Exposure to Intimate Partner Violence, Essay Example

In light of the very considerable harm to children who are exposed to domestic violence, I absolutely believe that such exposure should be considered a form of child abuse. The emotional impact on children of witnessing domestic violence is nothing short of disastrous and terrible: Buzawa, Buzawa, and Stark (2012) identified such impacts as emotional reactivity, attempts to avoid or intervene, and “negative/hostile representations of interparental relationships” (p. 403). To be fair, these authors also note the fact that the impacts depend considerably upon where the child is, developmentally, and so this must needs be considered as well (p. 403). Still, this is a powerful case indeed for considering children’s exposure to domestic violence a form of child abuse.

For children, the repercussions of witnessing domestic violence can be far-reaching indeed. As Wright, Fagan, and Crittenden (2011) explained, having witnessed domestic violence has been linked to a whole ensemble of problems in young people, particularly behavioral and emotional problems (p. 19). These problems include such issues as “delinquency and interpersonal violence” (p. 19). Thus, exposure to domestic violence leads to higher incidence of these very problematic behaviors amongst the young people so exposed: seeing abuse effects them in profound and terrible ways.

In light of all of this, it seems clear indeed that children’s exposure to domestic violence is linked with a very severe warping and stunting of their emotional and behavioral development. Seeing such terrible behavior modeled by their caregivers leads children to act out, either in similar ways or in other ways. Given the obvious trauma and disruption that so many children face, clearly, at least in many cases, exposure of children to domestic violence ought to be considered child abuse. Adults have a responsibility to model good behavior for their offspring; domestic violence disrupts and destroys the home as well as hurting the victim of the violence.

The key advantage of limiting the discussion to how children are affected by domestic violence to “witnessing” would appear to be procedural, and for the sake of ready definition: it is far easier to ascertain whether or not a child has witnessed domestic violence, and to attempt to understand the impacts from this, then it is to ascertain how abuse that the child does not witness might in turn have negative impacts on them. To be fair, abuse that is witnessed is likely, one would think, to have the most marked impact on children and young people: after all, it is very traumatic, and the impacts on children are well-known to be calamitous indeed. Moreover, it should be much more easy to prosecute abusers for child abuse over abuse that the child has actually seen.

All of the above notwithstanding, Buzawa et al. (2012) noted that even infants exposed to domestic violence experience very severe negative impacts, “consistent with trauma symptoms such as eating problems, sleep disturbances, lack of normal responsiveness to adults…” etc. (p. 404). The basic problem is that domestic abuse traumatizes mothers, which in turn traumatizes infants and very young children by violating their sense of emotional security: instead of their worlds being safe and nurturing, they are disrupted by violence and trauma (pp. 403-404).

This is why the discussion must not ever be limited to abuse that the child has seen: because the impacts of abuse go far, far beyond what the child has seen, spilling over to color the child’s relationship with their caregiver who is the target of abuse. Domestic violence affects children even if they do not see it, even if it occurs only behind closed doors, because it affects the interactions between the caregivers, and between the caregivers and the children. As such, limiting the discussion in this fashion, to intimate partner abuse that is witnessed by the child, does not capture the full range of harm done to the child, and is therefore a disservice to the children of the victims of intimate partner violence.    

References

Buzawa, E. Buzawa, C. and Stark, E. (2012). Responding to Domestic Violence: The Integration of Criminal Justice & Human Services (4th Edition). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Wright, E. M., Fagan, A. A., & Crittenden, C. A. (2011). Exposure to intimate partner violence: Gendered and contextual effects on adolescent and interpersonal violence, drug use, and mental health outcomes. Report for the National Institute of Justice.