Violence and Consequences

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        Family violence is present in almost every society of the world. The definition of family violence can be classified on very many bases. Family violence is any abusive, violent, coercive, forceful, or threatening act or word inflicted by one member of a family or household.  “It is stated that family violence has been happening for a number of years but became more widely known in the 1980s and 1990s,” (M., Costanzo & S. Oskamp, 1994). Family violence can be husband and wife, or husband and wife abusing kids, or it can also be defined as addictions that causing family abuse.

Family violence is a problem that has been going on for many years and many are afraid to come forth about the issue because they are afraid of the impact it will cause the family. Reporting family violence is never easy because when kids are involved is seems that no matter how you handle the situation it seems that the children will always end up hurt. When counselor has to get involved they have guidelines that they must follow because of legal actions that can take place. It is so hard of the children to discuss anything that is going on because they don’t want mom and dad to split up and half of the time they don’t understand the situation that is going on.  

A counselor has to know what certain factors they need to pay attention to when assessing a child or family when violence is involved. The first factor is making sure that there is no bruise on the family members because that means that domestic violence is involved. Pay close attention to body movements, because body language can help the counselor notice if that individual is holding back on a certain question. The counselor also needs to pay attention to how the family acts when they are around each other and how they respond to each other when the other person is expressing how they feel.

As a counselor there are several situations you have to consider before determining how long the family violence has been going on. No matter the outcome of the situation family violence has long-term and short-term affects. Short-term effects is helping the family admit that there is a issue going on and they are willing to work through the problems so that their family can be happy again, but the long term affect is that it may takes some counseling to get back on track. A long-term effect can be that the children end up being split up and they have to go through the legal system if an agreement can’t be reached.