Domestic Violence
...f American Women who were married or living with someone as a couple were physically abused; thirty seven percent were verbally or emotionally abused by their partner or spouse. While we tend to associate domestic violence with adults, it may also be present in teen relationships. It is estimated that up to one-third of high school and college-age youth experience violence in an intimate or dating relationship. Like adult domestic violence, teen relationship abuse comes in many forms. A particularly horrifying type of abuse is date rape. Over 50% of all rapes are of adolescents, the majority of which are perpetrated by acquaintances or dates. These statistics indicate that while teen relationships may often seem idyllic and sweet, there can be dangerous elements to them. Teen relationship abuse is often characterized by the same patterns of controlling behavior that occur in abusive adult relationships. Also comes the child abuse or the effect of the adult abuse on a child in a family. There is a public education campaign about domestic violence currently being conducted on the New York City subway system. The poster used in the campaign has a picture of a child who is described as a "highly sensitive recording device" capable of detecting and remembering the abuse that occurs in his or her home. As the poster suggests, if tension, anger, and violence are present in the home, a child will know about it -- whether or not he or she has witnessed it directly and whether or not abuse is openly discussed. Regardless of how much effort has been made by care taking adults to shield and protect a child by making sure that the violence takes place in private and by keeping it a secret, when a mother is being battered, a child becomes a victim too. The difference between the child and the adult victim is that the adult is, at least to some extent, a fully developed person who is physically equipped to take care of her own basic survival needs, and who has the tools of language and reason available to her for the purposes of making sense of a difficult experience and for meeting emotional needs through connecting with, and a...