Children, three years of age and younger, who have witnessed violence between their parents are more likely to become aggressive later, a new study has found.
Researchers from Case Western Reserve University found that aggression in school-age children may have its origins in kids being exposed to violence between their mothers and partners at a younger age.
"People may think children that young are passive and unaware, but they pay attention to what's happening around them," said Megan Holmes, assistant professor of social work at the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences at Case Western Reserve in Cleveland.
Holmes analysed the behaviour of 107 children exposed to intimate partner violence (IPV) in their first three years but never again after age three. The outcomes of those children were compared to 339 children who were never exposed.
Those studied were from the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being (NSCAW), which included children reported to Child Protective Services for abuse or neglect in US. The children's behaviour was followed four times over the course of 5 years.
Analysing aggressive behaviours, Holmes saw no behavioural differences between those who did or did not witness violence between the ages of 3 and 5, but children exposed to violence increased their aggression when they reached school age. And the more frequently IPV was witnessed, the more aggressive the behaviours became.
Meanwhile, children never exposed to IPV gradually decreased in aggression.
The findings were published in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry.
