Adolescent Violence in the Home ─ Restorative Approaches to Building Healthy, Respectful Family Relationships

Adolescent Violence in the Home examines a form of violence that has a profound impact on families but is often overlooked and frequently misunderstood: teen aggression and violence toward members of their family-especially parents. Violence in adolescents is often seen as the result of a mental-health diagnosis, delinquency, or as a response to dysfunctional parenting, and though understanding a youth’s mental-health status or a parenting style can be helpful, complete focus on either is misplaced. Adolescent Violence in the Home uses a restorative framework, developed by the authors and in use in court systems and organizations around the world, to situate violent behaviors in the context of power and the intergenerational cycle of violence. Readers will come away from this book with a profound understanding of the social and individual factors that lead youth to use violence and how adolescent violence affects parents, and they’ll also learn about a variety of interventions that specifically address teen violence against parents.

Gregory Routt, MA, is codeveloper of Step Up, a counseling program in Seattle for teens that are violent with family members, and coauthor of the Step Up curriculum. The Step Up curriculum has been used in juvenile courts, family courts, and related agencies in the US, Canada, England, and Australia. Prior to working with Step Up, Mr. Routt worked with adult perpetrators of domestic violence at Family Services Domestic Violence Treatment Program in Seattle and was codirector of the program. He has also worked as a chemical dependency counselor with inmates in Seattle’s King County Jail.

Lily Anderson, MSW, is codeveloper of Step Up and a coauthor of the Step Up curriculum. She has worked in the field of domestic violence since 1978. From 1986 to 1998 she developed and coordinated a parent education program for Family Services in Seattle, where she authored two parenting curriculums, Anger Management for Parents and Skills for Respectful Parenting. In 1997, she coauthored Helping Children Who Have Experienced Domestic Violence: A Guide for Parents, a curriculum for parents of children who have experienced domestic violence that is being used nationwide in perpetrator and survivor programs.