29 Dec

One Way Domestic Violence Affects Children

Affects of Domestic Violence by Franklin Morris II

The Atlantic published an article called “How Family Violence Changes the Way Children’s Brains Function”. In it it they wrote about one way domestic violence affects children:

“The researchers concluded that children who have been exposed to family violence, even if they are not showing overt symptoms, have a heightened neural responsiveness to stress. The authors point out that this may be a beneficial adaptation on the short term to a threatening environment but it may pose problems in the long term. The researchers suggest this excessive neural responsiveness to stress may negatively impact a child’s development in several ways. When a child is devoting the majority of his or her cognitive and emotional energy dealing with real or perceived threats, he or she has less time and mental energy to take on age-appropriate challenges and to develop age-appropriate social and thinking skills.”

“…He or she has less time and mental energy to take on age-appropriate challenges and to develop age-appropriate social and thinking skills.”

When husbands and wives get into family violence, do they consider the negative impact it will have upon their children? Would they stop if they knew that their influence was stunting their children’s emotional, social, and mental growth? The Bible says, “Be not hasty in thy spirit to be angry: for anger resteth in the bosom of fools.” Ecclesiastes 7:9. If we just took Ecclesiastes 7:9 to heart, we would be much further along in breaking the cycle of domestic violence and dysfunctional homes!