Hi there
Thank you for your letter.
You say that your dad gets really angry, yells nasty stuff at you and hits you sometimes. I want you to know that I think it’s wrong that you’re dad is doing this and it’s not your fault. It doesn’t matter if he is stressed or thinks that you’ve done something wrong, he has no right to hit you. It sounds as if some of the things he’s saying to you could be very hurtful and his behaviour changing and being nice to you again, could also be confusing for you.
You’ve been really brave to write to me to tell me about what’s going on for you. You say that it makes you scared. I want you to know that if you feel in danger at any time you can call 999 for the police because they are there to protect you.
You say that it feels so much better to tell someone. You’re welcome to speak to someone at ChildLine whenever you want to and we certainly wouldn’t think that your call is a waste of time. You say that you don’t have a mobile to call us from, perhaps if you did want to phone on 0800 1111, you could see if you could do this from school or a phone-box. All calls to ChildLine are free and don’t show up on the phone bill. Another way you can get in contact with us is using the online 1-2-1 chat on the ChildLine website (it works a bit like MSN messenger).
Anything that you tell ChildLine is confidential, which means that we won’t tell anyone anything you tell us, unless you want us to or you’re in any immediate life threatening danger.
We’d really like to support you and help you to stay safe. There are people who can work to get what’s happening to stop. I don’t know if you’ve heard of Social Services but they are there to work with families to try to make sure that everyone is safe. If this is something you’d like to know more about you could contact us in whatever way is best for you so we can talk some more about this.
Take care
Sam