Classmates Are Affected by Domestic Violence
Every year, between ten and twenty percent of children in the United States are exposed to domestic violence. The impact of this family environment on a child’s school performance is relatively well-established in research: those children who witness domestic violence do worse in school and are also more likely to have discipline problems. However, whether the effects of domestic violence in one classmate’s home impact the school performance of fellow classmates has not been well studied. Anecdotally, parents and teachers report that troubled children negatively affect learning in the classroom. Is it possible that there are negative spillovers – are classmates who come from homes without violence adversely affected by those youth who do come from violent households?
A recent study conducted by the National Bureau of Economic Research examined the impact of children from “troubled families” on their peers. In this study, conducted with 3rd through 5th graders from 22 public elementary schools in Florida, 4.6 percent of children were linked to a domestic violence case filed by a parent. In every school, there were students from families with a history of domestic violence. Not surprisingly, the report notes that children from these troubled families had significantly lower tests scores in reading and math; they also had higher levels of disciplinary issues.
What is perhaps more unexpected is that the presence of children from these “troubled families” caused a statistically significant decrease in classmates’ math and reading test scores and a statistically significant increase in classmate disciplinary actions and suspensions. This effect appears to impact boys more than girls, and boys from troubled families have a greater effect on classroom outcomes than girls from troubled families. According to study results, adding one more troubled boy to a classroom of twenty children will decrease boys’ tests scores by two percentile points on average and increase the probability that boys in the same classroom commit a disciplinary infraction by 17 percent. According to the analyses, the race and household income of the troubled child do not impact these results. However, the test scores of children from households with higher income appear to be more negatively impacted by the presences of a troubled peer. In contrast, low-income children experienced significant increases in disciplinary action.
Questions for Discussion:
- What are the implications of these findings?
- Do you think that the peer effects of “troubled children” in the classroom can be generalized to other issues beyond domestic violence?
- The impact on test scores (two percentile points) is relatively small. Should we be concerned with this level of decline?
Your thoughts…
Comments:
 Domestic violence is a serious issue and should not be minimized nor catastrophized. And, there is no doubt that the impact any kind of trauma has on children who live in these households is profound. The fact that their peers may be effected should come as no surprise since children who are exposed to any type of trauma will be effected and those close to them will as well. There is much written about secondary post-traummatic stress with regards to first responders and clinicians; why not then their peers and other family members as well. The type of violence is not nearly as signigicant as the fact of trauma and its impact. Let's address how to help children heal from the devastating effects of any kind of trauma -- primary or secondary. Posted Monday, October 27, 2008 by Minna Davis, M.A. LPC at 01:34 PM
""We" know that the majority of children living in abusive homes do so in secret" I just really have to ask who is the WE in this? For one thing we as a society in general don't even really fully understand any of this yet, or have any accurate descriptions and protocols to define what is and what isn't abuse, or any good way to hold those that find abuse or support anti-abuse programs accountable for their findings if and when they are wrong. Most people accused of abuse are too embarrassed, ashamed, intimidated, and ignorant about their own rights when they are being accused of this kind of thing and even later on maybe. People can't fully and openly talk about it because of the laws, the systems, and the stigma's that are attached to it now. Not many people want a child to be harmed if they can help it. I don't. Still it can be ruinous not to jump on the bandwagons in all of this. And, this is the only kind of thing that I know of in the United States where it only takes the beliefs and feelings, right or wrong, of a few people for another person to be assumed guilty, until they can prove themself innocent which might take months if even then, when they may actually be innocent and they may not have any access to decent and appropriate representation especially if they are poor and many of them are. People that are being treated by mental health in many instances are really poor. This is so even when our constitution says that people are suppose to be found innocent until they are proven guilty. This being assumed guilty until found innocent is because so many people have jumped on this emotional bandwagon. So what "we" think "we" know may be different then what "you" actually know or what I actually "know" for sure. Please be sure if you can because it holds all kinds of ramifications just to go on feelings, hunches, or guesses. For me, as an abuse survivor, I do think that most abuse is known by others. No matter where the abuse is taking place or who is doing it, if it is there people often see it, they just don't do the right things about it for various reasons. One thing I hope that most people understand is that this "protection from abuse" can have just the opposite affect from what it was originally intended to have on those we are suppose to be protecting. Because in many instances they are being harmed now by the systems current ways of doing things even if that is not spoken about or widely known, especially when the system and the people working in it can be wrong. These people working in this system are really no more then human beings the same as anyone else. They mostly all have their own experiences or lack of experience, agenda's, and prior baggage going into their decissions about what happens and what is suppose to happen as well, and they can be wrong. I hope that we can keep that in perspective when we deal with stuff like this. Posted Tuesday, October 7, 2008 at 11:42 PM
Junk science?! Seems appropriate here.
We know that the majority of children living in abusive homes do so in secret - so how is it possible to have qualifying validation of "troubled" and "not troubled" homes? The sad reality in our country is that many families are not the nurturing, supportive environments that children need to really thrive in.
Instead of focusing on what may be an issue or problem in our schools, how about redirecting your outreach to include some of the possible solutions - like trauma-informed approaches with teachers! Posted Tuesday, September 30, 2008 at 09:52 AM
I was also thinking that what it does may be that it produces bullying as a mechanism of dealing with the conflicts and then related emotions and behaviors. So in that instance whoever is being bullied may not realize why the bullying is getting started or what the meaning of it is.
As I was told you were like a sister to us, so that is why they did it, they did each other that way and their built in coping mechanisms and family support since it was a large family allowed them to escape by picking someone else to take it out on.
Some kids turn it inward and some turn it out, and there are no crystal balls that can tell anyone which person will really do what with it.
I do think that is an area that you might see it in though. What I don't understand it why the bullied is the one that ends up not being believed or being labeled, while the ones that are the bullies do not for the most part. I know that it must affect them in some way?
I think it is a societal thing too. Because we may now focus more on it then we do on the learning that is suppose to be taking place? Posted Saturday, September 13, 2008 at 10:01 AM
First of all, I think the conclusions being drawn are erroneous. Just because two things occur in the same place at the same time does not mean that one causes the other.
Thinking about these data from a trauma-informed care persective might lead one to ask a more useful question:
Does the presence of traumatized children in a classroom impact academic achievement of the class?
We know that children living in violent environments are usually traumatized, but there are many other children who are traumatized for other reasons: natural disasters, accidents, illness, family suicide, war, etc. Rather than jumping to conclusions, it would be better to widen the lens and ask more questions.
Helena Davis, Albany, NY Posted Friday, September 12, 2008 at 07:15 AM
"Every year, between ten and twenty percent of children in the United States are exposed to domestic violence."
I challenge this because in this day and time every little disagreement or problem is seen as domestic violence and the numbers are all being lumped in together. I don't disagree that there can be all kinds of abuse, what I do disagree with is that it is all abuse or that we even have any particular idea of what exactly is being considered in these numbers as abuse. I also wonder what we have as mechanisms of support for couples that are having personal issues to stay together and deal with things that bother them before it gets out of hand. Of course for a child to see the parent beaten with bruises has to affect it, to see a parent threatened with a weapon or locked out of a home for not behaving affects it. I can think of one family in particular that grew up in a home that would be considered abusive in this day and time and all of the several children have did fairly well in life. I can think of children from other type what you might say non abusive and better homes have some real problems and get themselves into some real problems. I think this is called the blue and green room self fullfilling prophecy that is being set up here? I think this is part of the stereotyping and stigmatization that is going on. I think all people would do better to try to give honest support with integrity and learning mutual respect. I could be wrong?
"The impact of this family environment on a child?s school performance is relatively well-established in research: those children who witness domestic violence do worse in school and are also more likely to have discipline problems."
Again we must step back to check and see exactly what these children are experiencing and what their perception of it is? For some it may make them better students the ones that want to do better and make things better for others in life? I think that not all children will ever be or behave or react exactly the same way to all things. Not even in the same family. This is the area where language use and perceptions come into play. This is called framing your ideas and the way that you express them to get the results that you want to find. I don't think that any of this is actually known well enough that under controlled circumstances it could be proven. I don't think that we can have such controlled experiments. What I do think is that we can do more social education as a means of non judgemental reflection and empowerment of people. That is just what I think though. Posted Thursday, September 11, 2008 by Janie Lee, M.Ed. at 08:17 PM
It is hard to know what the implications of these findings are without further information, probably necessity further study. Did the classroom behavior of troubled children differ from those of their "non-troubled" peers. If so, to what degree and how was the behavior handled? Did the teacher take time away from teaching to handle outbursts? Did the classroom behavior create an aura of chaos. Was the teacher trained in trauma sensitive response? Were other school staff available to handle the situation? The question to me is whether this same effect holds in schools which have been trained in trauma sensitive response and have school-wide protocols in place to deal sensitively and wisely with troubled children. Posted Thursday, September 11, 2008 by Marion Freedman-Gurspan, MA at 09:26 AM
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