Adult Domestic Violence
CHILDREN’S WITNESSING OF ADULT DOMESTIC VIOLENCE
Jeffrey L. Edleson University of Minnesota The author wishes to thank Susan Schechter and Andrea Bible for their helpful feedback provided on earlier versions of this manuscript. Running head: Children’s Experience of Domestic Violence Abstract Social service professionals are more frequently identifying children who witness adult domestic violence as victims of that abuse. This article expands common definitions of how children witness violence, and adult domestic violence in particular. Over 80 research papers were reviewed and a variety of behavioral, emotional, cognitive and physical functioning problems among children were found to be associated with exposure to domestic violence. Factors …show more content…
91). Most children do not witness murders of a parent. Beatings that are not fatal but are nonetheless brutal are the types of events that we most commonly think of when children witness adult domestic violence. Peled (1993) provides dramatic testimony of one child witnessing such violence: “I wouldn’t say anything. I would just sit there. Watch it...I was just, felt like I was just sitting there, listening to a TV show or something...It’s like you just sit there to watch it, like a tapestry, you sit there” (p. 122). Being an “eyewitness” to a violent event is not, however, the only way that children describe their experiences. Many children describe very traumatic events that they have not visually observed, but rather that they have heard. One child described hearing fights this way: “I really thought somebody got hurt. It sounded like it. And I almost started to cry. It felt really, I was thinking of calling, calling the cops or something because it was really getting, really big banging and stuff like that” (Peled, 1993, p. 125). In their national curriculum for child protection workers, Ganley and Schechter (1996) highlight several additional ways that children experience adult domestic violence. These include hitting or threatening a child while in its mother’s arms, taking the child hostage in order to force the mother’s return to the home, using a child as a physical weapon against the victim, forcing the child to watch assaults against the mother or to participate in the abuse, and using the child as a spy or interrogating him or her about the mother’s activities. Children are also frequently told by abusive fathers that their families would be together were it not for their mother’s behavior, thus attempting to put pressure on the mother through the children to return to him or driving a wedge between the mother and her
Jeffrey L. Edleson University of Minnesota The author wishes to thank Susan Schechter and Andrea Bible for their helpful feedback provided on earlier versions of this manuscript. Running head: Children’s Experience of Domestic Violence Abstract Social service professionals are more frequently identifying children who witness adult domestic violence as victims of that abuse. This article expands common definitions of how children witness violence, and adult domestic violence in particular. Over 80 research papers were reviewed and a variety of behavioral, emotional, cognitive and physical functioning problems among children were found to be associated with exposure to domestic violence. Factors …show more content…
91). Most children do not witness murders of a parent. Beatings that are not fatal but are nonetheless brutal are the types of events that we most commonly think of when children witness adult domestic violence. Peled (1993) provides dramatic testimony of one child witnessing such violence: “I wouldn’t say anything. I would just sit there. Watch it...I was just, felt like I was just sitting there, listening to a TV show or something...It’s like you just sit there to watch it, like a tapestry, you sit there” (p. 122). Being an “eyewitness” to a violent event is not, however, the only way that children describe their experiences. Many children describe very traumatic events that they have not visually observed, but rather that they have heard. One child described hearing fights this way: “I really thought somebody got hurt. It sounded like it. And I almost started to cry. It felt really, I was thinking of calling, calling the cops or something because it was really getting, really big banging and stuff like that” (Peled, 1993, p. 125). In their national curriculum for child protection workers, Ganley and Schechter (1996) highlight several additional ways that children experience adult domestic violence. These include hitting or threatening a child while in its mother’s arms, taking the child hostage in order to force the mother’s return to the home, using a child as a physical weapon against the victim, forcing the child to watch assaults against the mother or to participate in the abuse, and using the child as a spy or interrogating him or her about the mother’s activities. Children are also frequently told by abusive fathers that their families would be together were it not for their mother’s behavior, thus attempting to put pressure on the mother through the children to return to him or driving a wedge between the mother and her