Interparental Violence—Effects on Children
Prevention And Intervention Programs
Fortunately, many professionals worldwide have been working on the development of prevention and intervention programs. These efforts raise several issues: who receives services; what programs are available; what are program goals; and how effective are the programs.
Primary prevention efforts, by definition, assume that all children and adults can benefit from programs designed to reduce domestic violence by promoting skills and understandings that facilitate forming nonviolent relationships. For school age children such programs are often psychoeducational and delivered through the schools. Successful programs have typically included topics such as identification of feelings, anger management, family roles, friendship skills, and self-esteem enhancement (Wolfe and Jaffe 2001). Trauma-oriented treatment may be delivered in individual sessions (e.g., Kerig et al. 2000) through trauma play, systematic desensitization, or cognitive behavioral therapy.
For prevention among high risk families with children below school-age, home-based intervention programs with maternal support and parenting training have been successful in reducing child abuse and improving children's adaptive functioning (e.g., Olds et al. 1997). Some preventive programs have targeted primarily adults and provided community resources designed to reduce family violence by decreasing parental stress and increasing parental skills (e.g., Braden and Hightower 1998).
Multifaceted intervention programs may be the most useful, and typically provide services for exposed children and their battered mothers (see review by Graham-Bermann 2001), and sometimes for abusive fathers (e.g., Peled and Edleson 1995). Many intervention programs for exposed children and mothers have been developed through clinical necessity and delivered through community shelters and domestic violence agencies. These ten- to twelve-week programs are usually offered to small groups (six to nine) of children of approximately the same age, and are intended for mild to moderately distressed children. Research suggests that there is substantial variability in the severity of exposed children's problems, meaning that intervention plans need to include assessment and treatment additional to or preceding children's participation in group programs for the 35 to 50 percent of exposed children with problems in the clinically significant range (Carlson 1996).
Peter Jaffe and his colleagues (1990) and Einat Peled and Diane Davis (1995) have developed programs that serve as prototypes for many existing group programs for children. Group programs for children typically cover the following topics: education about interparental violence, gender role stereotypes, and attributions of responsibility for the violence; emotion identification, expression and management skills, particularly for anger and fear; social skills, social problem-solving and the building of support systems; self-esteem enhancement; safety planning; and understanding children's schemas about others and their wishes for their family.
A new and promising form of intervention for exposed children involves taking services to families in their homes (Rossman, Hughes, and Rosenberg 2000), which facilitates extended service provision. A successful home-based intervention for battered mothers of oppositional defiant or conducted disordered boys, ages four to nine, found that these boys' conduct problems were reduced over eight months of follow-up for families receiving home-based versus only typical services ( Jouriles et al. 2001). Such results are promising and dictate the need for further program delivery and evaluation efforts.
Initial prevention efforts to combat domestic violence are underway in many countries. Some examples include the Project Against Domestic Violence in Cambodia (Family Violence Prevention Foundation 2001a); Harmony House Limited in Hong Kong (Family Violence Prevention Foundation 2001c); Jagori in India (Family Violence Prevention Foundation 2001d); the Russian Association of Crisis Centers for Women (Human Rights Watch World Report 2001) and, the Agisanang Domestic Abuse Prevention and Training clinic in South Africa (Family Violence Prevention Foundation 2001f). Although these initial efforts are often directed toward education, legislation, public awareness, and the needs of battered women, such programs provide the promise of a brighter future for their children.
See also: CHILD ABUSE: PSYCHOLOGICAL MALTREATMENT; CONDUCT DISORDER; CONFLICT: COUPLE RELATIONSHIPS; CONFLICT: FAMILY RELATIONSHIPS; DEPRESSION: CHILDREN AND ADOLESCENTS; DEVELOPMENT: COGNITIVE; DEVELOPMENT: EMOTIONAL; DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOPATHOLOGY; DIVORCE: EFFECTS ON CHILDREN; INTERPARENTAL CONFLICT—EFFECTS ON CHILDREN; MARITAL QUALITY; POSTTRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER (PTSD); SPOUSE ABUSE: PREVALENCE; SPOUSE ABUSE: THEORETICAL EXPLANATIONS
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B. B. ROBBIE ROSSMAN
Additional topics
Marriage and Family EncyclopediaPregnancy & ParenthoodInterparental Violence—Effects on Children - The Impact Of Exposure, Effects On Parent-child Relationships, Longer-term Effects, Cultural Diversity