Domestic Violence: Impact on Children and Psychological Treatments

This report examines the significant impact of domestic violence on children's development, encompassing both direct and indirect effects. It explores how exposure to violence can lead to physical injuries, emotional trauma, behavioral changes, and difficulties in parent-child relationships, potentially hindering learning and overall development. The report emphasizes the importance of psychological treatments, such as family therapy, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), and Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), in mitigating the negative consequences of domestic violence. It highlights that early intervention and support are crucial for helping children overcome trauma, build resilience, and lead healthier lives. The report also discusses the need for societal awareness, support networks, and further research to address this critical issue.

Discuss the impact of domestic
violence on the development of
children, and what are some
psychological treatments that can
be used to reduce this impact.

Contents
Introduction.......................................................................................................................3
Results...............................................................................................................................4
Discussion.........................................................................................................................5
Conclusion.........................................................................................................................6
References.........................................................................................................................7
Appendices........................................................................................................................8

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Introduction
Domestic Violence is psychological or physical which can have a long term
or short term effect any person regardless of any gender, age, sexual
orientation or race. Sometime it may include the behaviour in order to scare
or oppress or bully people or have control over them. It is mostly children
which are exposed to domestic violence which have a strong impact on their
life. Common domestic violence which are faced by children can have affect
their psychology of living and children may think or believe that violence is
an acceptable behaviour and in future may become abuser or the abused.
This report discusses the impact of domestic violence on the development of
children, how violence may hinder the development of a child or affect their
behaviour. Also, this report includes what are some psychological
treatments which can help in reducing the impact of violence on children
and how they can recover from it to live a normal life.

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Results
Each and every child deserves to be safe and secure at home but
unfortunately some of them are witnessing a domestic abuse that have a
long term impact on children. Before discussing the impact of domestic
violence on children it is important to keep in mind that domestic abuse on
children does not only happen at home but can happen both inside and
outside home. It can also happen on internet, over phone and can happen in
any relationships and may even continue after the end of relationship (Felitti
and et.al., 2019). Both men and women can be abuser and both male and
female child can be abused. Children who live in a society or homes which
is full of domestic violence and grow up in such environment which is
unpredictable, unsafe, full of anxiety, tension and is mostly dominated by
fear. Impact of domestic violence can be severe and can lead significant
psychological and emotional trauma on a child.
There are various severe impact of domestic violence on the development of
children which can be discussed below:
Risk of physical injury
Sometimes its is the children who get caught in the middle of assault
accidentally or may be done deliberately by the abuser. Mostly it is the
infants who can get sever physical injuries when they are held by their
mothers when domestic violence occurs. In severe cases children may get
badly hurt when they are struck with a weapon or thrown an object towards
them if may result death to a child. As per the reports of WHO, it is
estimated that 57,000 deaths of children were reported due to homicide
which where under 15 years of age in the year 2000 (Child Abuse and
Neglect By parents and Other Caregivers, 2019)
Psychological or Emotional Trauma

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Children who live under domestic violence tend to suffer from
psychological and emotional trauma on them by living in a household which
is dominated by violence (Cook and et.al., 2017). Sometimes children may
see that their mothers are being sexually or physically assaulted or
demeaned which may lead to sever trauma on them for life long. So, living
in such an environment children may suffer from psychological imbalance
and may never recover from it. Due to sever domestic violence children may
suffer from anxiety, fear, post-traumatic stress disorders and may lose their
ability to control their emotions which have a negative impact on the
development of children.
Behaviour
Domestic violence also have negative impact on the behaviour of children
which may hinder their developmental process, as children have more
tantrums, and they become more clingy or overreact the situation which
may result in change in their behaviours in negative way (Every Child is
Worth Fighting For, 2109). Children may restrict themselves in getting
friendly with others, also they may skip their school or may use drugs or
alcohol which may poorly impact their process of development and even
they may adopt same abusive behaviours to other in the future.
Relationships with their parents
It is quit natural the domestic violence effects the relationships between
parents and their children. It has been researched that infants and children
who are exposed to domestic violence result in difficulty in developing an
attachment with their parents (Chen and Chan, 2016). For a development of
a child parents play an important role in raising children with proper care
and with responsibility which can help in the development of a child. It is
only a domestic violence which can hinder this relationship between parents
and children as they become victim to domestic violence and feel the anger
rage or feel pity for their abusive parents. So, this type of feeling lashes out
the relationship between the parent and children which will make them more
aggressive, disobedient, abusive, etc in the future.
Learning Issues

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Children who become the victim of domestic violence get worried about
their life at home and sometime they are being awakened at night due to
shouting of parents and fighting. This can result in the difficulty children to
focus on their studies or to concentrate on studies at school which can have
a strong impact on their developmental process. Also, due to this they may
put extreme pressure on themselves to score well in exams as they get more
afraid of getting bad grades due to their aggressive parents.
Children suffer from domestic violence directly or indirect and it is
important for such children to overcome form various types of domestic
violences as it may leave a long term impact on children. One of the best
way to overcome from the negative impacts of domestic violence is to
provide psychological treatments to children. It is a kind of treatment which
is also called “TALKING THERAPY” or “PSYCHOTHERAPY” which
involves talking with professionals to express their thoughts. It can have
various benefits for children like it can help to understand and solve the
problems which result in domestic violence. Psychological treatments can
help to recognise the symptoms among the children and can reduce impact
of symptoms in them. Also, it can change the behaviour of a child which is
effected by domestic violence which can increase the quality of life of a
child. Some of the most common psychological treatments which can be
provided are as follows:
Family Therapy: It is the one of the best treatment for reducing impact of
domestic violence on children. This type of therapy involves the family
members talking to each other within the guidance of therapist (Lieberman,
Ippen and Dimmler, 2018). The main aim of this therapy is that to get each
and very family member within the household talk about the issues and
solve them as a family which will reduce the stress and tension in the family
and will make the family work together and build strong relationships.
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT): This therapy involves
being aware of present moment and is based on mindfulness. Here a child is
encouraged to accept the negative though as well as emotions which a child
is going through and child is made to think of passing them but not to
defining them. It is mainly used to treat a child suffering from anxiety,
stress, emotional disorders etc.

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Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT): The prime focus of this therapy is
to focus on controlling the problems related to emotions like anger and
behaviours like cutting relationships from others (Lee and DiGiuseppe,
2018).
Cognitive Analytical Therapy (CAT): He a person is asked to review its
childhood and try to look what have they learned in order to cope up with
different situations (Nasiri and et.al., 2015). With the help of therapist
person works towards changing their way of viewing a situations and ways
of responding to them.

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Discussion
Children may face domestic violence in various forms which may be in the
form of threats, yelling, arguing, suicidal threats, threats of involving
weapons, physical injuries and psychological disorders. All of them can lead
to sever impact on the children development which can effect their future.
As per the report of Centers of Disease Control and Prevention as they
stated that in households there is a chance of getting 45 to 60% child abuse
due to violence between two partners. Also children face or witness 68 to 80
percent of domestic assaults (Alarming Effects of Children's Exposure to
Domestic Violence, 2019). So, domestic violence can have direct and
indirect impact on children, and they need to be provided with
psychological treatments in order to minimise the impact. There are various
problems which are addressed like what is the impact of domestic violence
on children and how does domestic violence affect the development of
children. Domestic violence can lead a sever impact on the development of
children like it can result in risk of physical injuries as mostly children get
caught within the domestic violence (Roberson and Wallace, 2016). Also,
one of the major of domestic is psychological and emotion trauma on
children which can result in change in the behaviours and hinder the
relationship with their parents. Also, due to domestic violence it also results
in the learning issue which can have a negative impact on the development
of children as they could not focus on their studies at home and even at
school.
The impact of domestic violence in children can be reduced by providing
psychological treatments to them (Daly and Wilson, 2017). There are
various type of psychological treatments which can help children to recover
from the negative impacts of negative violence the treatments like family
therapy which is provided to all family members together which can help to
solve their family issues and can help in minimising the impact domestic
violence when family gets together. Another psychological treatments
which can be provided to children is acceptance and commitment therapy
where a therapist helps a child to get over anxiety and negative behaviours.
Another form of treatment is to build a relationship with and become more
sociable by forming the links with family and peers.

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So, it can be said due to domestic violence children suffer a lot and has to go
through the worst phase of their life and it also brings various problems in
their developmental process. If the impacts of domestic violence remain
undressed, children may have to face serious consequences in their future
(Gershoff and Grogan-Kaylor, 2016). So, there are various actions which
can be taken in order to prevent domestic violence on children and
minimising the impact for example building a social networks among the
effected families, taking help of therapists, knowing the signs of domestic
violence, taking help from neighbours and relatives or even from police etc.
There are various topics which can be recommended for research on
domestic violence like “Men and domestic Violence and its impact on
women” another important topic which can be researched is “Domestic
violence and its Impact on family”. So, these are the topics which can be
further researched in order to gain the proper information of domestic
violence which exists in our societies.

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Conclusion
This report concludes that domestic violence is the major crime committed
in our societies due which children get affected directly or indirectly.
Domestic violence results in the huge impact on the development of a child
and there may be various reasons behind it which is unknown to a child.
Many children across Australia and across the world get exposed to
domestic violence within house and become victim of it in various ways.
Domestic violence can effect the development of children which have a
negative impact on the behaviour of children, also it may they go under
physical injuries or emotional imbalance. Also, it may result in lack of trust
due to which children get scared of expressing themselves.
Domestic violence may result in weak relationships between parents and
children which results in the lack of care and attention towards a child
which can have a strong impact on the development of a child. There are
some significant information which remains to be uncovered are- How
children are involved or get involved in domestic violence, what are the
long term and short term impacts of domestic violence on children and types
of domestic violence on children. It has been found the domestic violence
can lead to sever consequences for the children of Australia and such
violence if not addressed may give rise to the domestic violence in Australia
which can also affect the future of youth of Australia. So, it is important for
Australian government to take necessary measure to minimise domestic
violence within the country and should provide proper psychological
treatments to victims.

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References
Books and Journals
Chen, M. and Chan, K. L., 2016. Effects of parenting programs on child
maltreatment prevention: A meta-analysis. Trauma, Violence, &
Abuse. 17(1). pp.88-104.
Cook, A and et.al., 2017. Complex trauma in children and
adolescents. Psychiatric annals. 35(5). pp.390-398.
Daly, M. and Wilson, M., 2017. Homicide: Foundations of human
behavior. Routledge.
Felitti, V. J and et.al., 2019. Relationship of childhood abuse and household
dysfunction to many of the leading causes of death in adults: The
Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study. American journal of
preventive medicine. 56(6). pp.774-786.
Gershoff, E. T. and Grogan-Kaylor, A., 2016. Spanking and child
outcomes: Old controversies and new meta-analyses. Journal of
family psychology. 30(4). p.453.
Lee, A. H. and DiGiuseppe, R., 2018. Anger and aggression treatments: a
review of meta-analyses. Current opinion in psychology. 19. pp.65-
74.
Lieberman, A. F., Ippen, C. G. and Dimmler, M. H., 2018. Child-parent
psychotherapy. Assessing and Treating Youth Exposed to
Traumatic Stress. p.223.
Nasiri, H and et.al., 2015. Cognitive-analytical therapy for a patient with
functional neurological symptom disorder-conversion disorder
(psychogenic myopia): A case study. Journal of research in
medical sciences: the official journal of Isfahan University of
Medical Sciences. 20(5). p.522.
Roberson, C. and Wallace, P. H., 2016. Family violence: Legal, medical,
and social perspectives. Routledge.
Online

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Alarming Effects of Children's Exposure to Domestic Violence. 2019.
[Online]. Available Through:
<https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/progress-notes/2019
02/alarming-effects-childrens-exposure-domestic-violence>.
Child Abuse and Neglect By parents and Other Caregivers. 2019. [Online].
Available Through:
<https://www.who.int/violence_injury_prevention/violence/global_
campaign/en/chap3.pdf>.
Child deaths from abuse and neglect. 2017. [Online]. Available Through:
<https://aifs.gov.au/cfca/publications/child-deaths-abuse-and-
neglect>.
Every Child is Worth Fighting For. 2109. [Online]. Available Through:
<https://www.nspcc.org.uk/what-is-child-abuse/types-of-abuse/do
mestic-abuse/>.