Domestic Violence - Tips for Children - Australia

If you live in a home where there is a lot of violence, it can be very upsetting and frightening.  Violence in the home is always wrong and it's never your fault.  These tips might help you learn more about how to stay safe, what to do, types of violence and how to get help if you are being hurt.


Violence at Home Can Make You Feel Bad

The violence at home may be directed at your mother and you may see this happening.  The violence may also be towards you.  This is called child abuse.  It can make you feel really sad and awful.  Often children think they have something to cause the violence in their family.  This is not true, but sometimes you might:

• Blame yourself for the violence
• Feel frightened, sad, ashamed, confused or unhappy
• Feel sick, have stomach pains or headaches
• Stop eating or not feel like eating
• Cry a lot
• Sleep badly or have nightmares or wet the bed
• Find school difficult
• Lose interest in your school work or your friends
• Take drugs or alcohol to cope
• Feel like running away
• Feel angry and want to hurt yourself or somebody else or to smash something
• Have trouble talking - for example, you might stutter
• Worry about your mother's safety

Types of Violence

Family violence can mean lots of different things - it's not just being hit.  There are different kinds of violence that can happen in the home.  The violence may be directed at your mother, at the children only, or at the children and mother.  Some examples of violence that may affect you are:

• Physical Violence-someone hurting you by hitting, slapping, shoving, pushing, biting, kicking or burning you.  Someone throwing or breaking things in your home.  Seeing your mother or brother or sister hurt or threatened in any of these ways.  Someone hurting your pets.
• Verbal Violence - someone hurting you by telling mean and nasty things at you, calling you rude names, or shouting or talking to you in a scary or threatening way.  Hearing someone speak to your mother like this.
• Sexual Violence - someone hurting you by touching private parts of your body when you do not want them to, touching you in a sexual way or forcing you to have sex.
• Neglect - someone hurting you by not giving you care, food, clean things, safety, clothing and love.

If You Think You are Being Abused or See Your Mother Being Abused

There are important things you should remember if you think that you, your mother or anyone in your family is being abused.  These include:

• Someone may try to make you feel ashamed or guilty about what is happening.  You are not to blame for something they have done wrong.  It is not your fault and it's not a special secret.
• Don't believe them if they say something bad will happen to you if you tell; there are people who can help you.
• It is an unsafe secret to keep: it's okay to tell someone and it will help you or your mother to be safe
• Nothing is so awful that it can't be talked about
• Help is available

Tell Someone About Family Violence and Abuse at Home

You can report family violence at home and get help in many ways:

• Find someone who you trust to tell (perhaps a neighbour, a teacher or a friend's mother).
• Tell a trusted adult who can keep you safe and help stop the abuse at home.
• Take your time and try to explain how you or your mother has been hurt.  It may be very difficult or scary for you to tell and it may be hard for you to find the right words to explain.  Just do the best you can to explain.
• Try using the phone, writing things down, drawing a picture or sending an email - lots of people find talking face-to-face very difficult, not just kids.
• If the person hurting you or your mother is someone in your family, you may feel safer if you tell someone outside your family - like your teacher or a Kids Help Line counsellor (see Where to get help below).

Staying Safe

There are ways that you can stay safe including:

• Talk to people - find someone you can trust and who will listen to you.  It might be someone in your family, your friends' parents, a cousellor, your teacher, the police or another trusted adult.  They will help protect you.
• Keep on telling different people - if your problem is not being fixed, keep telling people until you feel safe.
• Remember that your body belongs to you - no one should touch any part of your body in a way that makes you feel scared or confused or hurt.  This includes your private parts.  It is okay to tell someone to stop if they are touching you in a way that hurts or makes you uncomfortable.
• Know the difference between safe and unsafe touching - some touching is friendly and helpful such as hugging, holding hands with a friend, play wrestling with your brother or giving your sister a shoulder massage.

Where to Get Help

• Kids Help Line counsellors Tel. 1800 551 800 or get help via the Internet www.kidshelp.com.au   
• Police Tel. 000
• Child Protection CrisisLine: Department of Human Services.  24 hour service Tel. 131 278
• Trusted family member or friend
• Teacher, school counsellor or trusted adult

Things to Remember

• Family violence is never your fault
• Learn how to stay safe
• Get help by telling someone about the problem
  

Original Article

There are various types of domestic violence tactics and abuses.

In an domestic violence abusive relationship, the abuser may use a number of tactics to maintain power and control over his or her partner: Domestic Violence using Verbal Abuse:

• Name Calling
• Threatening
• Intimidating

Domestic Violence using Emotional Abuse:

• Criticizing
• Displaying jealousy
• Using public humiliation
• Putting down the partner
• Isolating
• Dominating
• Using the Children

Domestic Violence using Financial Abuse:

• Controlling the money
• Concealing joint assets or shared money
• Keeping their partner impoverished
• Blowing money

Domestic Violence using Physical Abuse:

• Pushing
• Slapping
• Hitting
• Kicking
• Choking
• Pulling hair
• Biting
• Using Weapons
• Tying their partner up
• Locking their partner in a room

Domestic Violence using Sexual Abuse:

• Raping
• Physically attacking sexual parts
• Forcing their partner to perform sexual acts

Domestic Violence using System Abuse:

• Violating restraining orders
• Violating child custody agreements
• Telling lies about their partner to police, courts

Isolation:

  The man will strongly discourage contact with friends and family. He will insist upon a move to an area far from these people, possibly rural or remote if they are city dwellers.

Limiting involvement with others:

  He will deny the woman access to a car, not allow her to go to school. If she is employed, he will harass her on the telephone or turn up at her workplace and cause trouble so that she loses her job.

Control of finances:

  He will take her money, give her an allowance or make her ask for money. She will have to account for all her expenditures and will have no knowledge of the family finances.

Putting her down:

  The man will call her names, ridicule her, imitate her, tell her she is 'stupid', yell at her, downplay her accomplishments, degrade her dignity and self-worth, make her feel useless and inferior.

Playing mind games:

  He will deny the abuse ever happened, say 'she caused it', or make light of the abuse telling her 'she has no sense of humor'.

Using the children:

  He will threaten to take the children away from her.

Anger and jealousy:

  The man will get angry and jealous and accuse her of having affairs if she even speaks to another man.

Statistics About Domestic Abuse

DID YOU KNOW THAT:  Approximately 95% of the victims of domestic violence are women.
(Department of Justice figures)
 
Every 9 seconds in the United States a woman is assaulted and beaten.
 
4,000,000 women a year are assaulted by their partners.
 
In the United States, a woman is more likely to be assaulted, injured, raped, or killed by a male partner than by any other type of assailant.
 
Every day, 4 women are murdered by boyfriends or husbands.
 
Prison terms for killing husbands are twice as long as for killing wives.
 
93% of women who killed their mates had been battered by them. 67% killed them to protect themselves and their children at the moment of murder.
 
25% of all crime is wife assault.
 
70% of men who batter their partners either sexually or physically abuse their children.
 
Domestic violence is the number one cause of emergency room visits by women.
 
73% of the battered women seeking emergency medical services have already separated from the abuser.
 
Women are most likely to be killed when attempting to leave the abuser. In fact, they're at a 75% higher risk than those who stay.
 
The number-one cause of women's injuries is abuse at home. This abuse happens more often than car accidents, mugging, and rape combined.
 

Up to 37% of all women experience battering. This is an estimated 566,000 women in Minnesota alone.

 

Battering often occurs during pregnancy. One study found that 37% of pregnant women, across all class, race, and educational lines, were physically abused during pregnancy.

 

60% of all battered women are beaten while they are pregnant.

 

34% of the female homicide victims over age 15 are killed by their husbands, ex-husbands, or boyfriends.

 

2/3 of all marriages will experience domestic violence at least once.

 

Weapons are used in 30% of domestic violence incidents.

 

Approximately 1,155,600 adult American women have been victims of one or more forcible rapes by their husbands.

 

Over 90% of murder-suicides involving couples are perpetrated by the man. 19-26% of male spouse-murderers committed suicide.

 

When only spouse abuse was considered, divorced or separated men committed 79% of the assaults and husbands committed 21%.

 

Abusive husbands and lovers harass 74% of employed battered women at work, either in person or over the telephone, causing 20% to lose their jobs.

 

Physical violence in dating relationships ranges from 20-35%.

 

It is estimated that between 20% to 52% of high school and college age dating couples have engaged in physical abuse.

 

More than 50% of child abductions result from domestic violence.

 

Injuries that battered women receive are at least as serious as injuries suffered in 90% of violent felony crimes.

 

In 1991, only 17 states kept data on reported domestic violence offenses. These reports were limited to murder, rape, robbery, and serious bodily injury.

 

More than half of battered women stay with their batterer because they do not feel that they can support themselves and their children alone.

 

In homes where domestic violence occurs, children are abused at a rate 1,500% higher than the national average.

 

Up to 64% of hospitalized female psychiatric patients have histories of being physically abused as adults.

 

50% of the homeless women and children in the U.S. are fleeing abuse.

 

The amount spent to shelter animals is three times the amount spent to provide emergency shelter to women from domestic abuse situations.

 

Family violence kills as many women every 5 years as the total number of Americans who died in the Vietnam War.