The silent victims of Domestic Violence

Jan 22, 2020 Letters

Dear Editor,

Over the past week we have read of the most recent incident of domestic violence which concerned a 34-year old mother of three who was stabbed to death by her reputed husband.
Sadly, this is not the first incident of its kind and it certainly will not be the last. However, one aspect of Domestic Violence that we need to bring to the awareness of society is the effects of domestic violence on children. Children are the silent victims of domestic violence because they are present in almost all the situations when the violence takes place. Violence has many forms: physical, emotional, psychological, and even economic and each type of violence affect the child differently. Some of the known effects of domestic violence on children include fear of abandonment, guilt, fear, lying, excessive worrying and sadness.
Psychiatrist and researcher Daniel Siegel (2004) said “The mind develops as the brain responds to ongoing experience. The pattern of firing of neurons is what gives rise to attention, emotion, and memory.” As these neurons fire together they bind the violence they see with their fundamental processes. This gives rise to the child’s own reality. It is undisputed that children learn through social interactions. They learn through the modeling, mimicking and imitation of behaviours. It is through this that they learn good from bad and wrong from right. Imagine a situation in which the only bad and good a child knows is arguments and fights. What sort of behaviour will that child exhibit? How will that child resolve conflicts? What types of relationships will that child eventually form? These are all questions we need to ask ourselves. It has been noted that bullyism is on the increase in our schools and we are forced to think about the interactions they see at home. Is this the type of conflict resolution we are teaching our children?
It is for this reason that we need to place more emphasis on the mental wellbeing of our children. However, the stigma attached to mental health does not make this an easy task but we have to start somewhere.
As a society, we have the responsibility to help our children through our interactions with them in the school system, at home or even in the community. At the school level, we should integrate programmes that will encourage children to talk about their feelings and express them in an appropriate manner instead of having them pent up and ready to explode at a moment.
Similarly, in our families we should encourage each other to talk about our feelings and educate ourselves on better conflict resolution.
Our children are the future leaders of tomorrow and we have a responsibility to take care of them.

Yours Sincerely,
Rebekah Seymour

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