Filial violence is an emerging problem in the Japanese family today, quite alien to the Japanese people in pre-war times. The abusive youth direct their violent acts toward all members of their immediate families: the parents, the siblings, and the grand-parents. These violent children are “lions at home and mice abroad.” Filial violence happens without warning among the intelligent children of upper-middle class families. The battered parents suffer physically and mentally, and are completely at a loss as to the appropriate paths to restore communication with their violent offspring. The nature of filial violence is too complicated to identify single cause which would account for the problem. Perhaps the understanding of filial violence can only be accomplished through a macroscopic view of Japanese culture and society today. It is widely acknowledged that the father is generally absent and the mother is dominant in the Japanse family today. As a consequence, the only close-knit tie in the family is between the mother and her children. The historical transformation of the family system from the stem to the nuclear type might be the major force which contributed to the emergence of new types of family interaction. Japanese society today still is characterized as hierarchical-vertical in structure, yet family dynamics have been distorted without the existence of proper authority at home. Filial violence inflicts upon the battered parents in the violent home agony and anguish. The true victims of filial violence, however, are the abusive children themselves. Hopefully, the realization of the very nature of filial violence will reduce its occurrence in Japanese society in the foreseeable future.