Children and DV

The emphasis of this blog is clearly on DV in the South Asian population. But there are some aspects of DV that have been widely studied in the larger community (the effect of DV on children, for instance) that we don't know enough about in the SA community. So this entry (and the next) is going to be an exception to the SA-focused norm, because I believe it would be instructive to understand these topics so that we may apply those lessons to working with children in the SA community.

To begin with, how many children are affected by domestic violence? Many. Clinical workers have found that half of all women who are victims of DV have children under the age of 12.

Before we launch into a discussion of specific effects of DV exposure on children, here are 3 important things to remember about children and DV -

1. DV is generally considered the most toxic form of violence: Compared to, say, community violence. This is because when there is violence outside the home, parents perform the role of emotional protectors, buffering the children from outside violence. When there is violence inside the home, however, children have no protection or buffering from the violence.

2. Being a witness to DV can affect a child as severely as direct violence: Most people assume that being a victim of violence is worse than being a witness to violence. But children who are witnesses have the same kind of symptoms, and show them for the same duration, as those children who are direct victims.

3. Finally, there is no age at which a child is immune to the effects of DV: It appears to affect younger children more than older children, but at no age does a child escape the effects of DV exposure. Clinical workers have found that even infants are attuned to violence in the home - they have eating and sleeping disturbances, and cry harder when their caregiver moves away from them.

But what do we mean by exposure to DV? Have a look at this figure:


In this pyramid, as you can see, from the bottom to the top of the pyramid, the severity of the violence increases, and the number of children exposed to that particular form of violence decreases.

The presence of marital conflict, yelling and shouting is normative in many families and does not necessarily indicate the presence of violence in the family. But the next level, which includes verbal threats and intimidation, crosses the boundary into domestic violence. Many parents mistakenly conclude that children must only be protected from physical violence, but children are highly attuned to this verbal form of violence, and can start showing the symptoms of exposure to DV. Children are most harmed by, and require the most help for, exposure to the highest levels of violence, which involve physical violence, and serious or fatal injuries.

This was an overview of the topic of children and DV; next week, we'll get more specific - what is the impact of DV exposure on children?