Being Mum, I Hate Mum

BBC

BBC One

 Forming part of BBC One's Being Mum season, I Hate Mum  looks into the lives of two boys who are at war with their mothers and follows their progress as they visit a specialist unit dedicated to helping families on the verge of collapse.

 

I Hate Mum is the second of two season films commissioned and supported by Headroom – the BBC's three-year mental health and wellbeing campaign.

Ten-year-old Adam has been violent and abusive to his mum and eight-year-old brother Jake for the past five years. At school, Adam is able to control his outbursts, but home is a constant battleground.

"He's actually threatened me with a knife," says Adam's mother Sharon. "I can see one day he's going to hurt me quite badly and I won't be able to stop him."

Adam's anger has been affecting the whole family but family life has not always been that way, explains Sharon: "He was what I call a perfect son. I never had problems with him at all. It was when Adam turned five or six that his behaviour started to change."

With Adam's behaviour growing increasingly worse, the family GP has referred them to specialist NHS unit CAMHS in Greenwich – part of the national network of child and adolescent mental health services. Working with the family and closely observing how they interact, the family therapists come up with a programme to connect the family again. But can they reunite mother and son?

Over the past three years, Ryan (16) has been caught stealing from home, been excluded from school and smashed up the house, but the worst of his behaviour is targeted at his mum Cathy.

"He's very angry and I can't get him out of that in order to establish just a normal conversation with him," she says.

Ryan lives with his mum, his older sister Annie and his mum's fiancé Jamie. He's been going missing from home recently, and was once found sleeping on a night bus.

"Everything's changed in the house now," says Ryan. "It feels like this is my home but it feels like everyone has just gone away from me."

Ryan and his family have been attending CAMHS for nine months and, although there has been some improvement in Ryan's behaviour, his family still don't trust him alone. Can CAMHS counsellors help Ryan get to the nub of his problems before it's too late?

"When families are in a crisis situation they're often very worn down and feeling a bit battered," says family therapist Pete Brown of Greenwich CAMHS. "And I think one of the first things we need to do is create a space where we can talk about the issues without blaming anyone in particular."