‘We teach our children to be batterers’
ALEXANDRA – The project links violence in children with upbringing, lying and low esteem.
The spate of reported violence particularly in schools is often blamed on children and less is said about the crucial causal factors.
A web-based portal, The Warrior Project has delved into this matter and pins this on society’s unconscious collusion in the problem by ‘teaching our children to be batterers’.
The project, which provides victims of domestic violence access to free information and resources, released a statement which said, “Children exposed to domestic abuse and violence increased their risk of perpetrating and experiencing the same violence as adults.”
This said at a time of reported spike in school violence and domestic abuse nationally, “Sparking questions on the effects of this epidemic on our children, and whether their exposure to violence is perhaps a more significant piece of the puzzle than we think.”
The statement added research indicated that adults’ behaviour in the home, affects their children’s neurochemistry. “If they are exposed to violence or other abusive behaviours between intimate partners, their neurological pathways rewire to associate those behaviours with normal relational conflict,” project founder Yvonne Wakefield said.
Wakefield added that this is a blueprint through which the children will approach their relationships later in life.
The project also referred to the findings by a pioneering psychiatrist and researcher Daniel Siegel which associates the ‘mind’s development with the brain’s response to ongoing experience’. According to Siegel, “The pattern of firing of neurons is what gives rise to attention, emotion, and memory.”
The assertion is further amplified by psychologist Blake Griffin Edwards’ finding which explained, “What fires together, in a combination of violent exposures and the child’s underlying neurobiological experience, wires together.”
This finding referred to the link between childhood exposure to domestic violence and the increased risk of them being involved in domestic violence as adults.
These findings are further affirmed by the World Health Organisation’s research which linked exposure to increased violence during childhood with the likelihood of intimate partner violence perpetuating up to fourfold in men, as well as, the increased likelihood of its acceptance either as a victim or perpetrator in future partnerships and other high-risk situations.
The statement explained that the psychological aftermath in children exposed to domestic violence includes fear of harm or abandonment, excessive worry or sadness and guilt as well as the inability to experience empathy or guilt, habitual lying, low frustration tolerance, emotional distancing, poor judgment, shame and primal fear about the future.
The project urged for a holistic approach in addressing this challenge, “Unless we can decrease children’s exposure, we will never effect change and the cycle of violence and abuse will continue to repeat itself.”
Details: Yvonne Wakefield Yvonne@thewarriorproject.org.za
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