Impact of Violence on Children
and Maternal Parenting
June 30 2011
Dr Elspeth McInnes AM
Gender and Violence
• Domestic violence/intimate partner violence is a gendered
crime, as it most likely to perpetrated by men against
women.
• In eight out of ten intimate partner homicides, women are
the victims (Mouzos & Rushforth 2003).
• Men are most at risk of an assault by another man (ABS
2006).
• Intimate partner violence is the single biggest cause of
premature death and injury amongst women aged 15-45 in
Victoria (Heenan et al 2004).
The Features of DV
Establish and maintain a climate of fear and control through:
• Threats to harm the target /their loved ones / their property.
• Physical assault
• Sexual assault
• Verbal & Emotional Abuse
• Financial abuse
• Social abuse
• Spiritual abuse
= ISOLATION, FEAR, PAIN, DESPAIR, SHAME
Legal Constructs of DV
Assaults are:
• ‘event based’
• A mutual private relationship issue
• An outcome of ‘provocation’/ ‘dysfunction’
• Individualised
= Beliefs that men who assault the mothers of
their children can be ‘good’ fathers.
Legal Constructs of Parental
Violence to Children
• Australian parents are legally allowed to assault their children – using
‘reasonable force’ to discipline under common law.
• Family law requires that children are protected from violence but relies
on state child protection systems to investigate and substantiate
reports.
• Child protection systems only actively investigate ‘immediate risk of
harm’ reports leaving a majority of notifications without active
investigation.
• In some states Police attending domestic violence incidents where
children are present are required to make a child protection
notification, wherein mothers can be categorized as ‘emotionally
abusive’ and pressured to end the relationship to keep care of their
children.
Prevalence of DV in Australia
• Around 20% of Australian women identified at least one
experience of physical or sexual violence by a current or
former partner since the age of 15 (ABS 1996).
• 42% of single previously partnered women reported
experiencing violence - ex-partners were the most common
perpetrators (ABS 1996).
• 2.1% of women reported violence by a current partner and
15% of women reported violence by a previous partner
since the age of 15 (ABS 2006).
Distribution of Violence
• ABS General Social Survey (2007) measured
exposure to actual or threatened physical violence
in the last 12 months.
• National 10.8%
SA 11.4%
• Couples with dep children 9.5%
• Single with dep children
25.2%
• Jobless couples dep chn U15 11.2%
• Jobless single dep chn U 15 42.4%
Pregnancy and Violence
• Pregnancy is a key ‘risk’ time for the onset of domestic
violence. This includes women who are pregnant and wish
to terminate their pregnancy (Taft 2002).
• 15% of women with current violent partners reported
violence during the pregnancy and half of these said
violence had occurred for the first time during the
pregnancy (ABS 2006).
• 35% of women with violent previous partners reported
violence during the pregnancy and again half of these said
violence had occurred for the first time during the
pregnancy (ABS 2006).
Children are always harmed when their
primary carer is assaulted
They
1. Witness the attack/s
2. Are hurt if they ‘get in the way’.
3. Become direct target/s of attack
4. Experience the impact of abuse on their mum’s
parenting.
5. Can be ‘recruited’ by perpetrator to join in
6. Can be used by perpetrator to distress mother.
(Bancroft, and Silverman 2002)
Health consequences for
women from DV (Taft 2003)
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Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
Depression
Anxiety
Physical Injury
Aggression/Mood Swings
Substance Abuse as coping mechanism
Social Withdrawal
How Women Survive DV
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Women use various approaches for coping with
the violent behaviour of their partners. They
Adapt behaviour to suit what partners’ demands.
Physical, verbal or other forms of resistance to
the abuser’s behaviour
Activities to maintain their self-esteem
Methods to ‘dull’ or ‘blunt’ the effects of the
abuse - therapy, alcohol, drugs, creative
pursuits, disassociation.
Mothering Issues Living in the
Violent Relationship
Increased risks of difficulty bonding, playing and engaging
positively with their children especially if children have
difficult behaviours such as persistent crying arising from
living with DV.
• Post-natal depression – adversely affects infant attachment
and maternal bonding (Buchanan 2008)
• Child neglect as an outcome of dissociated mothering
• Attempts to shield children from abuse.
• Difficulty sleeping and getting children to sleep
• Increased risks of heightened stress and aggression
towards their children.
Mothering through DV cont.
• Increased risks of emotional withdrawal
from children
• Being prevented by perpetrator from
attending to their children
• Physical absence from children due to
hospitalization
• Loss of care of children due to child
protection action
Mothering Issues after Leaving
the Violent Relationship
• Loss of housing, furniture and household goods, personal
possessions, income, pets, social connections to
school/childcare/ neighbourhood – dealing with upheaval
leaves little time/energy for children.
• Family law requirements to provide children for contact
with perpetrator.
• Loss of children to perpetrator under family law if mother
resists contact.
• Can be ordered not to seek help for the child.
Children’s Exposure to DV
• 49% of people who experienced violence by a current
partner had children in their care and 27% said the
children had witnessed the violence (ABS 2006).
• 61% of people who experienced violence by a previous
partner had children in their care and 36% said the
children had witnessed the violence (ABS 2006).
• One in four Australian children has witnessed violence
against their mother by a father or step-father (Indermaur
2001).
Brain Development
• Early infancy is the period of most rapid brain
development
• The brain develops on a ‘use dependent’ basis
in interaction with the child’s environment
• Brain development is sequential
• Optimal development requires attentive
responsive care which supports the child’s
social and emotional development and ensures
adequate nutrition and hygiene.
Sequence of Brain Development
• Brain-stem – autonomic responses – breathing,
heart-rate, digestion
• Mid-brain – limbic system - sensing pathways –
perceiving the environment through the senses,
storing memory and interpreting the meaning of the
experience for the body.
• Frontal lobes or cerebral cortex – the presenting
brain – language, cognition, rationality, imagination,
empathy.
• The brain development will be attuned to the
infant’s early environment.
Children’s Development & DV
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Trauma of DV impacts development
Developmental delay
Risk of chronic traumatization
Behavioural problems
Learning difficulties
Exclusion from services
Poor relationships
Stress Physiology
• The brain interprets sudden unpredictable changes in the
environment as threatening and turns on special ‘stress’
response mechanisms in the whole body.
• Stress responses are aimed at supporting survival under
threat.
• Stress hormones, including cortisol, shut down functions
that are not necessary for immediate survival - including
digestion, sexual behaviour, learning and rational
thinking (Adam 2003, Gerhardt 2004, cited in Sims,
Guilfoyle & Parry 2005), and sleep.
• The body normally resumes homeostatic patterns when
the threat has passed.
What impact children suffer/experience when witness to domestic violence and
how it may effect them for the rest of their lives
Cognitive Development
Speech and language, problem
solving, impulse control, Academic
and social development.
If child is a victim of
Domestic Violence this
area may not develop.
Stuck in the Limbic System
Post-traumatic stress disorder –
Freeze/Surrender – Nor
Adrenalin Tired, sleepy,
Physical, blood flow
changes, gastro-centric,
thinking changes.
Limbic
System
Triggers are deep, responses
disproportionate.
Fight/Flight-Adrenalin
Can’t eat, blood flow
changes, Evacuate
bladder/bowel, increased
heart rate.
Children re-experience traumatic
situations so their adrenaline is at peak
all the time. It is never safe so be alert.
Can go from calm to rage immediately.
Motor
Skills
To be seen and heard – display
aggression.
Carers must have routines and rituals
that are followed.
No fast changes to routines.
No threats of violence.
Brain Stem
No yelling.
Largely already formed at birth.
Automatic actions – breathing,
body able to digest food, heart
works.
No physical threats.
TRAUMA
http://www.childtrauma.org/ctamaterials/Vio_child.asp
• all humans process, store, retrieve and respond to
the world in a state-dependent fashion.
• When a child is in a persisting state of low-level
fear from exposure to violence, the parts of the
brain that are processing information are different
from those in a child from a safe environment.
• Chronically traumatized children are sensitized to
stress
Alarm Reactions
• the sense of future is foreshortened.
• Immediate reward is most reinforcing. Delayed
gratification is impossible.
• Consequences of behaviour are not cognitively available to
the threatened child.
• Reflection on behaviour -including violent behaviour - is
impossible for the child in an alarm state.
• Without internal regulating capabilities of the cortex, the
brainstem acts reflexively, impulsively, and aggressively to
any perceived threat.
The Physiology of Trauma
• The amygdala (in the limbic system) receives sensory
inputs of danger and triggers physical response
• As the stress hormones are released the frontal lobes of the
brain ‘shrink’ and physical responses overwhelm and shut
down the language and thinking centre.
• Can include spontaneous excretion, feeling ‘frozen’, huge
burst of energy.
Dissociation
• Dissociation is a trauma reaction where the
infant/child cannot escape or stop the
traumatizing event.
• Social withdrawal, emotional numbing,
blank face, frozen posture, daydreaming,
‘out of body’ sensation, rocking, headbanging, fainting.
Hyperarousal
• Hypervigilant children from chronic violence settings see
threats everywhere and often misinterpret non-verbal cues;
eye contact means threat, a touch can be interpreted as a
sexual advance.
• Triggers for alarm reactions can include colours, smells,
sounds, locations, objects, people associated with
traumatizing events.
• Cerebral cortex activity shuts down in favour of immediate
physical reflexivity.
Learning Disabled or
Traumatized?
• a traumatized child - in a persisting state of
arousal - can sit in a classroom and not learn as
different parts of the brain are in charge of brain
functioning than a child who is calm.
• The capacity to internalize new verbal cognitive
information requires a state of attentive calm – a
state traumatized children rarely achieve.
Chronic childhood trauma
• ‘Chronic childhood trauma interferes with
the capacity to integrate sensory, emotional
and cognitive information into a cohesive
whole and sets the stage for unfocused and
irrelevant responses to subsequent stress’
(Streeck-Fischer & Van der Kolk 2000)
Descriptions of Chronic
Traumatization
• ‘They are out of touch with their feelings and have
no way to describe their internal states’
• ‘They have poor impulse control with aggression
against the self and others’
• ‘They have little insight into the relationship
between what they feel, what they do and what has
happened to them.’
• ‘They tend to be withdrawn or to bully other
children and many have severe learning
problems’(Streeck-Fischer & Van der Kolk 2000).
Some behaviour effects of
domestic violence on children
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Poor physical and mental health
Incontinence
Excessive crying and screaming
Traumatized children find it hard to tolerate uncertainty
and tend to avoid novel experiences and social contact.
Aggression
• Headaches and stomach aches
• In place of the creativity, imagination and free-flow of
normal play, traumatized children often rigidly re-enact
and repeat responses drawn from their trauma context or
barely respond at all to environmental stimuli.
Emotional effects of domestic
violence on children
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Beliefs that they are bad, useless, naughty
A sense of despair, hopelessness
Constant fear and night terrors
Anxiety and depression
Learn that violence and aggression get needs met
Lack of ability to concentrate
Blame themselves for the violence against their
mum
Poverty Risks
Mothers and their children who have to flee their
home, experience:
• Loss of housing/ possessions/neighbourhood
supports/paid work
• Disrupted education/childcare arrangements for
children
• Additional health and legal costs
• Children experience significant grief, loss and
trauma, as do their mothers.
Why don’t they leave?
• Most women who are living in domestic violence eventually leave the
relationship. This does not necessarily stop her being targeted- the
perpetrator just changes his methods and tactics for access to her. This
will often involve the children e.g. using contact visits to gain access to
the mother.
• Women face serious economic consequences upon becoming a
homeless, single parent.
• Public housing stocks are fast diminishing.
• Of the small percentage of women who do attempt to access a shelter,
50% are turned away.
• Many shelters will not accept children over 12 years old.
Supporting the Mother-Child Bond
• Mothers and children who have lived with domestic violence
often benefit from individual and family-based supports.
• A strong supportive mother-child bond assists children’s
recovery.
• Therapists aim to decrease the intensity and duration of alarm
triggers and to create structure, predictability and nurturance for
traumatized children.
• Mothers need to understand post-traumatic responses in
themselves and their children and get treatment which
complements the work with the child.
• Mothers and children often need to (re)learn different ways of
relating and playing.
References
• Australian Bureau of Statistics, (2006) Personal Safety Survey,
Catalogue Number 4906.0, Canberra, AGPS.
• Australian Bureau of Statistics, (2007) General Social Survey
Australia, Catalogue Number 4155.0, Canberra, AGPS.
• Bancroft, L. and Silverman J. (2002) ‘The Batterer as Parent:
Addressing the Impact of Domestic Violence on Family Dynamics’
London, Sage.
• Buchanan F. 2008 Mother and Infant Attachment Theory and
Domestic Violence: Crossing the Divide, Australian Domestic
Violence Clearinghouse Stakeholder Paper 5, September, UNSW.
References cont.
• Heenan, M., Astbury, J. Vos, T., Magnus, A. and Piers, L. (2004), The
Health Costs of Violence: Measuring the Burden if disease caused by
Intimate Partner Violence, VicHealth, Victoria Department of Human
Services, Melbourne.
• McInnes, E. 2004 ‘The Impact of Violence on Mothers and Children’s
Needs during and after Parental Separation’ Early Childhood
Development and Care, Vol 174, No. 4 pp.357-368.
• Mouzos, J. and Rushforth , C., (2003) ‘Family Homicide in Australia’,
Trends and Issues Paper Number 255, Australian Institute of
Criminology, Canberra.
• http://www.aic.gov.au/publications/tandi2/tandi255.pdf
• Radford, L. and Hester M. 2006 Mothering Through Domestic
Violence, London Philadelphia PA, Jessica Kingsley Publishers.
References
• Streeck-Fischer, Andrew., and Van der Kolk, Bessell.
(2000). Down will come baby, cradle and all: Diagnostic
and Therapeutic Implications of trauma on child
development. Australian and New Zealand Journal of
Psychiatry, 34 (6): 903-18.
• Taft, A. (2002) Violence against Women in Pregnancy and
after Childbirth, Issues Paper No. 6, Australian Domestic
and Family Violence Clearinghouse, Sydney, UNSW.
• Taft, A. (2003) Promoting Women’s Mental Health: The
Challenges of Intimate/Domestic Violence Against Women,
Issues Paper No. 8, Australian Domestic and Family
Violence Clearinghouse, Sydney, UNSW.