Effects Of Parental Violence In Boys & Girls

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Pushing, choking, slapping or threatening with a gun or knife by parents or a parent's intimate partner! We are not talking about any movie scene; it is about real life. Violence at home can affect girls and boys differently, say a new research.

"While girls tend to internalise their exposure to such violence, boys are more inclined to act out aggressively," said the study's lead investigator Megan Holmes, assistant professor at the Case Western Reserve University in the US.

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One of the main reason for a child's aggressive behaviour and immature social skills in areas such as assertiveness, cooperation, responsibility and self-control is due to their bad experience form home itself. Differences in how boys and girls reacted to viewing violent episodes depend on many factors. "The exposure occurring when the child was of school age predicted poor social skills for girls but not for boys," Holmes said.

The findings suggest school-age (kindergarten) girls are more likely to struggle with the social skills. An improvement in this is important for them to interact with others and succeed in school.

Meanwhile, boys were more likely to display aggressive behaviour starting in pre-school as a result of their exposure to the violence."This aggression tends to isolate them and prevent healthy interactions with other children," Holmes added.

Here are some of the common effects of parental violence on both boys and girls.

Emotional
Domestic violence effects on children are more towards their emotional side. Grief for family and personal losses, shame, guilt, fear of abandonment or personal injury will affect the children to a great extent. This state of stress and emotional tension can even lead to conditions like depression.

Academicals
You can never expect your child to be academically brilliant if you are not providing them a peaceful atmosphere at the home to live in. They may refuse to go to school, avoid academic works and will perform poorly in evaluation examinations. This is one of the serious parental violence effects that children are facing.

Behavioral
Aggressive responses, lying, rigid defenses, isolation, attention seeking behavior, reduced intellectual competency, dependency and mood swings are seen very commonly among children who face parental violence at home, no matter what the gender are. Parental violence effects can seriously affect the lifestyle of a child.

Social
Domestic violence effects on children extent to the social side as well. The social impact of parental violence includes isolation from friends and relatives, undesirable relationships, short tempered behavior, poor problem solving skills, bullying and violence. Some children will become socially over active for attention seeking while some others will stay isolated.

Physical
By close watching, we can easily identify a child who experience parental violence by noting the physical domestic violence effects on children. Headaches and stomachaches of unknown reasons, short attention span, anxious nature and tendency to have self abuse remains as the most important effects of parental violence.

The hormonal and genetic makeup of boys and girls differ and so is their response to different situations, including parental violence. But, the overall parental violence effects remains the same in both genders that will make them stay away from the normal emotional, behavioural and social life.