also been redeployed.

Yeah, so he's just, he will be coming back any minute from his night shifts he's been working in intensive care um yeah as an anaesthetist so yeah we're both kind of in the thick of it um we're lucky we have a young son who kind of keeps us sane i think because you know when we're looking after him we have to forget about it but. And we do try to switch off because otherwise it would just get very depressing if all we talked about was COVID all the time. What do you do, Emma? What's that moment? I don't know, put on some loud music and dance around the kitchen. How do you kind of break the work spell of your very unique and very upsetting times? Playing silly games, I i find you know jenga cards you know we've kind of gone back to basics doing things that not watching the news not even

watching tv but just things that are you know just silly and mindless really um i have to i have to say i mean i'm a big fan of jenga as well but you know i can hear i can hear it in your voice just how exhausted you are you know and and and I think what what you're talking about there will will hit home with people but we still know some people I've had a few messages and saying I'm I'm trying to help by just staying at home and doing my bit but we know some people just are not doing that is it is there something you want to say to leave them with from you and from your partner's perspective? Yeah, I just think, I mean, it's just, yeah, that plea of,

if you think about what others are doing and how much, you know, I still haven't been vaccinated as some of my colleagues aren't. We are essentially putting our lives on the line. You haven't been yet? No, I haven't yet been vaccinated um it's I'm due to be this week but there's been a few issues I've had an appointment cancelled it's difficult to do it when your work shifts and you can't leave your patients so you know there is that sense of safety that you're worried about and worried about bringing it home to your family and um so yeah I

just would it's been said so many times, but please, please do what you can. I know it's so boring to stay at home, but it will help us. And then we can get past this peak and start making things better. But, yeah, that's that's all I can say. Are you confident you'll be vaccinated this week? I am. I am. I yeah, I don't want to misrepresent my hospital. They've been doing a great job of getting the vaccine out there to people. My husband's been vaccinated. A lot of my colleagues have, as they say. So yeah, I'm in no doubt that I will be. But yeah, I have to go in on my day off this week to get vaccinated. But I'm willing to do that

because it's a priority for me. Emma as I said thank you very much indeed on many levels. Thank you. Let me talk now to Nikki Credlin chair of the British Association of Critical Care Nurses. Is what we're hearing from Emma there typical in terms of that that burden that stress but also that that total concern you're not actually doing a good enough job by patients? Yeah absolutely and i'm hearing that every day from nurses up and down the country that are working in intensive care units and i think i would just like to reiterate a massive thank you to emma and to all of the nurses and operating department practitioners and other health care professionals who are actually coming

into an environment that's alien to them to support us looking after adult critical care patients, because that is a really big ask of people and it is massively, massively appreciated. I think it's correct to say 89% of nurses in this country are women. I don't quite know the ratio in critical care. Perhaps you do know. But what I was interested in terms of the ratio here, actually, at this very unique moment, when we're hearing from Chris Whitty,

this is the worst it's been. What is the ratio in terms of intensive care? One to one, three to one, four to one. Can you tell us about the number of critical care nurses to patients at the moment? Yes, usually we have specific intensive care standards which mean that we have one critical care ICU patient so a ventilated patient to one fully trained intensive care nurse and that's how we manage service delivery most of the time. At the moment what

we're hearing is that in some trusts we've got one fully qualified intensive care nurse to up to four patients at the moment. Wow. So that we're expecting them to work a quadruple their normal workload. And that is just not sustainable for any length of time. What impact do you think this is having on staff and potentially for the future? It's having a huge impact right now. And I can certainly echo a lot of Emma's comments that you know staff are physically exhausted, they are psychologically traumatised, they're mentally exhausted, we've got a significant issue with staff sickness which exacerbates the

staffing problem that we already have as well. From a longer term point of view I think to be honest we probably haven't seen the worst of it yet in terms of the effect that it has on the health care professions. And it certainly wouldn't surprise me if we see an increased amount of sickness and indeed staff choosing to completely leave the health care professions once we get through this pandemic surge. That will be a major concern for people like yourself and also, of course, bosses and the government. Do you have any idea what percentage of critical care nurses have been vaccinated yet? We don't. We don't have figures like that.

Now, the rollout programme is obviously going ahead. I'm hearing up and down the country that lots of nurses are already receiving their vaccinations. But you can imagine that there's a huge population of health care professionals that all need to be vaccinated. So it's not something you can just do instantly. There is likely to be some delay in getting all of those professionals vaccinated. And I know there's been a few issues with actual supply of the vaccine rather than actually rolling that out to frontline staff so that's something that obviously needs to be worked on and corrected as soon as possible because it's vital that we protect the health of

our workforce or else we simply can't run the NHS. Just finally a message that's come in Nikki from one of our listeners saying my book club all women in this case have collected £10 per person to buy pizzas for nurses delivery at our local hospital what do you make of that you know what that's fantastic and believe me the nurses will absolutely 100 appreciate it that's what we need at the moment i think morale is so low because everybody is so tired and so fed up we're equally fed up of not seeing our families, not being able to have a hug, not being able to go for coffee, not being able to meet up with friends.

So anything that we can do to try and boost the morale of staff who are working unbelievably hard at the minute is fantastic. There you go. I wanted to make sure you approved. Nicky Credlin, thank you very much for talking to us. The chair of the British Association of Critical Care Nurses. Your message is still coming in on that. What should we be doing? What ought to we be doing? What businesses, individuals, the government

to support the morale and also show our thanks beyond claps, which don't seem to be very well supported at the moment, despite that coming back in some areas last week. Keep getting in touch with us. The number you need is 84844 on social media. We're at BBC Women's Hour.

I'll come back to your messages on this very shortly. But imagine you've just given birth after years of trying for a baby, rounds of IVF and with your last embryo. Add to that a stressful pregnancy during which for a period of time you didn't know if the baby you were carrying was actually yours.

And then your husband tells you they're a woman and wants to begin transitioning. If it sounds like a film, it might very well become one. But it's the reality of my next guest's life now told in the pages of a new book called Somebody to Love, a family story. Alexandra Hemmingsley joins me now. Good morning. Hi, thanks for having me. I just wanted to start if I may, there's various places we could start with this story, your life, but I actually wanted to start with that genetic test that you took while you were pregnant, if I may. It's called a harmony test.

What happened there and why did you have one? I had one because I was as they say a geriatric pregnancy and um I wasn't I I found out that I couldn't get my 12-week scan until I would have been more like 14-15 weeks pregnant and it was when my book that I'd written about having IVF was about to come out and I just couldn't bear to not know that it was a healthy or safe pregnancy. So I paid privately to have what's called a harmony test, which instead of a regular scan and just a hormone test is actually a DNA test. They test your blood and the blood of the... And what did they find out? Or what did they think they'd found out? Well, I will never know what they actually found out. And I've had to put a little time and effort into making my peace with that. What I was told was that,

well, they called me back and said, you don't have a DNA match with your baby. And the assumption that the person who took the test made was that I had had an egg donor. And that that would obviously have been the most simple explanation to not share DNA with the baby. And she she sort of said, well, lots of people lie about that. There's no need to be ashamed. But any, as anybody who's had IVF knows, the collection of your eggs is not something that would pass you by. It is a significant number of weeks of taking hormones and injections and pain and discomfort and an operation during which you have to have a level of sedation and so the idea that I could accidentally have done this was it was just completely out of the question.

We should move to reassure people in terms of your your situation that it was it was deemed wrong wasn't it in the sense of? It was deemed wrong um the IVF clinic that treated me obviously I rang them in some significant distress they were amazing and they sent me to London to basically to Harley Street and where I had to have like every test possible including the thing that I'd been trying to avoid because what I'd been trying to avoid was the amniocentesis because of it carrying a risk of miscarriage and instead I had to have a CVS test which is effectively the same thing instead of taking amniotic fluid it actually takes a bit of the plenta. But your your situation while quick relatively quickly resolved what that must have done to your mind for the time when it wasn't resolved must have been extraordinary yeah um it put me in a position

of feeling like uh there what was real wasn't real um that it was the sense that the grown-ups had left the room um and also you're not sure I imagine, how to feel about the baby inside you, potentially. Yeah, because I'd lost a pregnancy before and I'd had a lot of trouble getting pregnant. And this pregnancy, part of the reason I really needed to know that it was healthy and I'd taken the test in the first place, was because for the first few weeks, I could really, I mean, it seems so ridiculous now, he's literally in the first place was because I could for the first few weeks I could really I mean it seems so ridiculous now he's literally in the next room it just felt like he was future grief this embryo just felt like something that was going to have that was going to hurt me again uh not not physically but it would be more emotional pain. And then that was sort of what happened in a way

that I couldn't even have imagined was this level of anxiety. And also I was aware, you know, I was brought up in a Catholic family and I'm aware that some people, when it was invented and even today, don't necessarily approve of IVF. They see it as meddling with nature and um you know the way things should be and I I felt so simply and clearly that you know that any I had NHS IVF available to me and I should take it and I would be a great mom and it was something I wanted to do and it seemed perfectly natural and suddenly that seemed to be I felt like the universe was saying well you took it too far and look where you've ended up

but it wasn't just available to you of course you had your husband by your side you had Dee and if I could come to that part of this because once you'd had your your beautiful baby boy as you say now now in the room near you um you started again to to feel like you were imagining things or not feeling quite right when you were looking at your husband looking after your child together you you say you felt like he was at the time as you presumed him at sea saw him your husband he was trying to be you um and you also had a situation where you started to notice things about your husband tell us what what was going on at that point yeah i mean it's difficult to dwell on this bit because it's one tiny moment that i describe in the book that's been um picked out it wasn't an extended

period of time I thought that and I've totally reconciled myself to what was going on then but there were moments in very early parenthood where I couldn't quite work out whether helpfulness was wanting to it felt sometimes like helpfulness was was maybe more than that because Dee is amazing an amazing person amazing parent we co-parent really happily together and there was definitely the will to help and to be an active parent. But also there was, I felt like something a bit more and it took me a really long time to try and understand what that was because obviously it's an awful thing to think if you were wrong. But there was this moment where you asked Dee if they were wearing foundation,

were you also imagining things around that? And things obviously came to a head where your husband ended up telling you what about themselves? Well, in fairness, it was me that just kept asking and I suppose I got a bit more confident about asking because I became increasingly convinced that Dee just, I mean, it was very, very obvious that Dee was profoundly unhappy. And I felt that being able to admit that she wanted to transition might be where we were heading and that she needed to be able to articulate that and I find it very easy and I did then to be honest

to draw a line between anti-trans sentiment particularly in this country and why that would be an incredibly difficult thing to articulate that would be putting you at risk of potentially losing your family and your friends and you know just just status. And I'm proud that I was the one that felt able to keep going, to ask if that was what was happening, because it felt absolutely terrifying. It did feel like I was potentially going to walk off the edge of a cliff if I was completely wrong. And Wendy did confirm it to you yeah what was that like what what did that feel like um it was completely overwhelming I think

because it was obviously on an immediate level very I, I was terrified. I didn't know if what that would mean, I know, was I suddenly going to be a single parent? Was I going to, you know, I didn't, I just felt completely overwhelmed by the, on the practical level and also really scared because there is a massive anti-trans sentiment, especially in this country. And I knew that I was and especially that at that point, three years ago, I was about to be catapulted with my entire family and my tiny baby who was six months old into a narrative that is really toxic and would put all of us at risk and put us into sort of being part of a load of columnists debate club when what we were trying to do was make sure there were enough clean muslins and everybody was fed and had managed to get a few hours sleep and sorry just to say I mean nobody would have necessarily known about what was going on I suppose if you hadn't shared it for people

who are listening thinking what what do you mean by that why would you be catapulted into that sort of Linus my son was about to start nursery and we would share pickup and um sorry so you don't mean on a national level there you just mean in terms of no no on a day to right no but it affects your day-to-day life um and so so that And so that was a moment of fear for you. And people could perhaps relate to that even if they have no experience of that. But I also wondered just on your relationship. You know, some people listening to this will be thinking, did you have no idea? Because, of course, you're close. You were happily married.

You were great friends before you got together. There must have been all sorts of emotions like anger and grief, because at the end of the day, you didn't know something about your husband. Oh, yeah, all of that too. But in a weird way, finding out that I had not been sort of wandering off down a wrong track was a massive relief, as well as all of the terror and the kind of distress of that moment. There was also, I felt like, almost like a kind of, almost high with the relief of knowing this had never been anything to do with me. The distance and the upset and the not quite understanding what the mood in the room was and all of that.

It wasn't because, you know, I mean, it's women's hour. I don't need to tell you all the messages you constantly receive in early motherhood are so bewildering and so overwhelming that that sort of I'd kind of been trying to go through all these tick boxes and it wasn't that I wasn't breastfeeding well enough and it wasn't that I wasn't um losing weight fast enough and it wasn't that I also my son was born in the height of the sort of instamum boom so it wasn't that I didn't have that freebie that they'd all been sent that month and it wasn't all all you know wasn't going back to work fast enough and all of those things that

I've been kind of running through on my mind over and over and over again trying to work out make sure I've done everything else right before you think this about yourself was there any way that you um considered trying to stay together because you we should say you are no longer together as a couple no we're not together as a couple um no I think that was pretty instant because um I didn't I I'm well I'm not gay I mean you know I felt like to ask me to be lesbian would be pretty much on a level with asking my ex to not be trans like you you we are born these things and we must make the best that we can of them um yeah there was as well as all this terror there was this sort of intoxicating level of freedom that I found out now we can build from here.

We can make something really good from this rather than I found that I found it that switch pretty easy to me was awful was the bit that came before when I didn't understand what was going on. Yeah, and you sort of start asking, as you say, all these sorts of questions and you're in a new motherhood state, a new parenthood state, which also puts a lot in your mind. In terms of how you're going to and how you are handling this with your son, does your son, you know, does it work? He has two mums. How are you handling the language and the conversation around that um well the useful thing is is that we we found out and had time to work out what we thought about

everything for a while before my son was speaking yeah so we've been able to be pretty consistent which is obviously not something that's afforded every family um and so yeah I mean he has always used female pronouns and that you know that's it's just that's just how it's happened and I think for a little while I felt initially a little bit territorial over the word mum when I'd only had it for six months but now um it's word I just don't care anymore being a mum is is what any of us who parent and call ourselves mum have to do every single day and night and and it it feels like a composite of so many moments and a relationship that's been built that I mean to focus on that when there's so much else going on in the world and so much good that we have just felt like a fight I just didn't have time for. Well Alexandra Hemmings, thank you very much for taking us into part of

this journey with you. It's in a book, as I say, called Somebody to Love, A Family Story, which is available now. And we've just been talking, of course, about how we deal with, repay, try and understand what doctors are going through at the moment. I just wanted to read this message, which is from a doctor saying, I'm a hospital doctor. I'm isolating at home with COVID symptoms every day. My clinical colleagues and I put ourselves at risk for other people's benefit, offering to work extra shifts and vaccinate. I'm living like a hermit. I'm being so careful at work and at home, living apart from my partner. I'm sick to the core of watching the public flout or bend the rules. Everyone thinks this is okay and that they're not the problem. I'm sick of people whinging on the media about how tough it is.

They need to wise up. We can't solve this unless we work together as a society, not as selfish individuals. Shame on people who travel on holiday or to second homes. Everyone who breaks the rules is prolonging the crisis, losing people's jobs and killing people. If I survive this, I will leave healthcare permanently.

Selfish people don't deserve the sacrifices we're making. A very impassioned message there. Keep them coming in. Thank you very much. But wanted to make sure I shared that and gave a voice to that. 84844 is the number you need. Well, we were just talking about parenting there.

Well, parenting in an extraordinary circumstance could be classed as this. Bullied by your own children. It's one of those taboos that's almost unspeakable. Where do you turn? What do you do? Well, one of our listeners turned to us and you didn't let her down. The week before Christmas, we shared an email we received from a listener being bullied

and threatened by her teenage children. She felt that they had learned and were repeating the violent and abusive behaviour of their father, her ex-partner. The response from you was incredible. Long emails full of advice and hope, almost all anonymous. The shame stopped people being able to tell their stories themselves. They felt unable to risk identifying themselves or their children.

If I can, I'll come to some of those emails in shortly, in short order, or we'll try and share them after the programme. But you also sent recommendations of approaches which worked for you and two kept coming up with me with more detail. Pat Craven, a former probation officer who created the Freedom Programme and Karina Kelly, a parent, graduate and trainer who says non-violent resistance, another approach which was recommended by you, our listeners, has changed her life. Karina, if I could start with you, why don't you just tell us first why you needed the help? Yeah, hello, good morning. So about five years ago, there was a real breakdown of a relationship between me and my oldest son. I

have three children. You know, I've parented my children in the same way, you know, how I was parented. And there was just a complete breakdown with my oldest son I had left a violent relationship um while he was young and it was kind of clear that he was you know very affected as being the oldest of my three children was very very affected by what had happened and although I felt you know we were safe now and I was no longer in that relationship there was you know this big massive hole in our family that had been left behind by it. He had become very angry, very aggressive, very violent. And I just found it really, really difficult to manage his behavior.

And then there comes the shame that going to a parenting class, you know, brings that, you know, it's me that's the bad parent and I'm not doing a good job and I'm a failure and I remember always kind of making a joke of you know it's not me that should learn should go to a parenting class it should be my son should go to learn how to be a better child class you know but I went along to this MVR you know with no expectation but I just was at a complete loss of I just don't know what to do and I just feel like I can't manage and I can't cope and I have no idea if it's going to work and I have no idea what it's about but I'm just going to go along and find out and this was five years ago now that I went to this NVR course and it completely changed my relationship with my son and I then was able to go back and become a graduate parent and then go on to become a parent facilitator.

Could you just say maybe a tip from the course that you could give to anyone listening about what changed, something practical? Something practical is looking at that for some children, the reward and punishment way of raising them just doesn't work, and that doesn't mean that there's anything wrong with you or anything wrong with them, but it just doesn't fit. Like I would say with my son is that I was constantly you know there's constant punishment and everything gets taken away and you know your

child could end up sitting in an empty room with no tv no playstation or whatever you know you're trying to do to kind of punish difficult behaviors and then there's no reward and so this reward and punishment doesn't fit so starting to think about NVR is connection and correction as an alternative. And the idea of in order to correct behaviours, you first need to build a connection, which is often broken in difficult times. I'm sure a lot of people trying to figure that out. But that's the focus that you say with nonviolent resistance as a tactic. Let's bring in Pat Craven. Pat, what is the Freedom Programme and how does it relate to if you're potentially being bullied by your child? Before I start explaining about the Freedom Programme, I want to tell Karina, we have written the Freedom Programme for small children, preschool and how to be a better child. And we can help you there. We've written it and it works. And we're actually doing it on Zoom, unbelievably. So that's that bit. The Freedom Programme, it's helped us to recognise and name all the tactics used by abusive men to control

and subjugate women. We're providing the programs via Zoom to women anywhere in the world, including we're providing one in Urdu. I've also written a book called Living with the Dominator, which includes all the information, the freedom program, so people can just read it themselves.

Women can refer themselves to us by emailing us. We don't give advice or tell you what to do. And women who are still with abusers, and this is a really good story, can join us. They can join us from their cars, from their workplaces, from getting their hair done, anywhere. And they can come from all over the world. It's free. It's instantly accessible. Emma, if you wanted to come and join our program next week we'd invite you to come in the next session there's no waiting list and and just and how

that then works with with the children and parenting of those children what would you say to that well i'll tell you um we describe different kinds of um tactics that abusive men use to control women. And one of them is deliberate use of the children. In order to achieve this, we say our dominator turns into what we call the bad father. And here are some of the tactics that he actually uses. He turns the children against us. He undermines our authority by countermanding our instructions. For example, if we say to the children, it's bedtime now. He says, oh, stay up, kids, don't take any notice of her. If we say eat your dinner,

you'll say they don't have to eat that rubbish. He calls us names in front of the children. One woman told us that her children believed that her name was Slag. That's all they ever heard called. He buys a affection with expensive gifts and he makes jokes about us to the children they all have we all get together and laugh at us in the house and if we say to him stop doing this it's abusive you say children your mother hasn't got any sense of humor i told you and it is relentless it's choreographed, and it's completely deliberate. Can you wrestle back control in that situation, do you think, even if you're still living with that partner?

Well, the Freedom Programme gives information because women have told us that once they've worked out what's happening to them, then they can actually communicate with their children and take control of the relationship with the children. But because we don't know what's happening to us when we're being abused like this, then it's just a big confusing mess. And so by giving information, we can really help. And the feedback we've got from women, and you're probably getting this coming in now from people who've done the Freedom Programme,

to say that they are now enabled to parent their own children because they've got the knowledge, and knowledge is power. Pat, thank you so much. Pat Craven there, you can find out about the Freedom Programme online. I've got a message here from Liz who's listening. I'm bullied by my son who's 13 and has autism. It's mainly verbal abuse. He says very cruel things and he's hit me before.

When I've sought help, all I can find is how to help the children never the parents I'm living a half-life with no love or affection Karina I've got very short amount of time but is there something you'd like to say to her as a fellow parent definitely I think there is help out there I think there's the NVR website that is worth definitely checking out non-violent resistance non-violent resistance is the parenting course and it's definitely there is help out there and there was lots of parents in exactly the same situation and sometimes it's just about making a difference to the way in which your parents and your child can make a difference to the you know relationship that you have with

your child and the behavior of your child thank you very much for talking to us about that you have with your child and the behaviour of your child. Thank you very much for talking to us about that. And we know it's not an easy thing. And a lot of people also talking about how taboo this is. And, you know, Karina, that shame that you can feel that you're not right with your children. Thank you for talking to us, Karina Kelly there and Pat Craven. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Thank you so much for your time.

Join us again for the next one. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story, settle in. Available now.