Educational Information
How does domestic violence affect children?
The behavior that Children exhibit after exposure to domestic violence varies. Each child is born with his or her own personality, which may partially affect how he/she responds to trauma. Physical and/or emotional abuse during pregnancy causes damage and distress to the fetus. Blows to the abdomen may lead to miscarriage and stillbirths, or may result in fractures and brain damage. A developing fetus exposed to a mother’s physical, verbal and emotional abuse can be traumatized for life. Infants who have been exposed to violence during the mother’s pregnancy or remain in a violent home often exhibit failure-to-thrive symptoms such as being underweight, depressed, and frequently ill. Another common reaction of infants is “hyper-vigilance,“ which would be expressed by needing to know Mom’s whereabouts at all times. Up to age four or five, children in violent homes experience terror and display that feeling through yelling, irritable behavior, hiding, shaking, stuttering, crying, poor sleeping, delayed speech, and clinging to parents. Children from five or six to eleven see their parents as significant role models, and are watching their parents as they start to develop beliefs about how relationships should be. Children living in violent homes learn that it is okay to be abusive and violent in relationships and to express their feelings by degrading and hurting others. In violent homes children do not have the opportunity to feel in control. In order to be able to feel that they have some control of their lives, they may attempt to control a weaker sibling, friend, or animal. This behavior may be abusive in nature. Children are harmed by domestic violence even if they never see it and are never physically abused themselves. Even hearing yelling, name-calling slapping and hitting sounds is abuse and it has a profound effect on them. Some common issues that children who witness abuses have: -They cannot get enough positive attention from a parent who lives in fear. |
