Science Headlines – Family Violence

Science Headlines – Family Violence

An information service for media in New Zealand

27 July 2007

As another case of child abuse hits New Zealand’s headlines, scientists comment here on our child abuse rates, the need for early prevention, and links between partner violence and child abuse.

1. Dr Ian Hassall, a Senior Lecturer in children and public policy at the Institute of Public Policy at Auckland University of Technology

“This is the kind of violent behaviour that we would be hoping to prevent through early intervention. It’s not just violent – it’s callous and beyond most people's understanding to not have some sort of compassion towards a small child.

“Most people, beyond the age of two, are reluctant to inflict pain on other creatures or people because they have a sense of being able to feel it themselves. This brain function is developed in the first year of life. While it’s conceivable that some people are just born without this faculty, it’s certainly possible for the development of concern for others to be interrupted through having an impaired relationship with your primary caregiver. By the time children get to about three this is to a large degree hardwired into the brain. Effective remedial steps are that much harder at this stage and are harder still the older the person gets.

“Children can be identified as engaging in anti-social behaviour at an early age – one sign is cruelty to animals. Those children are at greater risk of going on to be involved in criminal behaviour and partner violence.

“There is no consistent approach to this issue in New Zealand and I think in the next few years we will see that emerge. The question is whether we take the preventative approach or go for punitive measures, such as the private members bill for lowering the age of criminal responsibility that is at present before a parliamentary select committee. You can’t do both and there’s plenty of evidence to show that the punitive approach does not reduce offending.”

2. Professor Richie Poulton, a clinical psychologist and Director of the Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Research Unit
Web: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunedin_Longitudinal_Study and http://dunedinstudy.otago.ac.nz/whatwedo.html

“These types of extreme and violent acts don’t just appear out of nowhere. It’s often the case that such people have been behaving aggressively for a long period of time. The research that we’ve conducted maps antisocial trajectories across life from childhood through to adulthood.

“We’ve studied 1000 people born in 1972 in Dunedin and followed them across their life measuring them repeatedly as they’ve grown up on a broad array of physical psychological and social measures that provide the very comprehensive account of the way people develop and learn – or don’t learn – to cope with the challenges that life poses.

“If you want to stop people behaving in ghastly ways as adults you need to get to them when they’re young. In theory at least their behaviour is more amenable or responsive to intervention then. This is a clear and compelling argument for prevention as opposed to waiting until people offend in the extreme way we see in this particular case. It’s a classic case of the desirability of a fence at the top of the cliff versus an ambulance at the bottom when terrible damage has already been.”

3. Dr Janet Fanslow, a family violence researcher and Senior Lecturer at The University of Auckland’s School of Population Health in the Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences

“Around nine children die by violence in New Zealand every year. But less extreme violence affects a large number of our children. Around 25 percent of Kiwi boys and 19 percent of our girls will suffer regular physical punishment from one or both of their parents before they reach the age of 16, with four percent experiencing harsh or severe punishment. Recent research suggests that child abuse and exposure to partner violence are some of the adverse childhood experiences that play a role in the later development of chronic diseases such as heart disease and diabetes. Some of the effect is because the abuse and exposure to violence increases uptake of risky behaviours such as smoking, or contributes to obesity, but it is a very clear relationship.

“It’s too early to tell what effect the repeal of section 59 has had. But to get real changes in terms of child abuse we will have to accompany such a societal statement (about the unacceptability of violence against children) with social support for parents and families on the ground.

“I think some of the school-based education programmes show incredible promise for preventing violence. One study in the US, which compared students who took a non-violence programme with those who didn’t, found that programme participants reported a long-term reduction in both victimisation and the perpetration of violence. There are some school-based nonviolence programmes in New Zealand but they’re not very widespread, and the uptake is dependent on schools inviting them in.

“We’ve got to the point where we know violence is a problem, we know it’s not good for people, and we need to be investing in the programmes that may have the possibility of preventing it.”

4. Dr Neville Robertson, a community psychologist at the University of Waikato

“One of the themes of our current work is children’s exposure to domestic violence – if you look at the literature, in 30-100 percent of cases where the partner is being abused, the kids are too. The definitions range from the child who is the direct and intentional victim of abuse, to unintentional victims – such as where the women is assaulted while holding the child, right through to the child who doesn’t see mum getting hit, but hears it or knows about it. So if you take all of those definitions you can see where that 100 percent comes from.

“But really, almost by definition a child whose mother is being abused is also being abused. There’s quite clear research about the effects on children. Girls show higher rates of internalising behaviours; they get quiet and depressed. Boys show higher rates of acting out; they get aggressive and bully others.

“If you calculate the percentage the other way, it’s a bit lower – 30-60 percent of children who are abused also have a mother who is abused. That’s because there are forms of child abuse that occur outside the context of domestic violence.

“Another whole area in terms of policy and decision making is what does it take for children to recover from the trauma of being exposed to domestic violence. Decisions need to be made about whether dad gets access to the kids, and I think there is a general consensus in the field that kids have a better chance of recovery if they have a chance to consolidate their relationship with the non-violent parent – so they don’t have access to violent dads, at least initially.

“In recent years there’s been a lot of concern about dads having access to kids, but if that dad has been beating up mum then it’s highly questionable what sort of role he should have in the child’s life – at least until he does something about the violence. This is a somewhat controversial position to take in days when there are men picketing family court demanding access to their children.”

Science Headlines is a service managed by the Royal Society of New Zealand and funded by the Ministry of Research, Science and Technology.

ENDS

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