Women's Center of Rhode Island - Children Who Experience Violence

Our Mission

The mission of the Women's Center of Rhode Island is
to end interpersonal violence. We seek to empower all
we serve thorough culturally competent programs that
provide safety, shelter and court advocacy to victims of
domestic violence. We work collaboratively to prevent
the occurrence of violence and to educate the community
about the dynamics of violence

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Children Who Experience DV | Age Specific Indicators
Women's Center of RI's Children Enrichment Program

Children Who Experience Domestic Violence
Witnessing domestic violence at any age can inhibit emotional, physical, cognitive, and social development (see indicators below).

Emotional Indicators	Social Indicators	Physical Indicators	Cognitive Indicators
Shame Guilt Fear Anger Depression Anxiety Embarassment	Isolation Unhealthy Relationships Difficulty Establishing Trust Difficulty Managing Emotions Difficulty Setting Boundaries Passivity Bullying	Frequently Ill Agressive Play Tired Change in Toileting Habits Difficulty Sleeping Change in Eating Habits Self Harm	Short Attention Span Lethargic Poor Academic Performance Memory Loss

The negative consequences of abuse and violent home life include depression, low self-esteem, suicidal thoughts and behavior, post-traumatic stress disorder, substance abuse, and criminal behavior.
Research has demonstrated that there is a link between physical abuse and street youth violent behavior.
Coercive/abusive families provide training for antisocial behaviors. Children in these circumstances come to model the behavior of their parents and adopt interpersonal violence as a strategy or tactic. Such victimization teaches children that extreme violence is an effective method of dispute settlement and conflict management.
Family violence may result in youth who experience consequences including running away, homelessness, association with deviant peers, and participation in a number of deviant activities to support themselves on the streets.
Previous experiences of being seriously assaulted by family members, who are supposed to be close to them, leads to a generalization of these experiences in ways that render youth unable to identify the cues that point to potential assailants in the future.

Identifying with the abuser is a common defense mechanism in children who are either abused or who witness abuse at home.

Age Specific Indicators

Children may manifest the following Age Specific Indictors resulting from the experience of violence in the home:

0-2 years	3-4 years	5-9 years
Basic need for attachment disrupted	Somatic or psychosomatic complaints	Vacillate between being eager to please and being hostile
Routines around feeding/sleeping are disturbed	Regression	Verbal about home life
Injuries while "caught in crossfire"	Irritability	Developmental Delays
Irritability or inconsolable crying	Fearful of being alone	Externalized behavior problems
Frequent illness	Extreme separation anxiety	Inadequete social skill development
Difficulty sleeping	Developmental delays	Gender role modeling creats conflict/confusion
Diarrhea	Sympathetic toward mother
Developmental delays

10-13 years	14-18 years
Behavior problems become more serious	Internalized and externalized behavior problems can become extreme
Increased internalized behavior difficulties: depression, isolation & withdrawal	Dating relationships may reflect violence learned or witnessed at home
Emotional difficulties: shame, fear, confusion, & rage	Problems with substance abuse
Poor social skills	Truancy
Developmental delays	Joining gangs
Protective of "weak" mother	Acting out sexually
Guarded/secretive about family	Running away
	Suicide