Living the Lie
By Jane Boyd, Community Educator

Most of what children learn about relationships is learned from their first and most important teachers, their parents.

Unfortunately, children who live with domestic violence learn to live with fear, shame, guilt, anxiety and most importantly, they learn to live with the lie.

The lie is what they learn about their family dynamic. It is crucial to the batterer that his abuse is kept secret. What is good for the batterer becomes vital to his victims, his wife and children. In order to protect themselves and each other the lie becomes the wall the family hides behind. The children often believe that society will separate them from their mothers. They are taught by the perpetrator that you don't "wash your dirty laundry in public." Even when the police do become involved children may see their father arrested only to return to the home angrier than ever while they have endured the shame of having a parent incarcerated.

The effects on children vary from child to child, but from fetus to adolescence the child is at risk. The fetus may be born with birth defects or be miscarried if the mother is battered during pregnancy. Infants are frightened by loud voices and slamming objects. They may be physically harmed while being held by the mother during an attack. Toddlers may become clingy and suffer from sleep disorders and separation anxiety. School age children may become overly introverted or aggressive, do poorly in school or over achieve in hopes of assuaging the violent parent. Some adolescents suffer from guilt and a sense of helplessness and may be hurt trying to protect their parent from the abuse. Many of these children become runaways or are "parentified" and end up caring for the parent and younger siblings.

It is very difficult to develop positive relationships as they grow to adulthood and they may repeat the cycle of violence they learned at home as victim or perpetrator.

Child abuse and neglect are also preventable when parents, families, extended families, communities and governmental agencies work together. For that reason, a broadly based coalition is working together to engage families and communities in preventing child abuse and neglect. By providing help and hope to our young people, we will build a better and more compassionate world for our children and grandchildren.