In my first blog I discussed how women are abused by men, in my second blog I talked about how men are abused by women, now I am going to show the effects of domestic violence on children and teenagers. According to findcounseling.com, there are an estimated 3.3 million children exposed to physical and verbal spousal abuse each year. This means that the children are seeing or hearing the actual abuse or dealing with the aftermath of the abuse. Something that I didn’t know and I’m sure that many of you didn’t know either is that normally where there is domestic abuse there is also child abuse and sexual abuse present. Children that are in a home with domestic violence are physically abused and neglected at a rate 15 times higher than the national average. Some of the effects of being in a home where there is domestic violence are feelings of low self-esteem and self-efficacy, and attractiveness to others in personality and appearance. Emotional responses from children are anger, intense terror, fear of dying, and fear of the loss of a parent. A lot of times children are robbed of their childhoods because they are forced to grow up at a much faster rate than other kids. And they can’t form relationships with other kids because they don’t want people at school to come over and hang out if mom has a black eye. Domestic violence in the home can also affect infants and toddlers. Infants and toddlers who witness abuse show signs of excessive irritability, immature behavior, sleep disturbances, emotional distress, fears of being alone, and regression in toileting and language. Children in preschool might develop things like enuresis and stuttering. Later on down the road when children become teenagers, everything jumps to a new level. Teenagers who live with domestic violence face problems of fitting in with their peers while trying to keep their home life a secret. Teenagers who are put into shelters face even more problems. They are forced to move to new places, make new friends, and readjust quickly. Many teens in these situations never learn to form trusting, lasting relationships, or they end up in violent relationships themselves. All in all, every child, no matter the age faces the same problems, feeling lonely and isolated, growing up too fast, behavior problems, stress related medical and mental health problems, and school problems. Just think, all of this could have been avoided if domestic violence wasn’t such a wide spread issue. When is enough, enough?
Domestic violence is something that many people look over. Your title shows justice for your article. I love how you explained how domestic violence affects children of all ages from infant to teenage. I was expecting to see more of how young people seeing domestic violence affected them in adult hood! Here is a great web site that explains the effects of domestic violence in children, which is later expressed in adult hood. http://www.athealth.com/Practitioner/ceduc/dv_children.html. Over all this was a great blog.
ReplyDeleteBoth your title and pictures intrigued me to keep reading. Having known multiple people (both men and women) in abusive relationships, I was eager to see your point of view on it. With that, I feel like you are quite accurate with most of your arguments. You clearly demonstrated that domestic violence and abuse can happen to anyone, regardless of age, race or gender. Then over and above, you expressed that these problems are often overlooked, excused and denied.
ReplyDeleteDomestic violence and abuse are used for only one purpose: to gain total control over you. Abusers use fear, blame, humiliation, and intimidation to wear you down and keep you under his or her thumb. And abuse does not discriminate. It happens among heterosexual couples and in same-sex partnerships. It occurs within all age ranges, ethnic backgrounds, and economic levels. Yes, women are more commonly victimized, but I think it is important that you pointed out that men are also abused—especially verbally and emotionally. I completely agreed with you when you said, “men who are in abusive relationships are reluctant and ashamed to say anything.” Do you think that men are less likely to say anything because of the way in which we raise them? Or perhaps is it possible that society’s opinion of masculinity is enough to keep them quiet?
I enjoyed that you acknowledged the warning signs of domestic violence. By doing that, you allowed people who are unaware of the problem well aware! Recognizing the problem is the first step to ending this issue. No one should live in fear of the person they love. So I feel like if you identify yourself or someone you know with those signs, don’t hesitate to reach out. There is more help available for people than you could imagine. My bottom line is that abusive behavior is never acceptable, despite of where it’s coming from. We all deserve to feel valued, respected, and most importantly safe!