When a child frightens us, who tries to understand them?
When services are overstretched and the waiting list is long, parents need support too.
I was invited onto Sky News recently to talk about children being referred to Prevent, the government programme intended to stop people being drawn into terrorism.
The Children’s Commissioner for England had found that seven in ten Prevent referrals involving children had no specific extremist ideology identified. At least 65 per cent of referrals made by schools and colleges were returned to education settings when the case was closed. Of those, 93 per cent had received no support from Prevent.
You can watch the Sky News interview here.
Prevent has a particular purpose. A child who does not meet its criteria should not be kept within a counter-terrorism programme simply so that somebody does something. But I kept thinking about the child who is sent back, and the teacher or parent still looking at the same disturbing behaviour and wondering what to do with it.
Not meeting the criteria for one service is not the same as not needing help.
This happens in less dramatic ways in families every day. A child’s behaviour changes. They stop going out. They become furious or unreachable. They refuse school, stop eating, hurt themselves, spend all night online, become preoccupied with frightening material or seem to disappear into a world their parents cannot enter.
Sometimes there is one terrible incident. More often, it is a collection of small things that gradually begins to feel like something larger.
The parent asks for help. They may be told that their child does not meet the threshold, or is now on a waiting list. They go home with the same child, the same worry and perhaps a phone number to call if things become worse.
What are parents meant to do in the meantime?
Begin with what you know, not what you fear
Fear makes us leap ahead. A child stays in their bedroom and our mind races towards all the things that may be happening there. They say something shocking and we imagine what it might become. We search online late at night and find the most frightening possible explanation.
There may be good reason to act quickly. If you believe your child or somebody else is in immediate danger, call 999 or go to A&E. If urgent mental health help is needed in England but there is no immediate danger, call NHS 111 and select the mental health option. Parents are not expected to contain a crisis alone.
But where the concern is not immediate, it can help to separate what you have actually seen from what you are afraid it means.
You might write down the changes you have noticed, with dates where possible. Not a dossier on your child, but a way of making your concern clearer. Are they sleeping? Eating? Going to school? Seeing friends? Has their mood, language, appearance or online behaviour changed? What has stopped, started or intensified? Is there anything that still seems to help?
This is useful when speaking to a GP or school, and it can steady your own thinking. “She has missed six days of school this month and is awake most nights” gives people something more tangible to respond to than “She isn’t herself”, although both may be true.
Try to understand before you try to extract
When we are frightened, we question children like detectives.
What happened? Who were you with? Why did you do that? Have you been looking at this? Are you going to do it again?
There are moments when direct questions are necessary, especially about immediate safety. But a frightened interrogation rarely produces the understanding we are hoping for. Children may not know why they are behaving as they are. They may be ashamed, afraid of losing their phone, loyal to someone, or simply unable to put experience into words.
It can be more helpful to begin with an observation.
- “I’ve noticed you don’t seem to be sleeping.”
- “You haven’t wanted to see anyone lately.”
- “What you said yesterday frightened me. I’m not angry with you, but I do need to understand more.”
Then leave some space.
Listening is not the same as approving. Trying to understand an interest in violent material, an unsafe relationship or behaviour that harms other people does not make the behaviour acceptable. It gives us a better chance of discovering what it is doing for the child.
Perhaps an online group is offering a lonely child companionship. Perhaps anger makes a powerless child feel strong. Perhaps not eating creates a sense of control. Perhaps refusing school is the only way they can communicate that something there feels unbearable.
These are possibilities, not explanations to impose. The question is not only, “How do we stop this?” but also, “What need has become attached to this behaviour?” If we remove the behaviour without noticing the need, it may simply find somewhere else to go.
Tell more than one person
Parents often keep a child’s difficulties private out of love. We do not want to expose or embarrass them. We may fear that other people will judge our child, or judge us. Before long, one or two adults are carrying something far too heavy in secret.
This is where some old-fashioned help matters.
Think of the parent whose children are older, who has lived through something difficult and is not easily shocked. Not the person who will diagnose your child over coffee, tell you what you “must” do or turn your family’s pain into gossip. Look for someone who can listen, help you think and perhaps say, “You’re not imagining this. Let’s work out whom you could speak to next.”
Tell a friend what you need from them. You might say, “I don’t need advice yet. I need somewhere to say the frightening things out loud.” Or, “Could I call you after the appointment?” Or even, “Can we go for a walk and talk about anything except this?”
Support is not only finding somebody who knows how to fix the problem. It is having people who help you remain a person while the problem is happening.
If there is another parent or carer involved, try to agree on the facts and the immediate priorities, even if you understand the situation differently. Children can become more anxious when adults swing between panic and minimising. You do not have to agree on the cause before agreeing that something has changed and needs attention.
Speak to the people who see another part of your child
Make an appointment with your child’s teacher, form tutor, head of year, designated safeguarding lead, SENCO or pastoral lead, depending on the concern. Ask what they have noticed, rather than only telling them what you want them to do.
Is your child different at school? Have friendships changed? Are they attending lessons, eating lunch, managing work and joining in? Is there bullying, exclusion or a pattern around particular days or subjects? Does the school have a counsellor, school nurse, family-support worker, mental health support team or local early-help route?
Ask for a named person and agree how information will be shared. A general assurance that staff will “keep an eye” on a child is difficult to rely on. Who will check in with them? How often? When will you speak again? What change would cause the school to escalate its concern?
Your child may be furious that you have contacted school. Where possible, tell them what you are going to share and why. They deserve privacy, but privacy cannot mean leaving them unsafe. You can be honest: “I won’t tell everybody everything. I am going to speak to Mrs Patel because I’m worried and I need another adult to help us think.”
Talk to your GP, even if you expect a wait
A GP can consider whether physical health, medication, sleep, hormones, nutrition or another medical issue may be contributing. They can assess risk, make referrals and tell you what support is available locally. NHS guidance also says that a teacher, school nurse, youth worker, social worker or paediatrician may be able to connect a child with local children and young people’s mental health services. In some areas, families can self-refer.
Before the appointment, ask your child what they would like the GP to know and whether they want you in the room. Bring your short record of changes. Be specific about what worries you most and ask direct questions.
What happens while we wait? Who should we contact if this worsens? Are there local early-help services, parent groups or voluntary organisations? Can we self-refer anywhere? What would make this urgent? When should we come back?
If your child is placed on a waiting list, ask how long the current wait is, how you will know the referral has been accepted and who remains responsible in the meantime. Keep professionals updated if the situation changes. A waiting list records a request for future help. It is not a plan for today.
Get support for yourself now
This may be the most overlooked part.
Parents sometimes feel that accepting help for themselves implies that they are the problem, or that precious attention is being diverted away from the child. It is neither. When you are frightened for your child, your own world can become very small. You monitor every mood, cancel plans, stop sleeping and begin living from one incident to the next. It becomes harder to judge what is urgent, what can wait and what you cannot control.
Support for you may be one thoughtful friend. It may be your own GP, counselling, a parent-support group, your faith community, a family hub or a charity helpline. YoungMinds runs a free Parents Helpline for parents and main carers who are concerned about a child’s mental health. Family hubs and local council family services can also provide support and help families find what is available nearby.
You do not need to wait for your child to accept help before seeking it yourself.
This support should not become a strategy for managing the child more efficiently. Its purpose is to give you somewhere to bring your fear, grief, anger and exhaustion so that your child does not have to carry those as well as their own difficulty.
Taking a break is not abandoning them. Seeing a friend, sleeping when you can, going to work, laughing, walking or doing something unrelated to the crisis may feel almost disloyal. It is not. You are trying to remain well enough to be their parent for as long as this takes.
Keep ordinary life going where you can
When one child is struggling, family life can become organised around the struggle. Every conversation is about food, school, sleep, safety, appointments or screens. Brothers and sisters learn to read the emotional weather. The child becomes both the centre of the family and strangely absent from it, because everyone is relating to the problem.
Some ordinary contact needs protecting.
Offer food. Watch something together. Drive somewhere. Ask if they want company without requiring conversation. Notice the dog, the weather or the absurd thing that happened at the shop. Keep inviting them, even if they often say no. Hold necessary boundaries, but try not to make every encounter an intervention.
Your child needs to know that you take the problem seriously. They also need evidence that you can still see the person who is more than the problem.
Do not wait passively, but do not frantically fix
There is a difficult middle ground between doing nothing and turning family life into a campaign to make the child better.
While you wait, you can gather information, keep a record, speak to the GP and school, find out about local early help, ask what would trigger a reassessment, and build a small circle of adults around yourself and your child. You can reduce obvious risks, remain curious and keep ordinary connection alive.
You cannot make a child disclose before they are ready. You cannot guarantee that they will accept help. You cannot love somebody so expertly that all danger disappears.
But you can refuse to become isolated.
The Prevent story exposed a gap between a worried referral and actual support. Parents encounter versions of that gap everywhere. Their child may not meet a threshold, the waiting list may be long, or the available service may not quite fit.
When that happens, the answer cannot simply be to send the family home with its fear.
Sometimes the first person who needs holding is the parent, so that they can keep holding the relationship with their child.
Where to seek help
- If somebody is in immediate danger, call 999 or go to A&E.
- For urgent mental health help in England, call NHS 111 and select the mental health option.
- NHS advice on supporting a child or young person
- NHS children and young people’s mental health services
- YoungMinds Parents Helpline: 0808 802 5544, Monday to Friday
- Find a local Best Start Family Hub
- Childline: 0800 1111 for children and young people under 19
Sources for the Prevent figures
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