ORGANISATIONS
Big White Wall
www.bigwhitewall.com/landing
020 3741 8080
An anonymous 24.7 service where you can discuss troubles and anxieties with others. It is supported by trained professionals. 16 +
Childline
www.childline.org.uk | online chat | message boards
Freephone 0800 1111 (24 hours)
Respected helpline for children and young people that provides a confidential telephone counselling service for children with problems.
Frank
www.talktofrank.com
Freephone 0800 77 66 00 24 hour service.
Confidential information and advice for those worried about their own or others’ drug or solvent misuse. Free from landline. The call won’t appear on phone bill.
Get Connected
www.getconnected.org.uk
Freephone 0808 808 4994 7 days a week 1pm-11pm
confidential telephone and email helpline for young people with a problem.
NSPCC
www.nspcc.org.uk
helpline 0800 1111
A national charity that works to help support children suffering from abuse.
Papyrus
pat@papyrus-uk.org
https://www.papyrus-uk.org
A national charity helping to prevent young people committing suicide. Contactthrough HOPELineUK 0800 068 4141Weekdays: 10am-10pm, weekends and bank holidays: 2pm-5pm. A specialist telephone service staffed by trained professionals who give non-judgmental support, practical advice and information to anyone up to 35 or those concerned about a young person.
Samaritans
www.samaritans.org
Tel: 116 123 24.7
Samaritans’ volunteers listen in confidence to anyone in emotional distress. They are neitherjudgmental or tell callers what to do.
Sane
http://www.sane.org.uk
0845 767 8000 6pm to 11pm every day.
Leading UK mental health charity for anyone affected by mental illness.
The site
www.thesite.org
0800 1111
website for 16 - 25 year-olds. Provides non-judgmental support and information, including sex issues, exam stress, debt and drugs.
Youth Access
www.youthaccess.org.uk
To search directory of services for help in your area.
0208 772 9900weekdays only 9am-1pm, 2pm-5pm
National membership organisation for youth information, advice and counselling agencies. 11 – 25 year olds.
Young Minds
http://www.youngminds.org.uk
0808 802 55 44 weekdays 9.30am-4pm.
Free confidential parent helpline for adults worried about emotional problems, behaviour or mental health for individuals up to 25 .
MindEd
https://www.minded.org.uk
New e-learning website for families offering online advice and information to help understand and identify problems, and how best to support your child.
Age UK
Help and advice for carers of ageing parents.
Carers UK
Further support and helpful tips for carers with elderly parents.
ADULT TEXT BOOKS
POSITIVE PARENTING:
How Mothers Love by Naomi Stadlen 2011 Piatkus
Through conversations with mothers, Naomi, a psychotherapist, describes how relationships are born and how intimacy develops in a mother/baby relationship.
Emotional Intelligence - a practical guide by Ian Tuhovsky 2016 Positive Psychology Coaching Series
A helpful book that gives guidance and helpful strategies on learning how to control emotions. It can benefit those who have endured a difficult parent.
How To Calm a Challenging Child by Miriam Chachamu 2012 Foulsham
All children have their challenging moments and this book gives excellent advice and guidance to parents on how to deal with them. Her approach is a mixture of firm kindness and sensitivity.
DIFFICULT PARENTS:
Mother Country by Monique Charlesworth 2023 Moth Books Monique describes her fraught and complex relationship with her mother who had lived though and escaped the horrors of 30s Germany. In order to survive she had to re-invent herself and hide her true self. Consequently she was unable to have an open and honest relationship with her childen. This is a clear account of some of the damage that caused.
Difficult Mothers by Terri Apter 2012 W.W. Norton
Terri, who had a difficult mother, offers wise suggestions based on her own experience and general research into the complex relationship a difficult mother creates. She also describes ways to understand and overcome their power.
‘Your Turn for Care - Surviving the aging and death of the adults who harmed you.’ By Dr Laura Brown. 2012 CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
Offers advice to those having to deal with parents who maltreated them.
Children of the Ageing Self-Absorbed by Nina W. Brown 2015 New Harbinger Publications, Inc
This is a guide on how to cope with difficult, narcissistic parents and grandparents including ways to deal with these parents as they worsen with age.
Mean Mothers: Unloved Daughters and the Legacy of Hurt by Peg Streep 2009 Harper Collins
This book explores the difficult behaviour daughters of mean mothers experience and gives hope for them to have fulfilled lives and become good enough parents themselves.
When You and Your Mother Can’t be Friends by Victoria Secunda 1990 Delta
Victoria describes some of the complex mother/child relationships. She suggests ways of coming to terms with past experiences and how to avoid continuing the pattern of destructive relationships.
The Emotionally Absent Mother by Jasmin Lee Cori 2010 The Experiment - New York
When men and women are ‘under-mothered’ they struggle with relationships. This book aims to help people understand what has been missing from their childhoods and how to fill the ‘mother-gap’.
FICTION FOR ALL AGES
Matilda by Roald Dahl 1988 Jonathan Cape
Matilda is misunderstood and neglected by her parents. Once at school her close friendship with her teacher Miss Honey, together with her own resourcefulness, enable her to rise above the bullying of both her parents and her head teacher and start a new life with Miss Honey.
I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith 1948 Heinemann
James Mortmain, the father in this story, is obsessed with writing a second novel. Although he locks himself away to write, his presence hovers like a dark cloud over his increasingly starving family.
Bleak House by Charles Dickens 1852 Oxford World’s Classics
Mrs. Jellyby is a philanthropist who is so obsessed with creating settlements in Africa that she neglects her own family and behaves callously even when her daughter pleads for attention.
David Copperfield by Charles Dickens 1859 Oxford World’s Classics
Mr. Murdstone, David Copperfield’s bullying step-father makes David’s life a misery and persuades David’s mother that he is such a bad boy he should be sent away. Mrs Copperfield totally gives in to him.
Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson 1985 Vintage
This coming-of-age novel has several themes. It tells the story of a young girl who seems ‘different’ to her peers, struggles to find her place in a world when she seems ‘different’ to her peers. The novel also explores how difficult it is for Jeanette to live up to the often extreme expectations of her cold and critical mother.
Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal by Jeanette Winterson 2012 Knopf Canada
This memoir follows on from Jeanette’s novel described above but is more revealing about her fierce adoptive mother, who is a religious zealot and fails to understand Jeanette.
An Abbreviated Life by Ariel S. Leve 2017 Harper Collins
In this memoir Ariel, who grew up in a dysfunctional family, tells the story of the physical and emotional abuse she endured during her childhood and her relationship with her mother.
FILMS
Mommie Dearest (1981) is an American biographical drama about Joan Crawford (Faye Dunaway) and the abusive relationship she had with her adopted daughter Christina.
Now, Voyager (1942) is an American drama about Charlotte Vale, an unattractive, overweight, repressed spinster whose life is dominated by her dictatorial aristocratic mother, (Bette Davis) whose verbal and emotional abuse has caused Charlotte’s total lack of self-confidence.
Postcards from the Edge (1990) an American comedy-drama based on actress Carrie Fisher’s semi-autobiographical novel. Her character Suzanne Vale (Meryl Streep), is a recovering drug addict trying to get her life and acting career back on track. It’s hard as her over-involved, self-absorbed domineering mother (Shirley Maclaine) treats her like a child.
Precious (2009) is an American drama. Illiterate sixteen-year-old Precious Jones (Gabourey Sidibe) is pregnant by her father for the second time and also suffers constant abuse by her mother. She is offered the chance to transfer to another school. She seizes the chance to turn her life around and begins to head in a different direction.