Domestic Violence and Child Abuse

Domestic Violence and Child Abuse

The statistics indicate that when one parent, typically the male, is abusive to the other parent, the children are more likely to be abused as well.

What the statistics do not indicate is that even if the child is not actually struck or harmed, simply living in a household where there is lots of fear or tension, a household where the parents cycle through the cycle of violence for example, is damaging to the child's attachment process and actually changes the brain, sensitizing the child to fear. A person who has learned that he/she cannot protect themselves(and is therefore helpless) is more likely to resort to violence as a tool to exert some control in their lives, which can leave someone seriously injured.

I have a number of articles in my office of young boys who have been killed or seriously injured trying to protect their mothers, so this is a serious issue.

Lots of current research in domestic violence is indicating that a problem in the attachment process, which happens in the first two years of life, can lead to the inability to form secure adult relationships.

When it is the male who forms insecure attachments as an adult, which means that when there is a perceived threat to attachment, the male floods with tension (in 1/18th) second, he will act out in the environment in an attempt to relax. When an insecure attachment style is coupled with a shaming father, the young man is set up for relationship insecurities down the road.

How is Attachment Formed!

Broadly speaking, attachment is the attempt of baby and mom to match each others physical arousal levels through nonverbal communication, visual and auditory and tactile cues.

The more successful the pair are at doing this, the more successful social interaction happen, the more neurons mature and migrate to their appropriate spot in the childs brain, and the better developmental processes are completed.

Attachment processed can happen as often as every three seconds if we were to measure them linearly, so they are frequent and brief.

A life time of more tranquil relationships can result from the attention Mom and Dad pay to this process.

Poor Attachment

If their is a history of tension between the parents, the child, who is very aware of how things are between the care givers who keep him alive, is sensitized to tension, and may over react because of that sensitivity, years, even decades later, to a surprise in the environment.

So domestic violence as a form of child abuse, even if the child is not physically touched.

A wonderful tool for both adults and children to use for attachment thoughts and behaviors.