The Impact of Domestic Abuse on Children and Young People

Domestic abuse thrives in secrecy and silence. In the silence, children will typically default to a belief that they have caused the abuse, or that they should done something to prevent it, leading to feelings of guilt and shame.

This is extremely isolating for children, and may cause them to become withdrawn, or struggle to form relationships with peers. Children may struggle to empathise with their peers, or may be disruptive or have angry outbursts that further exacerbate their ability to form peer relationships.

If silence and shame are not addressed, they can be repressed, leading to difficulties with mental health later in life, such as anxiety and depression.

Evidence shows that young people who grow up experiencing abuse will demonstrate neurological differences then children who do not grow up with adverse experiences.

These children need to continuously monitor and respond to threat and, just like the adult victim, will be ‘walking on eggshells’. This constant vigilance means, constant activation of their stress response system, which has an impact on brain development – their brain will develop to respond to threat more readily than under normal circumstances and can lead the child to develop an over-reaction to stress, impacting their ability to regulate their emotions and to cope with normal social interactions.

Children could also experience developmental delays, in areas such as their speech, motor or cognitive skills.

Children who grow up in an environment of fear adapt their behaviour in response to that fear.

Domestic abuse often results in inconsistent parenting due to unexpected absences of either parent. As a result, they may develop a fear of abandonment, and in some children, there is a greater difficulty in interacting sociably with siblings and peers.

Being exposed to, and drawn into the dynamics of domestic abuse, can impact on a child’s beliefs about family dynamics and personal relationships. This can affect their own relationships in the future with partners, their children and peers. Children can struggle with regulation, perceiving threat where there is none and over-responding, for example becoming violent or aggressive in the classroom.

They may struggle to concentrate, struggle to sleep, developmentally regress or turn to risk taking behaviours or substance misuse in order to cope with the effects of trauma caused by domestic abuse.

For secure attachment, children need to experience their primary care giver as a ‘secure base’, learning as they grow and develop that this carer can meet their emotional and physical needs.

Domestic abuse seriously disrupts this secure base with the primary care giver, as the perpetrator parent may frequently demand his own needs be met before the child’s, resulting int he survivor parent focussing on the perpetrator’s demands before the children’s needs.

The increases the risk of an insecure attachment between child and carer, which in turn increases the risk of the child struggling to form healthy and secure attachments in the future. Reponses that focus on building safe and secure relationships with children and young people, informed by attachment theory, can therefore be an important aspect of recovery.

Domestic abuse is listed as an ‘Adverse Childhood Experience’ (ACE) and often co-occurs with other ACE’s, such as verbal abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse, physical neglect, emotional neglect, parental separation, household mental illness, household alcohol and drug abuse and incarceration of a household member. We know that children growing up with multiple ACE’s can be more likely to experience negative outcomes in adulthood.

ACE’s can present barriers to healthy attachment relationships that are formed for children and can increase the risk of future health problems, including mental health difficulties.

The risk of mental health difficulties increases the likelihood of anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.

We also know that a trauma-informed response, which builds on and enhances protective factors, can reduce or negate the negative impact and has the potential to break generational cycles off abuse.

While we have focussed above on the negative impacts of domestic abuse on children, it is also important to remember that children have the potential to resist the impact of abuse and employ their own agency in order to build resilience in their response to domestic abuse. To do this, they need a safe and supportive network around them to enable positive outcomes.

The primary ways in which children resist the impact of abuse, are:

• Emotion focussed: primarily used by younger children or children with SEND, a child may manage and reduce stress by withdrawing when abuse is occurring, distracting themselves by listening to music or playing with toys
• Problem focussed: primarily used by older children, some children will attempt to change or manage the situation, for example, by intervening, distracting or summoning help.

These coping strategies protect children from some of the effects of abuse and are tools that can be further supported and developed in collaboration with non-abusive adults and peers.

Resilience is built through safe community networks around the child and family, which all professionals play a role in.