Effects Of Domestic Violence on Children - Outline
Any time a mother is abused her children are also affected in both overt and subtle ways.
When a mother is abused, her children see it, hear it, and sense it.
When a mother is abused, her children feel confusion, stress, and fear.
When a mother is abused, her children, particularly sons, are more likely to grow up to repeat the destructive patterns they saw in their early lives.
Children of battered women show their distress in a range of physical and emotional problems:
Children from violent homes get sick more often and generally have more health problems than children from non-violent homes; these include headaches, ulcers, abdominal complaints and bedwetting.
Psychological and emotional problems are more frequent in children of abused women. Preschoolers particularly show below-average self-concept and less empathy for others, while school age boys are likely to be more aggressive and show more behavioral problems than both girls of battered mothers and children from non-violent homes.
Children of abused women are at high risk of being abused themselves.
Many battered women report that their abuser threaten or attack the children as a way to control and hurt the mothers even more.
Studies of abused children in the general population reveal that nearly half of them have mothers who are also abused, making wife abuse the single strongest identifiable risk factor for child abuse.
Children, particularly boys, of battered women are at a great risk of repeating the patters they saw as children when they become adults.
Almost 82% of those boys witnessing spouse abuse were also abused themselves, thus confirming a strong relationship between spouse abuse and child abuse.
When we suspect child abuse, we should also suspect woman abuse. When we see battered mothers, we must also reach out to their children.
Because woman abuse is child abuse, the children of an abused woman are also in need of our...