Seeing Violence; Doing Violence

From Case Western Reserve University on Newswise: Aggression in school-age children may have its origins in children 3 years old and younger who witnessed violence between their mothers and partners, according to a new Case Western Reserve University study. “People may think children that young are passive and unaware, but they pay attention to what’s happening around them,” said Megan Holmes, assistant professor of social work at the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences at Case Western Reserve in Cleveland. Between three and 10 million children witness some form of domestic violence each year, according the National Center for Children Exposed to Violence. Holmes said researchers know the impact of recent exposure to violence, but little information has been available about the long-term effect from the early years of life. To her knowledge, she said her study is the first to look at the effect of early exposure to domestic violence and its impact on the development of social behavior. In the study, “The sleeper effect of intimate partner violence (IPV) exposure: long-term consequences on young children’s aggressive behavior,” Holmes analyzed the behavior of 107 children exposed to IPV in their first three years but never again after age 3. The outcomes of those children were compared to 339 children who were never exposed. Those studied were from the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being (NSCAW), which included children r...
Source: The Situationist - Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Authors: Tags: Life Source Type: blogs