DOMESTIC VIOLENCE AND CHILDREN
Children in homes where domestic violence occurs may be witnesses
to abuse, may themselves be abused, may suffer harm “incidental”
to the domestic abuse, and may be used by the batterer to manipulate
or gain control over the victim. The Women’s
Rural Advocacy Program offers a good overview of the ways
in which children can be affected by domestic violence.
Effects on Children
First, children are often witnesses to domestic violence.
As reported in the Toolkit
to End Violence Against Women, created by the National Advisory
Council on Violence Against Women and the United States Department
of Justice’s Violence Against Women Office, available in
PDF
and text
formats, slightly more than one-half of female victims of domestic
violence in the United States live in homes with children under
twelve.
As witnesses, children can be harmed psychologically and emotionally.
Studies indicate that child witnesses, on average, are more aggressive
and fearful and more often suffer from anxiety, depression and
other trauma-related symptoms. Children growing up in violent
homes often take responsibility for the abuse and may feel guilty
for not being able to stop it. They live with constant anxiety
that another beating will occur, or that they will be abandoned.
They may feel guilty for loving the abuser. Children may be at
a higher risk of alcohol or drug abuse, experience cognitive problems
or stress-related ailments (headaches, rashes), and have difficulties
in school.
Although the effects of witnessing domestic violence appear to
diminish with time, they can continue through adulthood. As adults,
child witnesses may continue to suffer from depression and trauma-related
symptoms. In addition, while current theories view violence as
a means of power and control and not entirely as learned behavior,
studies show that boys who witness domestic violence are more
likely to batter as adults.
In Problems
Associated with Children’s Witnessing of Domestic Violence
(1999), Jeff Edleson, an expert on children and domestic violence
and batterers treatment programs, provides a more in-depth discussion
of some of the ways in which children’s health can be affected
by witnessing domestic violence. Edleson reviews studies that
report behavioral, emotional, cognitive and long-term problems
that are statistically associated with a child’s witnessing
of domestic violence.
Second, research has also shown that there is a strong
correlation between child abuse and domestic abuse. As reported
in the Toolkit’s chapter on children and domestic violence,
available in PDF
and text
formats, recent national studies have shown that 50% of men who
frequently assault their wives also frequently assault their children.
The Women’s Rural Advocacy Programs describes the following
facts concerning child and spouse abuse in the United States:
A 1998 literature review reported that between 45% and
70% of children who are exposed to domestic violence are also
victims of abuse, and that 40% of child victims of abuse are also
exposed to domestic violence. From Lynn S. Levey, Martha
Wade Steketee & Susan L. Keilitz, Lessons Learned in Implementing
an Integrated Domestic Violence Court: The District of Columbia
Experience 14 (2000).
Third, children may be “inadvertently” hurt
through domestic violence. They may be hit by items thrown by
the batterer, and older children, in particular, may be hurt trying
to protect their mother.
Fourth, children are used by batterers to manipulate their
victims. A batterer may threaten to take custody of or kidnap
the children if the victim reports the abuse; he may also threaten
to harm or kill the children. He may also tell her that she will
lose custody if she seeks a divorce because she “allowed”
the abuse to happen. He may even harm the children in order to
control the mother. During and after separation, batterers continue
to use these tactics. Visitation and joint custody provide the
batterer with opportunities to abuse, threaten and intimidate
their former partners. From Kendall Segel-Evans, Wife
Abuse and Child Custody and Visitation by the Abuser (1989).
The Winter 1999 issue of The
Future of Children is dedicated entirely to articles on child
exposure to domestic violence. The topics covered in the issue
include strategies for addressing the harm to children from domestic
violence, effects of domestic violence on children, children and
the legal system, and overviews of intervention and service programs
throughout the United States.
Community Responses
The connections between child and spouse abuse indicate
a strong need for coordination between child
abuse and domestic abuse agencies and advocates. Some communities
are working to develop relationships between child abuse and domestic
abuse agencies. In particular, because of the correlation between
domestic violence and child abuse, it is critical that agencies
that work with abused children are trained to recognize signs
of domestic violence and to respond appropriately. Susan Schechter,
Expanding
Solutions for Domestic Violence and Poverty: What Battered Women
with Abused Children Need from Their Advocates, discusses
some of the specific needs of battered women who have abused children.
When a batterer is also abusing a child, the best way to protect
the child often is to ensure the safety of the mother.
Further, because of the correlation between spouse and
child abuse, it is important that the laws
governing child abuse and child custody do not have unintended
effects on battered women. In the United States,
for example, child abuse laws that determined custody according
to the “best interests of the child” often held that
a women was an unfit parent because she did not protect her child
from abuse—even though she was also abused and may not have
felt is was safe for her and her child to leave. Another problem
arose with laws that required certain people, such as teachers
or social workers, to report signs of child abuse. Mandatory reporting
without consideration of domestic violence issue may force the
woman into a lose-lose situation; when confronted with the signs
of abuse, she either reveals the abuser’s responsibility
and runs the risk of retaliation, or refuses to do so and potentially
loses custody of her children.
The Minnesota Department of Human Services offers useful
guidelines
for responding to situations in which spouse and child abuse are
present.
Some potential strategies to coordinate the response of
child abuse and domestic violence agencies and advocates include
joint training, the implementation of protocols that require each
agency or group to consult with its counterpart, where appropriate,
co-location of staff working on these issues, and establishment
of collaborative projects. These and other coordinated efforts
are described in In
Harm’s Way: Domestic Violence and Child Maltreatment.
The Greenbook
Initiative is a project designed to help child welfare and
domestic violence agencies and family courts work together more
effectively to aid families experiencing violence. The Greenbook
sets forth recommended principles—designed to further the
safety, well-being and stability of victims of family violence
and hold batterers accountable—that can be used to guide
communities in structuring their responses to these situations.
The Greenbook also sets forth specific recommendations for implementing
these goals. Effective
Intervention in Domestic Violence & Child Maltreatment Cases:
Guidelines for Policy and Practice, developed by the National
Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges, also offers guiding
principles that can be used to improve responses to dual violence
cases.
The Toolkit
offers recommendations and strategies for designing intervention
programs for children affected by domestic violence. Detailed
discussion of these intervention strategies, as well as further
information about the effects of domestic violence on children,
is available in both PDF
and text
formats.
Recent child trauma research programs in the United States
have adopted a “dual victim treatment” approach. This
approach is based on the premises that mother and child witnesses
are dual victims of domestic abuse, and that strengthening the
mother-child bond in dual victim cases helps minimize the harm
experienced by children. Reports from programs that work to develop
the relationship between the two victims through counseling have
been dramatic. Not only did the children’s mental and emotional
health improve significantly, but only one in forty-five women
returned to her abuser. From Joan Zorza, Health Watch,
Violence Against Women 22-6 (Joan Zorza ed., 2002).
Additional resources on children and domestic violence
include Making
the Link: Promoting the Safety of Battered Women and Children
Exposed to Domestic Violence and Battered
Women and Their Children. Janet Carter, Domestic
Violence, Child Abuse, and Youth Violence: Strategies for Prevention
and Early Intervention, provides an in-depth discussion of
the relationship between children’s welfare and domestic
violence.