Living in a home where domestic abuse happens can have a serious impact on a child or young person’s mental and physical wellbeing, as well as their behaviour. This can manifest in the following ways and last into adulthood:

• Anxiety and depression
• Difficulty sleeping.
• Nightmares and flashbacks
• Feeling unwell e.g. tummy aches.
• Become aggressive.
• Lowered sense of self-worth.
• May begin to truant from school.
• Start to use alcohol or drugs. Begin to self-harm.
• Develop an eating disorder.

Children may also feel angry, guilty, insecure, alone, frightened, powerless or confused. They may have ambivalent feelings towards both the abuser and the non-abusing parent. Being witness to domestic abuse is a form of child abuse. 

The following websites may be helpful: