Domestic Violence & Child Behavior

Domestic violence creates a multitude of psychological and emotional behaviors in the children who both experience and witness it

It is estimated that at least three million children witness domestic violence each year, but it could be as high as ten million. According to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, "Witnessing violence between one's parents or caretakers is the strongest risk factor of transmitting violent behavior from one generation to the next." Boys that witness domestic violence are twice as likely to become perpetrators themselves. Domestic violence directly impacts the psychological and emotional stability and well being of children, and these effects are manifested through a variety of behaviors.

Extreme Worry/ Dependency

One of the most traumatic aspects to children who witness domestic violence is a loss of safety and security. The traumatic environment creates a high degree of anxiety and stress for a child transforming them into worriers in need of constant reassurance. Children who experience and/or witness domestic violence can often be clingy with their parents, siblings and teachers. When outside of the home, they might need to be constantly reassured that their mother and siblings are all right. At school they might constantly ask their teachers to see their siblings in order to see for themselves that they are safe. This worrying and dependency can severely interfere with their ability to concentrate on school work.

Bed Wetting and Nightmares

Preschool and kindergarten-age children do not have the verbal ability to adequately express their emotions. Nor do they have the capacity to understand the many factors that underlie abusive and violent behavior towards family members or themselves. They tend to internalize abuse as happening because they themselves did something wrong. They have fewer coping strategies to handle their emotions and thus the anxiety, confusion, fear and anger can manifest during the night as sleep disturbances, nightmares and bed wetting.

Overly Aggressive or Out of Control Behavior

Older children typically possess the verbal and cognitive skills to express their feelings and emotions, but those who witness violence in their homes are likely to lack the ability to resolve conflict in a respectful way. Not only has aggression and violence been modeled as the way to handle disputes, but depending on the frequency and level of occurrence, the child has become desensitized to violence in general. Violence becomes the norm and boys are more likely to express their anger and fear through defiant and overly aggressive behaviors. It is common for boys who are being abused or are witnessing the abuse of loved ones to engage in out-of-control behaviors that include fighting, hitting, yelling, threatening and/or abusing other children or animals. However, girls can display this type of aggressive, lashing-out behavior as well.

Withdrawal/Shyness

It is also common behavior for children of domestically violent environments to withdraw and display intense shyness, including not wanting to go to school or be around friends and classmates. Although this can happen in both boys and girls, generally speaking, boys are more likely to act out and girls are more likely to withdraw socially. One explanation for this is that children between the ages of six to 11 start to identify with their same-sex parent. Their gender identification synchronizes with the violence around them, generally linking girls to the victims and men to the abusers. Statistically, women are more often the victims and men the perpetrators in domestic violence. According to "The Full Report on the Prevalence, Incidence, and Consequences on the Violence Against Women", based on The National Violence Against Women Survey, jointly sponsored by The National Institute of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice, and The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, "Women experience more intimate partner violence than do men: 22.1 percent of surveyed women, compared with 7.4 percent of surveyed men, reported they were physically assaulted by a current or former spouse, cohabiting partner, boyfriend or girlfriend or date in their lifetime."

Difficulties With Intellectual Competency

Traumatic events can cause a child to regress to earlier stages of development as a self-coping mechanism. Children who are exposed to domestic violence can often forget previously learned skills or have an extremely difficult time concentrating on tasks. They can appear to have reduced intellectual competency compared to their classmates and peers or to their past academic performance.

References

• The Alabama Coalition Against Domestic Violence: Children and the Effects of Domestic Violence
• National Criminal Justice Reference Service: Full Report on the Prevalence, Incidence, and Consequences on the Violence Against Women
• Child Witness to Violence
• American Academy of Experts in Traumatic Stress: Effects of Domestic Violence on Children