Healthcare Training Institute - Quality Education since 1979
Psychologist, Social Worker, Counselor, & MFT!!

Section 1
Track #1 - Introduction and Overlooked
Consequences

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Introduction
Welcome to the Home Study Course sponsored by the Healthcare Training Institute. This course is entitled
Unintended Victims: Treating Children of Domestic Violence.

Our primary intent for this home study course is to provide quality education to foster your professional growth. The Institute has provided quality education since 1979.
Hi. My name is Catherine Appleton. I will be the narrator of this CD. We appreciate that you have chosen us as a vehicle for you to earn your Continuing Education Credit.

The purpose of the course is to assist you in increasing your knowledge regarding the effects on children witnessing domestic abuse. As each case study is given, if the concepts seem to be applicable to your situation, I encourage you to turn your CD player off and make a few notes regarding the application of the principle to your setting. However, these notes are for your purposes only and are not to be sent to the Institute. Also each track is very content dense. So feel free to replay the track to review the content.

At the end of each CD track, a question will be asked. The question at the end of each track corresponds with the questions in your Answer Booklet. Merely write the correct letter on the corresponding blank line in your answer booklet. Each answer is used only once. Keep in mind there is nothing tricky or hard about these questions. They are merely intended to verify the playing of this CD.

Each of the questions that are included on this CD is also reprinted in your Answer Booklet. These questions are sequential and deal with the section of content that preceded it. For this reason, to facilitate the answering of each question, you might read the question from the Answer Booklet prior to listening to that CD track. By knowing what the question is ahead of time, you will then know the content to listen for that contains the answer. So just a hint, after you write down the answer to a question in your Answer Booklet, read on to the next question in order to give you a "heads up" to listen for the content that contains the answer to the next question.

For the purpose of brevity, most generally, I will use the term "therapists" or "mental health professional." However, don't let these terms deter you from applying the concepts to your situations. When you hear the word "therapists," if your job title is social worker, psychologist, marriage and family therapist, mental health counselor, professional counselor, resident director, program assistant, etc. merely substitute the appropriate term that is the most meaningful to you. In short, don't let my use of the term "therapists" cognitively set you off track from hearing the content because your job title is school counselor, for example. I will also use the term "client" for the purposes of brevity. However, if you deal with patients, residents, students, consumers, etc., transpose "client" for the term that is the most meaningful to you in your work setting.

On this CD we will discuss such topics as: Overlooked consequences, crisis behaviors, stopping the cycle of violence, the double dose, attachment disorder, the yo-yo syndrome, and children as silent weapons.

As you know, discussions about domestic violence often focus on what causes the violence to occur. However, these causes are complex and many professionals disagree regarding exactly what the causes are. Instead of focusing on causation, this track will focus on what I consider to be an overlooked and major consequence of domestic violence: the impact on the children who live with it.

Well over 3.5 million children are at risk of exposure to parental violence each year. However, as you may know, many only consider the immediate consequences of this violence, such as physical injury, police protection, temporary emergency shelter, and medical treatment. The children are often overlooked in these situations. They become the unintended victims.

Let's look at three overlooked consequences of violence in a family I recently treated who was staying in a local shelter. Rosa, age 22, arrived at the shelter with her three children: Maria, age 8; Ricardo, age 5; and Miguel, 13 months. Here's how Rosa's three children became the unintended victims of her battering relationship with her husband.

Overlooked Consequence #1 is Role Reversal. The first dynamic I noticed when observing this family was the false maturity of Rosa's oldest child, Maria. Maria was only 8-years old, yet she acted as an adult, which as you may know is often referred to as a parentified child. Maria stated, "I feed baby Miguel, discipline my younger brother Ricardo, and run the errands to buy diapers or whatever else we need. A lot of times I get into fights with my mom over which one of us should feed baby Miguel. I always think it should be me." With Maria, I felt this role reversal was a consequence of the violence she had witnessed between her parents. I asked Maria if she felt it was not acceptable or safe for her to behave like a child. Maria stated that she felt safer when she was in control of things. I assured Maria that both she and her mother and brothers were safe in the shelter. I asked her what she thought about spending time with another eight-year old at the shelter and letting the childcare center take care of Miguel for an afternoon.

Overlooked Consequence #2 is Slowed Motor Development. I noticed a second sometimes overlooked consequence in the children by watching Ricardo, who, at the age of five, should have been running and jumping and playing. On the contrary, however, Ricardo could not run, throw, or even catch a ball. When I asked Ricardo how he liked to play, he stated, "I don't know, I don't think I know how. Dad always makes me stay in my room when he's home, so I never see the other kids." I found that Ricardo had boundless energy waiting to be released because of his years spent as a virtual prisoner in his own home. The staff devised a structured outdoor program for Ricardo, and soon he was running, jumping, and climbing, like a five-year old boy should have been.

In addition to Role Reversal and Slowed Motor Development, Overlooked Consequence #3 is Somatic Complaints. While discussing the violence Maria, age 8, witnessed in her family, she anxiously bit her fingernails and pulled at her hair. Maria stated, "I leave to go to the nurse's office at school a lot because of headaches and stomach aches." Have you also found that children such as Maria will somaticize their emotions about the violence they witnessed? As you know, the children do not realize that their emotions of fear and anxiety are being vented in these physical behaviors. But by listening I find I am often able to better understand what the child is experiencing but is unable to communicate with words. I asked Maria if she thought her stomach aches were worse if her mother and father had fought the night before. Maria stated, "I guess that could be. Usually when they have a big fight, I can't stop thinking about it the next day. I worry about baby Miguel and my mom."

In this track, we have discussed the 3 possibly overlooked consequences of role reversal, slowed motor development, and somatic complaints that children may often suffer from as the unintended victims of domestic violence. Track 2 will provide you with three techniques for these as well as other consequences.

QUESTION 1
What are three sometimes overlooked consequences of battering relationships from which children may suffer? To select and enter your answer go to Answer Booklet.