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Children & Youth
We can not address domestic violence without understanding its impact on children and youth. All aspects of a child's life are affected when a child grows up in a violent home. Domestic violence can make children less likely to succeed in school, more likely to suffer and commit violence, and more likely to face a host of health problems that can last throughout their lives. While it is widely recognized that domestic violence can cause great harm to women, too little attention has been paid to the harm suffered by millions of children and youth exposed to domestic abuse. As a result, our nation fails to give children who grow up in violent homes the assistance and support they need.
Current research indicates that domestic violence affects children and youth in a variety of ways and that the effects are both short and long term (Jaffe, Wolfe, and Wilson, 1990). Children may be physically, emotionally, and cognitively damaged as a result of domestic violence. The nature and extent of harm will vary depending primarily on three factors:
- the type and history of abusive control used by the perpetrator
- the age, gender, and development stage of the child
- situational factors, such as other social supports
It is also important to understanding how domestic violence affect families as a whole and how the parenting of the abused parent might be compromised.
- Conduct by a battered mother that looks like poor parenting may in fact be an effort to protect herself and her children
- Harm to children is caused by domestic violence and by the actions of the abuser, not by the mother's failure to protect. Children are harmed by exposure to trauma, which may include child abuse; by the abuser's manipulation of children; and by the damage to the mother/child relationship
- Domestic violence compromises the victim's ability to parent as she wishes and compromises the batterer's capacity as a parent
- Protecting families from domestic violence is the responsibility of society, not battered women.
Domestic violence affects women of all ages, including teens. Women ages 16-24 years old experience the highest per capita rate of intimate violence in the U.S., and 40% of teenage girls report knowing someone their age who has been hit or beaten by a boyfriend. The dynamics of teen dating violence are similar to adult domestic violence, yet it carries its own, unique risks. For teen girls, being a victim of dating violence is associated with increased risk of substance abuse, unhealthy weight control behavior, risky sexual behavior, pregnancy and attempted suicide. Teens are still developing emotionally and intellectually, and school and peer relationships can complicate a teen's ability to cope with a violent dating relationship. School attendance may place a teen in constant contact with her abuser. Because teens don't have the legal status of adult battered women, there are fewer legal remedies and services available to them. For example, teens cannot obtain a restraining order or seek shelter or counseling without parent's permission. Teens are more likely to seek help from and confide in peers than in adults.