Navigating Legal Responses to Emerging Adult Filial Violence: A Pandora's Box

Family violence continues to receive close attention in Australia. However, research, policy and intervention have predominantly focused on protecting women and children from violent male partners. While adolescent family violence and elder abuse have attracted increasing scholarly and policy attention, violence perpetrated by adult children against parents (adult filial violence) remains underexplored, particularly in relation to non-fatal violence and legal responses. This article examines how adult filial violence involving young or emerging adults is understood and responded to within the Victorian legal and service context. Drawing on focus groups ( n = 18) with lawyers and support workers, we explore practitioners’ experiences of implementing legal and service responses. Four overlapping and intersecting themes emerged: blurred parental roles – shame, stigma and the implication of accountability; the intersectional complexity of adult filial violence, including trauma, disability, substance use and housing insecurity; the search for therapeutic support; and the punitiveness of law. Participants consistently framed adult filial violence as a social rather than a legal problem, emphasising parents’ prioritisation of safety alongside care and concern for their adult children. The findings highlight the limitations of existing legal responses, the risks of criminal charges being laid when police are called and the need for greater recognition of adult filial violence, alongside the development of more nuanced, therapeutic and non-carceral responses attuned to its relational and social dynamics.