What Is Domestic Violence?

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Domestic violence is a terrifying and deeply felt experience for children.

Children under the age of six have a higher likelihood of witnessing domestic violence.

Domestic violence can affect brain development and psychosocial development.

Other important adults in a child’s life can provide support and aid recovery.

Domestic violence shatters the safety and refuge of home, making it a fearful place for any child who witnesses it.

Children who see and hear violence experience it with their entire being—their senses, their emotions, their thoughts, their bodies. Seeing violence up close between the people you love and depend on has a long-lasting impact on emotional and brain development and on attachment and future relationships.

Domestic violence or intimate partner violence (IPV) is an all too prevalent social problem in the United States. Researchers report that up to 25% of children are exposed to IPV during childhood, and that many experience it for the first time as infants or toddlers (Jones Harden, Martoccio & Berlin, et al, 2021). Children under the age of six are at higher risk of exposure than older children (Carpenter & Stacks, 2009).

Solomon, a formerly incarcerated man I interviewed for my book, Before Their Crimes: What We’re Misunderstanding about Childhood Trauma, Youth Crime, and the Path to Healing, told me that his earliest memories were of his parents fighting.........

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