Children's Coping with Exposure to Domestic Violence

Purpose: Childhood exposure to a mother’s battering creates a unique set of circumstances (a family environment characterized by fear, control, and powerlessness) that cannot be minimized in understanding a child’s way of coping with such hardship.  Little is known regarding children’s perceptions on how they cope with exposure to intimate partner violence (IPV).  Thus, this study set out to address this gap. Ecological theory was utilized as a framework for this study.

Methods: Subjects were recruited from a youth therapy counseling program at a rural victim-service provider (N = 29). The participants were children who had experienced exposure to their mother’s abuse by an intimate male partner.  Child self-report measures were used to assess coping strategies (i.e., Children’s Protective Strategies Index [CPSI]) and exposure (i.e., Children’s Exposure to Domestic Violence Scale [CEDV]). 

 

Results: Study participants were females (n=14) and males (n=15) ranging in age from 7 to 16 years old (M=10, SD=2.56).  Twenty-seven participants (93%) were European American. The age range of children’s exposure to Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) was 2 to 12 years (M=6.59, SD=3.13).  The abusers included primarily fathers (n=20, 69%), stepfathers (n=5, 17.2%), or the mother’s boyfriend (n=4, 13.8%).  Additionally, 20 participants (69%) reported that the abuser also abused them. 

Children were most often exposed to their mom’s partner hurting their mom’s feelings by aggressive verbal attacks. Pearson’s correlations indicated 14 children’s coping strategies were associated with such exposure.  Taking into consideration all types of exposure, social support and cognitive coping were the most frequently used strategies with 93% of the sample endorsing them:  “I have an adult in my life that cares about me.” (M=3.76, SD=.78).  “When I grow up and have children, I don’t want them to see or hear me fight with my partner.”  (M=3.72, SD=.79).  “I just want the fighting to stop.” (M=3.66, SD=.77).  “I like nature or pets.”  (M=3.62, SD=.78).  “When I grow up, I don’t want to fight with my partner.” (M=3.55, SD=.91). 

Pearson’s correlations indicated that as one grows older the more one acts like nothing is happening at the home. (r=.52, p=.01).  Also correlated with a child’s age,  is as one gets older they are more likely to keep important phone numbers that the child can use for help (r=.53, p=.01).  An increase in exposure duration is negatively related to a decrease in believing the abuse is the mom’s fault (r=-.58, p=01).  In other words, the more a child is exposed to violence, the less they believe it is their mother’s fault. 

Implications: This study’s implications include advancing ecological theory and conceptual insights regarding protective factors for child witnesses.  Thus, social work practitioners and researchers may gain a more comprehensive understanding of the ways children cope with IPV exposure.  More specifically, community-based health and mental health programs can better serve families experiencing violence by offering a continuum of services that maximize children’s social support and coping strategies.