Family violence: causes, impacts, and intervention strategies

Family Violence

Home is a place where a person looks for safety and peace. It is the best place where one drops after a deadly tiring day at school or work in order to breathe an air of satisfaction. Family is considered to be the garden of security and care. However, the reality is uglier than this. The initially peaceful image created is darkened by the underlying truth of family violence. As defined by Roger Levesque (2001), ' Family Violence includes family members' acts of omission or commission resulting in physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, neglect, or other forms of maltreatments that hamper individuals' healthy development'.

This family violence is no new phenomena. It has existed since long just that it is this new and modern era has given individuals the freedom and confidence to come up and disclose such secrets and take a stand against it. Nowadays newspapers and media are often reporting such cases. This problem is seen throughout the globe and its increasing severity has made the World Health Organization to take serious measures in this regard. Even Human Rights Convention has stepped forward to protect the weak children and women

Family violence is another name of child, spouse or sibling abuse at home. Abuse may take a number of different forms including physical, mental, economic and psychological torture. All such acts are usually intentional in order to harm the other considered to be weak and inferior. And therefore women and children are the most common victims. In this regard, despite the fact that the functionalists' view family as a social institution where every member is accepted and unconditionally loved, the conflict view talks about power and inequality in a family structure. This is directly associated with family violence. History has seen the power of patriarchy especially dwelling in every family. This marks the root from where the conflict theorists generate and present their ideas that males are always dominant on the basis of their physical and financial power due to which the women is considered to be inferior and expected to be submissive. Therefore, this imbalance of power results in spouse abuse which is usually seen with respect to the wife who is abused because of her weakness. This inequality is also seen to exist between siblings where usually the brother is seen to abuse his sisters and similarly where child abuse also exists (Herzberger D, 1996).

A report was published as, The Nurturing Parenting Programs by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) in which Dr. Stephen Bavolek wrote that Contemporary social scientists agree that the continued maltreatment of children today is primarily the result of poorly trained adults who, in their roles as parents and caretakers, attempt to instill discipline and educate children within the context of the violence they themselves experienced as children." Along with this many reports have suggested that the violent offenders actually originate from children who were once victims themselves. This is more commonly referred to as the 'cycle of violence'.

For the purpose of another study which was conducted in Midwestern country, 908 arrest records of the children who were abused or neglected at the age of 11 or below. On the other hand the 667 arrest record was found for children who were comparatively well treated (Reninson M. 2003). Even this study brought to light that if children were ill-treated in their childhood, there were more chances for them to follow a similar violent track and get arrested for the purpose. The initial findings for this purpose was done in 1988 and then later in 1994. However, it was noted that if they don't fall into this vicious circle, they are very likely to face troubles in their emotional, physical and mental growth. Thy have difficulties in trusting and relationships, attention deficit, they lack social skills, post-traumatic stress disorder and more. While undergoing such abuse, it is seen that at frequently, such children run away from their houses or resort to alcohol or drugs in their search of escape.

What portrays an important question is why do families become so violent that they engage in such furious abuse? The answer to this question lies in two commonly heard words, Stress and Tension. Today every person from a child to an old, is under the tension of how to manage the ever increasing stress. People, who cannot manage it, express their aggression in this form of violent frustration. Some lose their temper and raise voices. Some start breaking things while the rest become violent to the unlucky person who choses this wrong time to irritate them.