By Alexandria Farrell, Department of Social Services, Office of Child Abuse Prevention
Imagine being a child, sitting in your room playing, quiet and carefree. Then out of nowhere, the happy space you have created is drowned out by an unpleasant and familiar sound. Mom and dad are fighting again. Do you run out of your room and try to intervene or do you stay, trying to escape the noise in the safe space of your room. As the fights go on, becoming more frequent, louder, and scarier, your safe space continues to get smaller and smaller until eventually it doesn’t exist anymore. This may seem like a bad dream to you, but for some children, this is reality. More than five million children witness domestic violence in the United States each year. These children are three times more likely to repeat this cycle as adults.
Now, what constitutes domestic violence? The United States Department of Justice defines domestic violence as a pattern of behavior that one person in a relationship uses to control the other. The pattern of behavior can be expressed in a variety of ways, such as via verbal, emotional, physical, financial and/or sexual abuse. When a child is exposed to domestic violence it means that the child has heard or seen one or both parents or guardians engage in violent behaviors or has seen the effects of violent behaviors. This can include witnessing or hearing the violence firsthand, hearing about it when it is discussed after the fact or seeing marks or bruises on a parent or guardian.
