Children who experience domestic and family violence, whether by witnessing it or being directly harmed, are victims in their own right. The impacts can be serious and long-lasting, and churches must remain alert to the risks facing children in their care.
Children may see, hear, or otherwise experience violence between family members, or be subjected to abuse themselves. Research shows that witnessing violence can be just as harmful as experiencing it directly. Even when parents believe children are unaware, studies indicate children are exposed to a significant proportion of the violence occurring in the home.
Perpetrators will also deliberately target the parenting efforts of the victim-survivor, undermining their efforts to be an active, confident and caring parent.
Children’s exposure to domestic and family violence can include:
- Seeing or hearing violence between caregivers
- Being directly harmed, intentionally or unintentionally
- Intervening to protect a parent or sibling
- Experiencing the aftermath, such as injuries, damage, or distress
- Being subjected to forms of abuse such as sexual abuse, forced marriage, or technology-facilitated abuse
Impacts on children
The impacts of abuse on children are a result of the perpetrators choice to abuse and use violence in their family.
Family violence can have profound effects on a child’s wellbeing and development. Children may:
- Feel constantly fearful, anxious, and unsafe
- Feel isolated and vulnerable
- Become hypervigilant, always anticipating the next incident
- Blame themselves or feel responsible for the abuse
- Experience isolation, shame, and pressure to keep family secrets
- Struggle with emotional regulation, learning, and relationships
- Disruption in their attachment relationship to either parent
- Housing instability and homelessness and reduced social support
- Develop poor reading and language skills
- Have difficulty establishing friendships with their peers
- Have difficulty sleeping
- Normalise violence in relationships or limit positive relationship role models
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Become more vulnerable to experiencing or perpetrating violence in their own adult relationships
Some children may appear withdrawn, distressed, or angry, while others may seem high-achieving and go unnoticed. Children may be expected to keep the domestic violence a secret, or may blame themselves.
Most victim-survivor parents are daily engaging in efforts to protect their children from harm, to nurture them and provide stability and recovery, often very creatively and at considerable cost to themselves.
All children exposed to and experiencing domestic violence need care and attention.
It is so important that we all have good conversations with children and young people in our communities so that no one falls through the cracks
Protective factors
Not all children are affected in the same way by family violence. Children can be protected from some of the impacts of family violence if they have:
- parenting that provides structure, warmth, emotional support and positive reinforcement
- positive support from other adults outside their immediate family, such as relatives, family friends, teachers, and safe churches.
Responding & Mandatory Reporting
A child who witnesses violence at home is experiencing a form of child abuse. In most jurisdictions this must be reported to the relevant child protection authorities.
Church leaders and communities play a vital role in:
- Taking concerns seriously
- Creating safe environments for children to speak
- Responding appropriately to disclosures
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Following legal and safeguarding responsibilities
More information about what to do if a child discloses abuse to you can be found in our section on reporting to the police.
