Domestic violence is disruptive to anyone in its path, it affects not only the individual who is being abused but also those around them including children. Ghani and Abdul (208) carried out a study by interviewing 25 women between the age of 9 and 65 to examine the lives of victims of domestic violence in Malaysia and their children. The research showed that children should not be around domestic violence because it can inflict emotional trauma on a child, resulting in pain and hatred towards the parent who abuses the other, which then leads to bad parental relationships. I agree with the literature, especially concerning parental relationships. The first people children search for love from are their parents and they also are the very first people a toddler learns from. When a toddler physically witnesses violence among parents, that child will get older angry, bitter, hurt, and emotionally unstable amongst many other things which is why the house should never be a hostile and abusive household because the child can pattern that behavior physically or emotionally (OΒhara and Namy 207). It can be concluded that domestic violence affects children no matter the circum
stance especially when it comes to parent and child relationships.
Children who visually see domestic violence consistently go through emotional torment because of the behavior they witness from those around them. Some examples of what a child may experience from the age of birth to five years of age may include, being strongly influenced by one of their parentΒs reactions and a situation whereby an infant may also be easily startled (Days 206). When they begin to hear loud and terrifying noises accompanied by the few people that the infant knows are either angry or injured. It leaves the child with the knee-jerk reaction of getting scared, most times the infant may cling to the parent being abused due to sharing the same fear and anxiety. Also something as simple as a woman holding her baby in her arms while being abused can cause the child to suffer injuries, (De Jong and Allan 206 ). In some cases, mothers may attempt to protect the infants by holding them or may think they can use the infant as a type of shield to stop the abusers from physically assaulting them. Regardless of the circumstance or age, a child is still being harmed as a result of domestic violence.