How children suffer from domestic violence

When you look at this drawing and the accompanying text, what do you read from it?
Sophia Fischer: That’s a very impressive picture! It not only shows the incident of violence with the unequal balance of power, but also very clearly the intense emotions that children often experience in such situations. The emotions of the mother and father also become clear. The text underlines this.

What do such experiences mean for a child, what does it do to them?
The extent to which witnessing domestic violence within the family can have an impact on children’s emotional, cognitive and social development has long been underestimated. Parents have a duty to protect and care for their children, and children are dependent on their parents. If there is escalation and violence between the parents, this makes the children very insecure and can very quickly become an existential threat.

Why?
On the one hand, because it is impossible to predict where the violence will lead. On the other hand, because a loved one is acutely threatened and in need and another loved one seems to be losing control or is responsible for it. This dilemma, on the one hand loving the parents and being dependent on their protection and care and on the other hand the strong fear of the parents and the effects of the violence, have profound effects on the attachment behavior of the children.

What influence can this have on development and socialization?
The effects of experiencing violence on children are very diverse and manifest themselves very differently and at different times in their development. Their emotional relationship experiences are reflected in so-called “internal working models”. Children have developed a relatively stable picture of how adults react to their needs in situations that are stressful for them, and they base their own behavior on this. And it can be observed that such children find it difficult to trust other people based on their experiences, to get involved in relationships and to maintain them. On the one hand, they want relationships and attention, but on the other hand, they are afraid of being hurt.

What other changes can occur?
We often see that children who have experienced violence have difficulties regulating their emotions and that they are much quicker to go into stress and alarm mode. Furthermore, the children affected often have difficulties focusing their attention. This leads to concentration problems at school. Regulatory difficulties are also evident in social situations, which often leads to escalation. Then there are children who have experienced violence and are very conformist or sometimes even rigid due to the stress they have experienced. They may then be less noticeable. We also know from studies that later in their development, adolescents or young adults who have experienced violence are more likely to enter into romantic relationships that are again characterized by violence. And we know that in adulthood, these children have an increased risk of health-endangering behavior, for example substance use, mental and physical illnesses and limited social participation.

How does it develop in the best case and how if everything goes very badly?
In the best case scenario, the child succeeds in integrating the experience of violence within the family into their biography, i.e. accepting it as part of their biography and keeping it in their consciousness. There are children who are amazingly resilient, i.e. resistant, due to various internal and external factors that make it possible to process experiences of violence. Then there are children who do not have sufficient access to these resilience factors and are therefore dependent on support from society. Corrective relationship experiences help a great deal to positively change their view of the world and how they deal with it, and to enable them to shape their lives more actively.

If Amela needs support, what services could be useful for her now and in the future and why?
I think it is particularly important that children affected by violence have a place where they can be empathetically supported in processing their emotions and experiences and be freed from any feelings of guilt. This is sometimes a lifelong process and there should be appropriate services throughout the entire lifespan, from early childhood to old age. This includes services from specialist agencies that can provide further support, but also an environment, such as school, where skills in dealing with emotions and stress are taught.

What do you think of the statement that people who were affected or affected by domestic violence as children are more likely to become victims of domestic violence again as adults or even perpetrators?
This correlation has been shown in several studies. Even in adolescence, young people who experienced violence in childhood are more likely to enter into relationships that are characterized by “dating violence”, i.e. when assaults occur during the first few dates. This passing on of violence, whether as a perpetrator of violence or as a person affected by violence, appears to be a very involuntary, automated process. It can only be reduced if violence is discussed with children at an early age and they are therefore more aware of it as their own experience.

Numerous reports show that children and young people are increasingly under psychological strain. Is it possible to estimate how many are affected by domestic violence?
We know that experiences of domestic violence significantly increase the risk of mental illness and that many young people or adults with mental illnesses report traumatic experiences in childhood. As the number of unreported cases of domestic violence, especially psychological violence, is unfortunately still very high, this cannot be reflected in concrete figures. However, it should always be investigated when working with people with mental health problems so that support and treatment can be adapted accordingly.