Have you ever caught yourself talking too loud about something very private and then quickly wondered if anyone could've heard? The worst that can happen if you do that usually, is that you let yourself in for a good bit of embarrassment. When it comes to parents who fight too intensely at home without thinking about who's overhearing them, the damage can be far worse. Which is the tragedy of domestic violence and children. An abusive parent is often just far too absorbed with his own problems to worry about how it's affecting the children.
Thinking about it calmly, it's pretty easy to see how domestic violence can affect children even if the violence isn’t directed at them. Children happen to completely depend on their parents for everything – for both their emotional needs and their physical needs. When there is violence erupting between the parents they depend on, they can take it very personally. Not only do they no longer feel protected, they positively feel threatened. Anyone who finds it hard to make the connection should think of what they would feel like if at work, they were to witness a friendly manager immediately above them get roughed up by some bigwig.
If you would multiply that several times, you would begin to see how domestic violence and children are terrible things to put together. Naïvely, parents often think that if they lower their voices somewhat and fight in the kitchen when the children are in bed, that they will never hear it.
Thinking about it calmly, it's pretty easy to see how domestic violence can affect children even if the violence isn’t directed at them. Children happen to completely depend on their parents for everything – for both their emotional needs and their physical needs. When there is violence erupting between the parents they depend on, they can take it very personally. Not only do they no longer feel protected, they positively feel threatened. Anyone who finds it hard to make the connection should think of what they would feel like if at work, they were to witness a friendly manager immediately above them get roughed up by some bigwig.
If you would multiply that several times, you would begin to see how domestic violence and children are terrible things to put together. Naïvely, parents often think that if they lower their voices somewhat and fight in the kitchen when the children are in bed, that they will never hear it.