They may:
- Use the parents as role models and boys learn violence as conflict
resolution and girls become victims
- Bully other children and siblings
- Practise what they have seen or heard at home
- Be embarrassed about what is happening at home
- Live in fear and anxiety waiting for the next incident
- Feel guilty and try to stop the abuse. May start to blame themselves
for the abuse
- Have limited confidence and self esteem
- Express anger at you, knowing that it is safer to do this to you than
to the perpetrator
- Be depressed or have other mental health problems
- Assume responsibilities around the home that are too advanced for
their age
- Have difficulty making friends as they feel very different to other
children their age
- Under achieve at school, or allow their school work to dominate their
lives so they do not need to think of life at home
- Truant
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