Domestic Violence Effect On Children and Parent-child Aggression, and Treatments
Eurus Thach
Mar 18th, 2019
Children are society's first priority and the problems concerning their physical and mental health gain the most attention; domestic violence is a nightmare that damages both. According to the Childhood Domestic Violence Association (2014), millions of children in the United States cry themselves to sleep every night under a roof that houses domestic violence. Throughout centuries, researchers and the government never stopped attempting to prevent domestic abuse events and to deal with their consequences. Despite that, domestic violence still remains a crisis without effective solutions. Whether children were bystanders or victims, they have to suffer the biological and psychological issues. So, how do children cope with domestic violence?
Background
History
Domestic violence has been a long-lasting crisis in the community. The support for children now and in the past is very different. Beginning in the late 1980s, according to the Child Witness to Violence Project Organization (CWVP) (n.d.), a lot of research about the domestic violence effect on children as “bystanders” was released (para. 1). Before that, children grew up experiencing the unequal “logic” of domestic violence. Between the 1970s and 1980s, the “logic of injury”, Little (2017) claims, reinforced “a victim-blaming response to domestic violence by seeing the injured body as compliant and passive” (p. 479). Hence, previously, when a child was a victim of this crisis, there weren’t many chances that he or she would get support. It happened the same way with partners. In case children were not the victims, they had to witness their mothers suffering the pain on their own, which caused them gloomy memories and affected their mental health. Fortunately, there was a brighter movement in the 1990s. Little (2017) reports that the “logic of health” was considered in domestic violence: “While the shift to a logic of health was positive in moving away from accusations of victim passivity and for recognizing the longer-term effects of violence, its ‘somatic flexibility’, according to Sweet (2014: 44), ‘creates spaces into which new forms of blame and self-responsibility can take shape’” (p. 479).
Although domestic violence did not gain much attention at the time, there were still actions to protect children from domestic violence. Especially, the CWVP (n.d.) reveals, in 1982, The National Coalition Against Domestic Violence formed a Child Advocacy Task Force to support these “bystanders”. Since the 1980s, the child protection toward this crisis has had a remarkable movement. Thanks to the contributions, the community started to understand more about the perspective of the susceptible children as witnesses and the effect of domestic violence on child development.
Mental and Physical Health
What Kagan (1984) points out it is that “the child’s knowledge, moral evaluations, and inferences about the causes of his or her current mood” that form his or her interpretations to each “emotionally significant experience,” such as family violence (pp. 275- 276). Therefore, the results of this process turn out to be various. The worst situation would be the diffusion of negative interpretations. The author of the article Orchids and Dandelions, Boyce (2019), reports:
Biological privilege
Fortunately, not every child ends up the same. There are possibilities that children who are “about one in five”, also written in the article, have remarkable susceptibility to being “highly sensitive to adverse events”. With this biological privilege, they can achieve success in nurturant (Boyce, 2019, paras. 5, 6). This resilience seems to be a perfect stimulus for the emotional growth in these “orchid children”. In general, during the unfortunate event, with a strong emotional basis, other positive forces have opportunities to win the child’s mind. However, how many children are lucky enough to have immediate support or this biological privilege?
Organization
Child Witness to Violence Project organization (CWVP)
Child Witness to Violence Project (CWVP) is an organization helps children overcome their trauma-related syndromes from domestic violence. Beginning in 1992, they have provided help to over 150 children each year. Besides their main treatment as therapy, the organization also provides the caregivers with specific guidance to connect with their children during such unfortunate events. Another purpose of the CWVP is increasing community responses through statistics and stories about susceptible children.
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References: (the whole research)
Apple Belle. (2017). Superhero Standards: Unrealistic Role Models or Inspirers of Morality? [Blog post]. Retrieved from https://applebelleblog.wordpress.com/2017/09/29/superhero-standards-unrealistic-role-models-or-inspirers-of-morality/.
Boyce, W. T. (2019, January 2). Orchids and Dandelions. Psychology Today. Retrieved from https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/articles/201901/orchids-and-dandelions.
Child Domestic Violence Association. (2014). 10 Startling Statistics about Children of Domestic Violence [Blog post]. Retrieved from https://cdv.org/2014/02/10-startling-domestic-violence-statistics-for-children/.
Child Domestic Violence Association. (n.d.). Change a Life Program [Blog post]. Retrieved from http://changealife.cdv.org/.
Child Witness to Violence Project. (n.d.). Social Impact & History: History of Services for Children who are Exposed to Violence [Blog post]. Retrieved from http://www.childwitnesstoviolence.org/social-impact--history.html.
Cole, A. [TEDx Talks]. (2015, July 30). Domestic violence: a child's perspective [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cadKzL0Ec00&t=53.
Domestic Violence Coordinating Council. (2011). Dynamics of Domestic Violence. Domestic Violence Coordinating Council. Retrieved from https://dvcc.delaware.gov/background-purpose/dynamics-domestic-abuse/.
Gattuso, R. (2018). My Abusive Partner Promises They’ll Change. Will They? [Blog post]. Retrieved from https://www.talkspace.com/blog/abusive-partner-promises-change/.
Greydanus, D., Palusci, V., Merrick, J. (2017). Chronic Disease and Disability : Abuse and Neglect in Childhood and Adolescence. Nova Science Publishers, Inc.
Hamby, S. (2015, July). Why Can Domestic Violence Get Passed From Parent to Child? Psychology Today, The Web of Violence. Retrieved from https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-web-violence/201507/why-can-domestic-violence-get-passed-parent-child.
Jaffe, P. G., Baker, L. L., & Cunningham, A. J. (Eds.). (2004). Protecting children from domestic violence: Strategies for community intervention. New York, NY, US: Guilford Press.
Jouriles, E. N., Barling, J., & O'Leary, K. D. (1987). Predicting child behavior problems in maritally violent families. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 15(2), 165-173. Retrieved from Google Scholar: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF00916346.
Kagan, J. (1984). The nature of the child. New York, NY, US: Basic Books.
Kilbourne, J. (2016). Two Ways a Woman Can Get Hurt: Advertising and Violence. Rereading America: Cultural Contexts For Critical Thinking and Writing 10th edition, 488-513.
Little, J. (2017). Understanding domestic violence in rural spaces. Progress in Human Geography, 41(4), 472-488. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.
McCoy, D. C., Raver, C. C. (2011) Caregiver Emotional Expressiveness, Child Emotion Regulation, and Child Behavior Problems among Head Start Families. Social Development, 20(4), 741-761, doi:10.1111/j.1467-9507.2011.00608.x. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.
Rothbart, K. M. (2011). Becoming who we are: Temperament and personality in development. New York, NY, US: Guilford Press.
The National Domestic Violence Hotline. (2014). Intervention Programs for Abusive Behavior [Blog post]. Retrieved from https://www.thehotline.org/2014/07/03/intervention-programs-for-abusive-behavior/.
The National Domestic Violence Hotline. (2013). Is Change Possible In An Abuser? [Blog post]. Retrieved from https://www.thehotline.org/2013/09/05/is-change-possible-in-an-abuser/.
White, R. E., Prager, E. O., Schaefer, C., Kross, E., Duckworth, A. L., Carlson, S. M. (2017, September/October). The "Batman Effect": Improving Perseverance in Young Children. Child Development, doi: 00093920, 88(5). Retrieved from EBSCOhost.
Eurus Thach
Mar 18th, 2019
Abstract
The basis of this studies the effect of domestic violence on children and the improvements needed in treatment programs. The contribution of magazine articles, academic journals, books, websites, and organizations highlights that treatments only work with the understanding and awareness of the child’s perspective. Children do not view a subject as the way adults do. Children process trauma, emotions, and reality differently so as to learn to grow. Especially, because they do not think opening up about their feelings is a way to deal with this sensitive topic. The wrong approach can lead to a greater distance between the helpers or caregivers and the child, which causes child-parent aggression, which results in the prevalence of treatment-resistant disorders, such as depression, trauma-related problems, and brain damage. Understanding the way a child approaches a problem helps to create appropriate methods to discuss and support him or her. In relation to children, the treatments of abusers could help children recover a semblance of a parent-child relationship, which is vital for their emotional growth. How does a child perceive a subject? How does he or she face domestic violence? What are the improvements in treatments these children need?
Domestic Violence Is Threatening Healthy Lives of Children
Children are society's first priority and the problems concerning their physical and mental health gain the most attention; domestic violence is a nightmare that damages both. According to the Childhood Domestic Violence Association (2014), millions of children in the United States cry themselves to sleep every night under a roof that houses domestic violence. Throughout centuries, researchers and the government never stopped attempting to prevent domestic abuse events and to deal with their consequences. Despite that, domestic violence still remains a crisis without effective solutions. Whether children were bystanders or victims, they have to suffer the biological and psychological issues. So, how do children cope with domestic violence?
Background
History
Domestic violence has been a long-lasting crisis in the community. The support for children now and in the past is very different. Beginning in the late 1980s, according to the Child Witness to Violence Project Organization (CWVP) (n.d.), a lot of research about the domestic violence effect on children as “bystanders” was released (para. 1). Before that, children grew up experiencing the unequal “logic” of domestic violence. Between the 1970s and 1980s, the “logic of injury”, Little (2017) claims, reinforced “a victim-blaming response to domestic violence by seeing the injured body as compliant and passive” (p. 479). Hence, previously, when a child was a victim of this crisis, there weren’t many chances that he or she would get support. It happened the same way with partners. In case children were not the victims, they had to witness their mothers suffering the pain on their own, which caused them gloomy memories and affected their mental health. Fortunately, there was a brighter movement in the 1990s. Little (2017) reports that the “logic of health” was considered in domestic violence: “While the shift to a logic of health was positive in moving away from accusations of victim passivity and for recognizing the longer-term effects of violence, its ‘somatic flexibility’, according to Sweet (2014: 44), ‘creates spaces into which new forms of blame and self-responsibility can take shape’” (p. 479).
Although domestic violence did not gain much attention at the time, there were still actions to protect children from domestic violence. Especially, the CWVP (n.d.) reveals, in 1982, The National Coalition Against Domestic Violence formed a Child Advocacy Task Force to support these “bystanders”. Since the 1980s, the child protection toward this crisis has had a remarkable movement. Thanks to the contributions, the community started to understand more about the perspective of the susceptible children as witnesses and the effect of domestic violence on child development.
Mental and Physical Health
What Kagan (1984) points out it is that “the child’s knowledge, moral evaluations, and inferences about the causes of his or her current mood” that form his or her interpretations to each “emotionally significant experience,” such as family violence (pp. 275- 276). Therefore, the results of this process turn out to be various. The worst situation would be the diffusion of negative interpretations. The author of the article Orchids and Dandelions, Boyce (2019), reports:
Nearly 34,000 children from Manitoba, Canada, five-minute Apgar scores were predictive of teacher-reported developmental vulnerability at age 5 for a variety of developmental dimensions”. In general, these experiences impede the ability to learning skill, as it also does to the mental and physical health throughout our lifetime. (paras. 3, 10)Although Boyce (2019) mentions “a variety of developmental dimensions,” his paper mainly focuses on the “emotionally significant experience”. By acknowledging Boyce’s article and interpretations from all the work above, a child with a lack of emotional support has difficulties leading life and overcoming challenges.
Biological privilege
Fortunately, not every child ends up the same. There are possibilities that children who are “about one in five”, also written in the article, have remarkable susceptibility to being “highly sensitive to adverse events”. With this biological privilege, they can achieve success in nurturant (Boyce, 2019, paras. 5, 6). This resilience seems to be a perfect stimulus for the emotional growth in these “orchid children”. In general, during the unfortunate event, with a strong emotional basis, other positive forces have opportunities to win the child’s mind. However, how many children are lucky enough to have immediate support or this biological privilege?
Organization
Child Witness to Violence Project organization (CWVP)
Child Witness to Violence Project (CWVP) is an organization helps children overcome their trauma-related syndromes from domestic violence. Beginning in 1992, they have provided help to over 150 children each year. Besides their main treatment as therapy, the organization also provides the caregivers with specific guidance to connect with their children during such unfortunate events. Another purpose of the CWVP is increasing community responses through statistics and stories about susceptible children.
___________________________________________________________________
References: (the whole research)
Apple Belle. (2017). Superhero Standards: Unrealistic Role Models or Inspirers of Morality? [Blog post]. Retrieved from https://applebelleblog.wordpress.com/2017/09/29/superhero-standards-unrealistic-role-models-or-inspirers-of-morality/.
Boyce, W. T. (2019, January 2). Orchids and Dandelions. Psychology Today. Retrieved from https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/articles/201901/orchids-and-dandelions.
Child Domestic Violence Association. (2014). 10 Startling Statistics about Children of Domestic Violence [Blog post]. Retrieved from https://cdv.org/2014/02/10-startling-domestic-violence-statistics-for-children/.
Child Domestic Violence Association. (n.d.). Change a Life Program [Blog post]. Retrieved from http://changealife.cdv.org/.
Child Witness to Violence Project. (n.d.). Social Impact & History: History of Services for Children who are Exposed to Violence [Blog post]. Retrieved from http://www.childwitnesstoviolence.org/social-impact--history.html.
Cole, A. [TEDx Talks]. (2015, July 30). Domestic violence: a child's perspective [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cadKzL0Ec00&t=53.
Domestic Violence Coordinating Council. (2011). Dynamics of Domestic Violence. Domestic Violence Coordinating Council. Retrieved from https://dvcc.delaware.gov/background-purpose/dynamics-domestic-abuse/.
Gattuso, R. (2018). My Abusive Partner Promises They’ll Change. Will They? [Blog post]. Retrieved from https://www.talkspace.com/blog/abusive-partner-promises-change/.
Greydanus, D., Palusci, V., Merrick, J. (2017). Chronic Disease and Disability : Abuse and Neglect in Childhood and Adolescence. Nova Science Publishers, Inc.
Hamby, S. (2015, July). Why Can Domestic Violence Get Passed From Parent to Child? Psychology Today, The Web of Violence. Retrieved from https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-web-violence/201507/why-can-domestic-violence-get-passed-parent-child.
Jaffe, P. G., Baker, L. L., & Cunningham, A. J. (Eds.). (2004). Protecting children from domestic violence: Strategies for community intervention. New York, NY, US: Guilford Press.
Jouriles, E. N., Barling, J., & O'Leary, K. D. (1987). Predicting child behavior problems in maritally violent families. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 15(2), 165-173. Retrieved from Google Scholar: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF00916346.
Kagan, J. (1984). The nature of the child. New York, NY, US: Basic Books.
Kilbourne, J. (2016). Two Ways a Woman Can Get Hurt: Advertising and Violence. Rereading America: Cultural Contexts For Critical Thinking and Writing 10th edition, 488-513.
Little, J. (2017). Understanding domestic violence in rural spaces. Progress in Human Geography, 41(4), 472-488. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.
McCoy, D. C., Raver, C. C. (2011) Caregiver Emotional Expressiveness, Child Emotion Regulation, and Child Behavior Problems among Head Start Families. Social Development, 20(4), 741-761, doi:10.1111/j.1467-9507.2011.00608.x. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.
Rothbart, K. M. (2011). Becoming who we are: Temperament and personality in development. New York, NY, US: Guilford Press.
The National Domestic Violence Hotline. (2014). Intervention Programs for Abusive Behavior [Blog post]. Retrieved from https://www.thehotline.org/2014/07/03/intervention-programs-for-abusive-behavior/.
The National Domestic Violence Hotline. (2013). Is Change Possible In An Abuser? [Blog post]. Retrieved from https://www.thehotline.org/2013/09/05/is-change-possible-in-an-abuser/.
White, R. E., Prager, E. O., Schaefer, C., Kross, E., Duckworth, A. L., Carlson, S. M. (2017, September/October). The "Batman Effect": Improving Perseverance in Young Children. Child Development, doi: 00093920, 88(5). Retrieved from EBSCOhost.
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