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The Youngest Victims of Domestic Violence
Nationwide studies reveal that as many as 3 million children witness parental domestic violence each year. Inter-family violence can cause serious, longlasting psychological harm to children, and, in many cases, it results in physical injury to the child as well. When parents are acting abusively to one another, it can interfere with their ability to adequately parent and protect their child to such a degree that the child may become seriously neglected. Research by the U.S. Advisory Board on Child Abuse and Neglect suggests that domestic violence may be the single major precursor to child abuse and neglect in this country.
Parents who are abusive to one another sometimes intentionally injure their children in an effort to intimidate and control their adult partner. The assaults to the child can include physical, emotional and sexual abuse. Often, children are injured—either intentionally or accidentally—when they are caught in the "cross fire" of their parents' fighting. Injuries to older children often occur when the adolescent attempts to intervene during their parents' violent episodes.
"Normalcy" for a child growing up in a violent home is distinctly different than what a child nurtured in a safe, loving and peaceful home knows to be normal. Although many parents believe they can hide domestic violence from their children, the children living in these homes report differently. Research suggests that between 80-90% of these children are aware of their parents' violence. Even if they don’t see the actual fighting, they hear the screams, see the bruises, broken bones, and abrasions and are directly affected by their parents’ emotional pain and upset in the aftermath.
How Children React to the Trauma of Domestic Violence
A child is always affected by their family's violence. Their reactions may become immediately apparent, or surface days, sometimes even weeks later. Just how a child expresses their fear, upset, anger and confusion can vary according to their age:
For children 5 years of age and younger...
Children in this age range often react to episodes of violence in their family by returning to behaviors exhibited at earlier ages (these are called regressive behaviors), such as thumb-sucking, bedwetting, and fear of darkness. Other typical reactions can include any number of the following:
- Difficulty developing the attachment to one or both parents that is critical to their development, which, in extreme cases, can result in a "failure to thrive" or an extreme fear of being separated from one or both parents
- Excessive clinging
- Crying, whimpering, screaming
- Extremely fearful
- Immobility and/or aimless motion
- Trembling
- Frightened facial expressions
- Withdrawal from interactions with others
- Shrinking away from physical contact
- Acting out abusive behavior when playing with their toys and/or with friends
For children 6 to 11 years old...
Children in this age range who are growing up in violent homes are at great risk for recreating the abusive behaviors they have seen and behaving abusively and violently with their siblings and peers. Regressive behaviors are not uncommon for children ages 6 to 11, as well. Other reactions that are typical include:
- Disruptive behavior
- Inability to pay attention
- Sleep problems, including nightmares
- Outbursts of anger and fighting
- Irrational fears
- Difficulties at school, including refusal to attend
- Complaints of aches and pains, such as stomach aches, headaches, or muscle pain, that have no medical basis
- Feelings and expressions of guilt
- Depression
- Anxiety
- Emotional numbing or "flatness"
For adolescents 12 to 17 years old...
The adolescent may feel extreme guilt over not being able to prevent the domestic violence from occurring, or, in some cases, feeling they are somehow to blame for the family’s problems. They may also experience reactions similar to those of adults, including:
- Flashbacks to the episodes of domestic violence
- Sleep problems, including nightmares
- Emotional numbing
- Depression
- Substance abuse
- Problems with peers
- Antisocial behavior
- Risk-taking behavior, such as driving recklessly
- Self-destructive behavior, for example drug and/or alcohol abuse, self-mutilation or eating disorders
- Withdrawal and isolation
- Suicidal thoughts
- Physical complaints that have no medical basis
- Difficulties at school, including academic decline and/or refusal to attend
What long-term effects can domestic abuse have on children?
Children model what they see and many of the long-term effects of growing up in violent homes can be devastating:
- They learn, through their parents’ and their own experience, to equate love with pain and/or violence.
- Abusive behavior and violence can become their primary method of conflict resolution.
- Studies indicate children of abusive families are at greater risk for developing self-destructive problems with alcohol and/or other drugs.
- There is growing evidence that as child-witnesses to domestic violence grow up, they have a 74% higher likelihood of committing assault as adults.
- No studies or statistics can ever possibly measure the life-long impact domestic violence can have on a child’s self-esteem, capacity to trust others, and how they approach all relationships throughout their life, including how they someday parent their own children.
Getting Help
There are therapists who are especially experienced at helping children and their families who are affected by domestic violence. The sooner professional intervention is introduced—either through individual therapy for the child or parent(s) or with family therapy—the sooner serious emotional, psychological and physical damage can be put to a stop for everyone concerned.
Link: Find a Therapist
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