Abuse threatens a child's sense of his or her family as safe and nurturing.

When a man is abusive to a child's mother, it's more than bad role modelling. It's bad parenting. He may maltreat the children directly and they may be at risk of injury during violent incidents towards their mother. Women living with abusive partners face enormous challenges in being the best mothers they can be. Children may be isolated from potential sources of support and can learn to see the world as scary and unsafe.

How children are “exposed” to woman abuse

•    seeing a mother assaulted or demeaned
•    hearing loud conflict and violence
•    seeing their mother with injuries, or seeing her afraid and upset
•    being used by an abusive parent as part of the abuse
•    seeing a father abuse his new partner when they visit him on weekends

How children might be “used” by an abusive parent

•    suggesting a child's misbehaviour is the reason the parent must be abusive
•    talking inappropriately to children about their mother’s behaviour
•    encouraging the children to criticize or abuse their mother
•    threatening violence against the children and/or their pets

Each child is unique. Even children in the same family are affected in different ways.

Children are not only “witnesses” to events in their homes. 

In research literature, children are often called “witnesses” to domestic violence. This term implies a passive role - but children living with conflict and abuse will actively interpret, predict, assess their roles in causing a “fight,” worry about the consequences, engage in problem-solving, and/or take measures to protect themselves or siblings, both physically and emotionally.

During violent incidents
Children may referee, try to rescue their mother, try to deflect the abuser's attention onto them, try to distract the abuser, take care of younger siblings, hide, run away or seek outside help such as phoning the police.

Between incidents of abuse Children may try to predict the next incident or believe that changing their behaviour might prevent another eruption of violence.

Children are good observers and poor interpreters. They listen and they see but they don't usually understand situations the same way adults would.

What children may feel:
Fear, confusion, guilt, anger, frustration, tummy aches, and worry. The smallest children are too young to appreciate what other people are feeling. Nevertheless, visible cues like blood and crying signal that someone is hurt. Older children and teenagers are better able to put themselves in their parents' positions. If a mother gets physically hit, many can imagine how she feels.

What children may think:
Some try hard to stay out of the way, lest they become the next target. They may think, “will I get in trouble, will I get yelled at, will I get hit, will I die?”

Children who feel responsible for starting the “fight” are likely to blame themselves for any negative consequences such as visible injury, arrest, incarceration, or one parent leaving the family. Some hope for rescue, perhaps by super heroes.

Some children will blame their mother for doing whatever she is being accused of by her partner, perhaps spending too much money or not having dinner ready on time. If their father was taken away by police on a previous occasion, they wonder if it might happen again. His arrest is welcomed by a few but dreaded by others. Some children believe they themselves will be taken by the police, for being bad and causing the fight. Some are angry at their mother for not stopping the “fight” to prevent the police from coming.

Children who do not blame themselves for the abuse and who develop helpful coping strategies (e.g. reaching out for help) may well have the best outcomes.

What children may be doing:
Hiding, praying, wrapping pillows around their ears, humming, clutching teddies, hugging pets, wearing headphones and turning up the music, concentrating intently on something else, or pretending they are somewhere else (dissociation).

Older children may shepherd the younger ones to a safe place and try to keep them calm. Some children, especially but not only teenagers, intervene in the “fight,” playing the peacemaker, the referee, the rescuer, or the protector.

Thoughts and feelings go on after the “fight” stops
Next morning, next week, next month - one thought remains: will it happen again? Being keen observers, little eyes watch for anything they believe (rightly or wrongly) to be triggers.

Seeing cans or bottles of alcohol may unleash a flood of emotions. Adults know that alcohol does not cause violence but in some homes, alcohol and violence seem to young eyes to go hand-in-hand. Little ears listen for raised voices or swearing and bad names.

When violence has long been a feature of family life, children are hyper-sensitive to the cues and know when it is time to gather the younger kids and get out, or time to be sad and afraid because it's the only thing they can do.

Abuse destroys a child's view of the world as a safe place
In addition to the distorted messages children may form about the cause of the violence, they could also learn that you have to deal with your problems by yourself, adults don't keep their promises, bad things happen no matter how hard they try to be good, and life is not fair. In contrast, children who grow up with encouragement, fairness, and safety can approach life with enthusiasm and embrace new opportunities.

Children’s styles of coping and survival may become problematic
Children's innate ability to adapt serves them well when trapped with abuse, conflict, and violence. Strategies can involve ideas (e.g. fantasizing about a better family); actions (e.g. running away); or, feelings (e.g. anger, guilt). Their actions and choices are survival skills: temporarily helpful adaptations to an unhealthy situation. But some, such as running away, create new problems.

Children can become isolated from helpful sources of support
To hide family secrets, children who live with woman abuse usually don't invite friends home. They try and prevent parents' contact with others (e.g. hiding memos about parent/teacher night), and even deny anything is wrong if queried by a concerned adult.

They know instinctively, or are warned, that bad things will happen if the world learns the family secrets. They learn to pass as “normal.” In consequence, they are cut off from people who could listen and help or people who could recognize the problem.

Abuse can harm the ‘mother and child’ bond
An abusive man undermines a mother's efforts to parent, whether by contradicting her, sapping her confidence as a parent, or eroding the children's view of her as a person worthy of respect. She may change her own parenting style in reaction to his parenting style. She may not be in a position to protect them.

Children may be angry that she stayed with him, afraid she will go back, or worried she will get involved with another abusive man. They may not trust her to keep them safe and may even doubt if she loves them.

Watching a mother abused by a partner over time, children may come to see her as vulnerable, emotionally unavailable, not a person with natural parental authority, or as someone who cannot protect them.

Extracts from “little eyes, little ears”, Centre for Children and Families in the Justice System, NCFV, Canada 2007.