Ending violence begins at home

Page 9

Children growing up in violent home situations suffer the effects for the rest of their lives - and so does society, said an American speaker at a recent Alberta conference on violence.

The abuse felt as a child permeates the fabric of society today as family violence spills out into the community, said Deborah Mathews, child and adolescent co-ordinator with Worchester county Mental Health in Salisbury, Maryland.

For more than 20 years Mathews has worked with rape victims, male sex offenders and batterers. Currently, she works with children and adolescents who have suffered abuse in the home.

"It's no mystery to any of us that living in a household where there is domestic violence, there are permanent effects on the child. To find out what the effects are, we need only pick up a newspaper.

"These are ordinary, normal children who are not learning social norms. They're growing up with violence," Mathews said at the Violence In Our Society conference held in Hobbema, Alta.

"The worst part is, they've been robbed of their trust and will never look at the world in the same way. Violence is a learned behavior. When it's learned at home, they're more likely to be violent on the streets," Mathews stated.

The statistics compiled on domestic violence are staggering. According to a report read by Mathews, almost 20 per cent of all children from abusive homes are mentally disturbed, with conduct disorder being the greatest diagnosis because of domestic violence. Another 54 per cent of kids who are witnessing violence at home are also experiencing it, and about 35 per cent of women who are abused will also abuse their children in return.

The result is a child with low self-esteem who has no sense of control over his or her life, Mathews said. And those children are going to search for it by trying to hold control over their environment, other kids, and animals.

"The type of child violent families tend to produce don't speak their minds. They're unable to because they're afraid to. They're willing to take all things they don't want because they don't want to be left. They don't want to abandoned," said Mathews to an audience of approximately 30 people.

"Both the victim and the abuser have a low level of self-esteem, and they don't teach the child any different," she said. "Home isn't a safe haven. When they go home, stress increases. There is the constant anxiety. They wonder when the next beating is going to occur...

"These children are confused and angry. They can't trust a lot of things we take for granted. Confused because the person harming their mother is their father, someone they're supposed to trust, respect, grow up to be like."

The effects do vary according to gender, said Mathews. Girls will be protective of, and connect with, their mother. They internalize anger and blame the mother for being a victim. Boys relate to their father and become aggressive and abusive to their own mother, or wife. They'll also blame their mother for letting it happen.

"The mothers don't put the blame on the abuser. Everyone blames mother. The children will grow up with low self-esteem and no respect for women. These children will try to compartmentalize the whole world. They can't handle change, and they'll try to control their environment."

But there are ways to circumventing the cycle of violence, Mathews said. One is for children to learn to control anger by venting their feelings in constructive ways. Keeping a journal or diary is another method, as well as learning anger management and problem solving.

"I want you to walk away knowing what you learn," Mathews said in closing. "If they are taught violence the way to resolve things, then that's what they'll learn. Children do have things imprinted on their memory, things that happened early in life - but they can re-learn."