(Ab0ve): A child drawing a fight between an arguing mother and father as family abuse in a dysfunctional relationship. (Siliconeer/Shutterstock)

Recently in Sacramento, Calif., a father killed his three children and their chaperone before turning the gun on himself during a court-ordered supervised visitation outside a church, in a church parking lot.

At an Ethnic Media Services briefing, March 4, the focus was on the impact of domestic violence on children who are witnesses and often victims themselves. Speakers – LaTonya Wood, Director of Clinical Training – Psy.D. Program, Graduate School of Education and Psychology, Pepperdine University; Shikha Hamilton, National Director of Advocacy and Mobilization, Brady United to End Gun Violence; and Leiana Kinnicutt, Program Director of Children and Youth Program, Futures Without Violence – discuss the mental health aspects for children who witness or are involved with domestic disputes or parent abuse.

(Above, l-r): LaTonya Wood, Director of Clinical Training – Psy.D. Program, Graduate School of Education and Psychology, Pepperdine University; Shikha Hamilton, National Director of Advocacy and Mobilization, Brady United to End Gun Violence; and Leiana Kinnicutt, Program Director of Children and Youth Program, Futures Without Violence. (EMS)

According to Dr LaTonya Wood, “Domestic violence occurs within and across family systems affecting all of those within the system and unfortunately while low-income families seem to have higher rates of abuse and domestic violence, children, who are exposed to domestic violence, and witness domestic violence are not a homogeneous group, so their experiences and the mental health impact of those experiences vary greatly.”

“Some of the factors that impact the mental health outcomes of children exposed to domestic violence depend on at what age and stage of development they are in when the violence occurs. It also is impacted by the chronicity and how long the violence occurs in the family. The earlier children are exposed and the longer it occurs they tend to have poor outcomes and much more long-term difficulties, and since the age of development is a critical aspect of how it impacts the children, it also gives us a way of understanding the impact of mental health or the impact of violence on the mental health of children,” said Dr Wood.

“For example, infants and toddlers who are at a stage of learning to walk, talk, and toilet trained, at this age children seem to show difficulties in these behaviors, in fact they may show a regression in previously learned behaviors – they will revert, especially with language.

“You will notice a delay in their language or inability to speak with the same level that they were previously speaking, or they may revert back to toileting accidents either at night or during the day. These children also may have trouble sleeping and may begin to show fear about being left alone or fear of sleeping alone at night, and preschoolers of ages three to five, who are much more limited in their verbal ability to express their emotions, will express their reaction and their mental health through actions. In this age group you can expect to see increased behavioral problems such as temper tantrums and aggression, a lot of tearfulness and crying, somatic complaints – headaches, stomach aches, which is again the toileting accidents that that you may begin to see resurface even if they’ve been totally trained.

These children, similar to younger kids, also have trouble sleeping at night and they may begin to report having nightmares, and sleepwalking, and some of these are symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD),” said Dr Wood.

“It really is important to understand these symptoms in the context as reactions of possibly what is happening in the family. They too probably will show some separation anxiety which could be school refusal. They may say they don’t want to go to school but what may be behind that is a fear of leaving a parent alone and a fear of what could happen to their parent if they leave their parent alone for an extended amount of time.

“With school-aged kids we may begin to see issues in academic performance and peer relationships. These kids begin to be more susceptible to being bullied at school or conversely may begin to show activities related to being bullies themselves because they may show more aggression and some of this is thought to be social learning that is modeled for them in the home.

“In terms of other mental health impacts for school-aged kids we will see depression and anxiety, low self-esteem, as well as a lot of anger, and then once we get into adolescence, we can begin to see the impact of witnessing violence extending maybe beyond the family,” said Dr Wood.

There is some data to suggest that exposure to violence in the home is a significant predictor of adolescent abusive behavior, particularly in males, and could be a significant predictor of experience of victimization and intimate relationships by both boys and girls. The research on that is a bit mixed so it is not a one-to-one correlation, pointed Dr Wood.

“I’m not saying that is automatic that adolescents who experience domestic violence or witness domestic violence will become aggressive but there is considerable data to show that transmission in their own behaviors, especially into adulthood. There may be other mental health factors that we see show up during adolescence, particularly around risky behaviors, so we may see an increase in substance use, sexual risky behaviors, increased depression and school dropout,” said Dr Wood.

“Children exposed to domestic violence do display a wide range of complex emotions and there is a lot more to learn about the specific processes involved on the mental health impact on children who witness domestic violence in part because they’ve been kind of, ignored,” concluded Dr Wood.

Shikha Hamilton of the Brady Center next discussed the impact of weapons in the home and what implications they might have for children who are bystanders in domestic violence situations.

“The presence of a gun in a domestic violence situation increases the risk of homicide by 500 percent. 4.6 million children live in homes with access to an unlocked or unsupervised gun. Children witnessed violence in nearly one in four intimate partner violence cases filed in state courts.

“A 2019 study that examined child homicides between 2005 and 2014 discovered that 20 percent of all child homicide victims were killed in instances related to intimate partner violence. Of that, 20 percent of child homicide victims, 54.3 percent, were killed in instances where the perpetrator intended to kill their intimate partner before the homicide occurred,” said Hamilton.

According to Hamilton, one in five kids have handled the gun when an adult wasn’t around and the adults don’t even know it. 75 percent of kids know where a gun is stored in their home that’s an important statistic because often gun owners believe they’re doing a good job of keeping them locked and away from kids and the kids don’t know where they are. One in ten high school students has experienced physical violence from a partner in the last year alone. We lose, every single day, eight children and teens are unintentionally injured or killed due to family fire where it’s domestically related and then there is accidental gunshot deaths by children handling a gun that jumped 31 percent during the start of COVID 19 pandemic compared to the year earlier.

“Domestic violence is also related to mass shootings. In America, 60 percent of mass shootings between 2014 and 2019 were either domestic violence attacks or perpetrated by those with the history of domestic violence. It’s the access to the firearm that is key in this situation and as we talk about the incident that happened in Sacramento, it was the firearm which he should not have had,” pointed Hamilton.

Leiana Kinnicutt of Futures Without Violence talked about how to heal children who are victims of domestic violence or who are witnesses to domestic violence.

“All children are impacted differently from domestic violence and experiencing all violence and can heal within the context of their relationships with caregivers, family, community, and very importantly, their culture. Children do best when systems, programs, and policy makers coordinate efforts and are intentional about designing solutions that place the child within the context of their family and not further slow our responses. When we focus less on individual incidents of violence and more on impact and context, we are better able to foster healing and resilience.

“One definition of resilience is the capacity of a person, family, community, society to respond successfully to challenges that threaten its survival or positive development. Context matters in a significant way when it comes to resilience. It can be designed right, which means everyone has a role to play. There are lots of ways we can create improve and sustain the types of experiences and conditions that matter when we’re talking about fostering resilience in people, and in their relationships. What we need to have a healthy and happy childhood also help us have healthy and happy lives as adults. These are known as protective factors and some are very specific to survivors.

“These protective factors are focused on both adult and child survivors. Individual and relational attributes and environmental and social conditions that are necessary to promote prevention healthy and positive development and safety healthy healing and wellbeing,” said Kinnicutt.