The Domestic Violence Survivors And Their Effects On Children

Working thesis: Many victims of abuse continue a relationship with their abuser because they do not recognize the signs of abuse.

Her research finds that, “Intimate partner violence is experienced by at least 1.3 million women each year, who make up 85 percent of the victims.” (McVay 4). Further stating that programs continue to be funded that are ineffective for these women that are experiencing the abuse. Shockingly Kristie also found a link between attachment and partner violence, showing that “…the influence of insecure parental attachment bonds creates an individual who often develops anxious adult romantic attachment patterns leading to a greater propensity to enter into a violent intimate relationship.” (McVay 4). Understanding that these predispositions occur in childhood is pivotal in understanding how these things blossom and continue to grow throughout life within a person’s character. That parent-child relationship plays a role into all other intimate relationships. In fact, “personality/behavior problems all stem from early developed attachment patterns.” (McVay 17). Analyzing adult attachment patterns showed why some people cling to violent intimate relationships as well. Proving that just as “…infants struggle with dissociation and rejection from their caregivers, so do adults suffer from separation from their intimate partners.((Feeney, 1999) Mcvay 19). Another important aspect is defining just what intimate partner violence (IPV) is. “(IPV) is perpetrated or threatened physical, sexual, psychological, emotional, financial, or stalking violence, which includes willful intimidation perpetrated by a current or former intimate partner against another.” (McVay 54). This proves that intimate partner violence is not only physical but also emotional. It is something that negatively affects the partner, it is hard to detect, and can affect anyone, sometimes even without them recognizing it. After her study, she found that if the relationship doesn’t pose extremely dangerous

It is important to understand why a victim will engage with abusers in order to understand how to stop the cycle of abuse. The victim sees themselves as the problem, not the partners making it easier to blame themselves as the cause of their suffering (Nicholas, 2013). When a person leaves an abusive situation that does not always mean that it is the end of the relationship; this is particularly true if there are children or shared assets because there is a sense of obligation to remain (Baholo et al., 2015). There is little understanding into why women remain with an abusive partner, which makes it harder to track why a woman would have subsequent relationships with partners that exhibit similar abusive tendencies (Bell, Goodman, & Dulton, 2009). There is a lack of understanding of the “bigger picture” which needs to be identified and explored (Bell, Goodman, & Dulton, 2009).

One reason may be that these adults believe that frequent experience with corporal punishment in childhood, beatings, was normal. Kadushin and Martin (1981) found that nearly every report of child abuse was precipitated by a behavior in the child that the parent felt called for disciplinary action. Therefore, in part, this appears to be related to cultural acceptance of violence (Hilberman 1980), but it also implies an identification with the parent’s views on corporal punishment. In one investigation (Kotelchuk 1982), parents were asked to describe their childhood experience. Investigators coding the descriptions were far more likely than parents to consider the experiences to have been abusive, on the other hand, parents’ responses to a direct question about having been abused were not related to punitive treatment of their children. Though there has been a tremendous amount of research done on this subject I believe that it is important to continue to research this with the hope of finding a reason for this abuse and putting an end to it. For this reason I propose to conduct a longitudinal experiment to determine whether children who are abused grow up to display the same abusive behavior with their children. Method The experimental group will consist of subjects who were previously abused now seeking counseling for emotional assistance. They will be randomly selected from a study of 347 families from lower income backgrounds. The children involved

One hears about domestic abuse a lot in the news or sees it play out when we watch television shows. It is likely that the majority of people know at least one person who is a victim in an abusive relationship. In the eBook “Perspectives on Verbal, and Psychological Abuse,” Roland Maiuro states that “nearly 50% of both men and women have experienced some form of psychological abuse by their intimate partner” (V). In Tod Robbins’s short story “Spurs,” we witness emotional and physical abuse between Jacques Coube and Mademoiselle Jeanne, a newly married couple that had gotten together for the wrong intentions. There is also emotional and physical abuse seen in Graham Greene’s story “The Basement

In today’s world, many have become apathetic to the problems around them thus causing the problems to grow and become larger issues. While there are thousands of ideas of what the most concerning problems in the world are, all issues can be broken down to two basic ideas that either cause the conflict or are the effect, contentment and regret. With the recent terrorist attacks in France, there are many individuals with post-traumatic stress disorder. According to the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs, “About 6 of every 10 (or 60%) of men and 5 of every 10 (or 50%) of women experience at least one trauma in their lives” (PTSD: National Center for PTSD).

In this paper I will be elaborating on the warning signs and how to distinguish a future abuser based upon his childhood. Future abuser characteristics may consist of being very insecure, aggressive, and controlling. According to National Domestic Violence “Abusive partners are also skilled at coercion and manipulation. They use excuses to make you feel like what is happening is your fault”. “Abusers are incapable of maintaining all over control to their abusive personality traits Long-term”, according to examiner Stephanie Lowrence- Henckle of 10 Early Warning Signs.

Boys who witness their mothers’ abuse are more likely to abuse their female partners as adults than boys who were rose in nonviolent homes. For girls, it may result in the belief that threats and violence are normal in relationships. Children from violent homes have higher risks of alcohol/drug abuse, post-traumatic stress disorder, and juvenile delinquency.

Children who grow up seeing their mother being abused are more likely to become violent. Boys who grow up watching their father abuse their mother tend to try to protect their mother and take the punishment themselves or they tend to do the same thing in their personal relationships. Domestic violence doesn’t just affect the child in their personal relationships, it has been found this can also affect their behavior and they can become more prone to violence. Seventy-five percent of boys growing up in a home with this type of violence have been diagnosed with a behavioral problem and have a seventy-four percent chance of committing a more violent crime. (Rawhide 2017)

I felt intrigued by this article titled Reasons for Staying in Intimately Violent Relationships: Comparisons of Men and Women and Messages Communicated to Self and Others, writing by Jessica J. Eckstein. This fascinating article was published on the Springer Science Business Media journal, on October 27th 2010. It has come to one’s attention to understand why some people, either male or female where to stay in an abusive relationship.

Physical, sexual and emotional abuse can all devastate a person and create difficult life patterns that lead them to abusive situations as adults. The family of origin is usually the center of abuse which creates these circumstances. Edwards et al. (2003) suggested in their research article that, an emotionally abusive family environment interacts with abusive acts to amplify the effects associated with maltreatment. This idea is further supported by Lansford et al. (2002), whose findings suggested that physical maltreatment within the first 5 years of life predicts psychological and behavioral problems at least 12 years later, controlling for other risk factors associated with maltreatment. These correlations support the very important role of family and environment as it relates to prior

Growing up one may have been told “If a girl/boy hits or is mean to you then they like you”. Growing up with this in mind a child could easily grow up believing physical harm is a sign of love. With the vase society children, can find models in athletes, teachers, parents, television, and media. Because Domestic Violence comes in many forms ranging from race, age, sexual orientation, religion or gender and happens in marriages, co- parenting households, or regular dating relationships, children are heavily exposed. The most common way abuse is shown is through physical harm, mental break downs, verbal threats, and emotional abuse (Webb, C. 2000, October 2). A Domestic violence situation could easily turn in to a learned trait if seen or experienced often and through various ways. Often when asked “Why do you stay” a female may respond “My mother did” or if asked “Why do you abuse your girlfriend/wife” a male may respond “It’s how I was raised”. Using Albert Bandura’s Social learning theory one can see how at a young age if exposed to certain behaviors, a child can take what is observed and later imitate these behaviors. Social learning often happens in two main stages; observation and imitation. Bandura believed that learning is a cognitive process through social context that occurs through observation or direct instruction. These two stages; observation and imitation can mold children differently. If a child is exposed to such harsh and violent actions, it is

Unfortunately some relationships result in a partner engaging in violence against another partner, and while not strictly male against female violence, the victim is often the female. The purpose of this study is to explore why, in the context of intimate partner violence, women remain in an abusive relationship in an attempt to fill the theoretical and practical gaps in successful prevention and treatment of those who are participants in an abusive relationship. Currently there is only a single two-pronged approach, group therapy and residing in a women’s shelter, which has not reduced the amount of domestic violence in the last four decades of this practice being the best practice for such incidents. This study aims to understand the motivations for remaining in the abusive relationship to better design treatment and prevention protocols.

According to Heyman and Sleps (2002), they discovered something called the cycle of violence hypothesis. This hypothesis states that children who experience abuse are more likely to not only experience violence in their future relationships, but are more likely to continue violence as well (as cited in Gomez, 2011). Feiring and Furman (2000), found that abused children tend get rejected from their peers and in turn choose intimate partners from deviant peer groups later in life. Neugebauer (2000), argues that parental maltreatment of children shows even more risk factors of future aggression in the abused children than socio-demographic, cultural, and environmental influences.

Throughout my research, common points of discussion were about the reasons people, specifically women, choose to stay in abusive relationships. Studies illustrate various reasons for why women remain in abusive relationships. Fear plays a significant role in the decision to stay because of a victim’s thoughts that the violence will only worsen for themselves if they leave and if threats were made stating that their loved one would be hurt. Women may also be discouraged to leave the relationship if they cannot support themselves financially. Women that are dependent on their partners for financial support because they don’t have a job or are victims of economic abuse may not have money to sustain a healthy lifestyle. So, the chances of women staying in abusive relationships are even higher if they have children and are faced with harsh economic circumstances. A lack of financial resources correlates to the absence of a familial and companion support system. Combined, the decision to leave is much more difficult because the isolation created by the abuser has left them with no one to turn to. So, they choose to stay to avoid risking homelessness. Some women, immigrant women, will even choose to stay in abusive marriage due to the fear of deportation. A proportion of women may also stay because of learned helplessness. Learned Helplessness Theory implies that women who undergo a