The charity said overall visits to pages relating to parenting, family conflict and relationships on its Parent Talk website experienced a 46 per cent rise over the past year, after increasing steadily over the last three years, from 105,907 in 2022/23 to 154,280 in 2023/24.
Action for Children analysed a sample of one-to-one chats on this theme to find out what parents are struggling with.
They found that the key issue that stood out was parents are struggling following a separation due to ongoing conflict or abuse. It’s estimated that there are 3.8 million children living in separated families in Great Britain. While not all of these families will be struggling to resolve conflict, the potential number of children impacted is high, the charity said.
In particular, parents were looking for support in relation to co-parenting and contact arrangements. In some cases, parents felt they were being coercively controlled.
Where there’s unresolved conflict or abuse, following a separation, parents reported the strain on their own mental health, feeling burnt out and often struggling to cope. They also reported changes in their children’s mental health, wellbeing and behaviour.
The most common issues separated parents were looking for support for through Parent Talk were co-parenting and childcare arrangements. Parents shared concerns about how their ex-partner is parenting their child. This ranged from concerns about their child’s safety and welfare, to diet, to introducing a new partner, to a lack of guidance and boundaries.
Access to early help services can support parents struggling to manage ongoing conflict or experiencing abuse post-separation to reduce stress and help mediate the impact on their children, the charity said.
Action for Children is calling on the government to strengthen early help services by:
- Ensuring all parents can access universal family support services – including a digital offer - that allow professionals to build relationships with local families and identify any issues as early as possible.
- Investing in targeted support for families experiencing multiple challenges, including co-located multi-disciplinary teams designed to offer wrap-around, co-ordinated and targeted early help.
- Integrating services so there is ‘one front door’ so all families know where to go to access help, should they need it.
- Ensure communities have the right specialist provision for their local area, including specialist domestic abuse services for children and adults.
Parent Talk offers free online advice and guidance for parents and carers of children aged 0-19, or up to 25 where a young person has special educational needs or disabilities (SEND).
Experienced parenting coaches are on hand for to offer free advice and support via a confidential 1:1 live chat and a recently launched WhatsApp service.
Action for Children Parent Talk coach Ruth Duckworth said, ‘Navigating a breakup can be challenging at the best of times but can be even more tricky when there are children involved.
‘If an ex-partner is controlling or abusive, or there’s conflict around things like childcare arrangements, it adds extra strain and can have a negative impact on the mental health of parents and children.
‘If you’re struggling, it’s important to reach out and talk to someone – whether that be a friend or family member, GP or one of our Parent Talk coaches.’
Case study
‘Parent Talk has been the difference between not sleeping at night and sleeping again’
Chloe*, 36, and from the south west is a single parent to a child who has autism.
She contacted Parent Talk for help dealing with what she described as her ex-partner’s coercive controlling behaviours and abuse. Coercive control is a form of abuse where someone uses a pattern of behaviour to exert power over you.
Chloe said her child finds the dad’s behaviour upsetting, and often doesn’t want to visit him. ‘He can be really controlling towards them and doesn’t respect their boundaries of what they do and don’t like. He’ll try to force them into activities or food they aren’t comfortable with. Sometimes he doesn’t let them contact me and refuses to bring them home when they want to. As an autistic child all of this has a huge impact, but he doesn’t believe the diagnosis and thinks I’m exaggerating it.’
Despite feeling contact with her dad was damaging for their child’s wellbeing, Chloe said she feels powerless to stop it. ‘Even though they are a vulnerable child because of their autism, and the visits have a negative impact on them emotionally, I’ve been told they have to continue.’
Chloe felt the contact arrangements, which set out when her child would see their dad, were being used as a form of control. ‘If I said they didn’t want to see him, he would send me abusive messages.’
After coping alone for years, Chloe said she reached a crisis point. ‘I was so stressed and anxious, I didn’t feel like there was anyone I could talk to. I found people didn’t really know what to say, or I’d just get different opinions and advice, which doesn’t help. I didn’t really know where to turn.’
After finding Parent Talk online, Chloe decided to try the one-to-one chat. She said, ‘It was the most helpful conversation I’d had about the challenges I face in seven years.’
‘The Parent Talk coach didn’t tell me what to do, they just gave me the confidence in my own parenting and decision making. After going through court about this multiple times, which was frightening and demoralising, I felt like I had to keep it all to myself. They made me feel safe enough to speak about it.
‘For me, Parent Talk has been the difference between not sleeping at night and sleeping again,’ she said. Because I’m more confident, my child now feels able to say what they want or don’t want to do, and overall, their dad has accepted it. It’s taken a huge weight off both of us.’
Chloe wants to encourage others to speak out about domestic abuse and coercive control. ‘So many people are going through similar things to me, it feels like a crisis that is getting worse. We shouldn’t be silent about it.’
*Name changed to protect identity
