Domestic Violence And Child Abuse

Children exposed to violence and abuse are victims of a “pervasive problem, spanning generations, in our country” and presents the counseling career with an emotional epidemic that spans throughout a client’s life (Brown, 2013, p. 185). Violence and abuse, used interchangeably in this paper, against children can occur in forms of neglect, both physical and emotional, and being involved in and witnessing domestic abuse and intimate partner violence (Milaniak & Widom, 2015). According to Kress, Adamson, Paylo, DeMarco, and Bradley, (2012), about “10 million children witness intimate partner violence every year and 50% of that violence is perpetrated directly on children present” in the situation. This an alarming statistic that should call awareness

Counseling children affected by violence can be an essential part of the healing process, either short term or long term, that they should undergo to understand and prevent further trauma. If not treated properly, there is a likely chance that children exposed to violence without counseling can become abusive themselves and are at an increased risk for being criminally violent and maladjusted (Milaniak & Widom, 2015). The occurrence of violence in a child’s life can affect them developmentally as well as psychologically. A child’s neurological development is essential to forming adaptive, important and healthy decision making behaviors and specific skills like “modeling, mastery learning, social persuasion and self- regulation” (Fine & Sung, 2014). When trauma occurs, such as being exposed to violence and abuse, in an important development stage like childhood, the affects can be damaging and can cause maladaptive

Identifying what symptoms are present in the child is necessary to determine what techniques to use and the length of treatment. When treating the child with short term counseling the counselor must be aware of the child’s wariness to be in a trusting relationship and should work to build a rapport that encourages disclosure in a safe environment. This kind of brief, solution focused therapy is important when a crisis intervention has already been conducted and the child is currently in a violent environment. Certain techniques and procedures have been “developed to elicit information, indicating what you can and cannot do, what can be said and what cannot” to a child in an abusive situation and a counselor must be aware of the language used to question about the violence they have been exposed to (Brown, 2013,