They may experience feelings of guilt, helplessness, and a sense of failure. They withhold expressing needs for fear that such an expression will be the focus of a conflict. The child then withdraws. Children from non-violent homes are nurtured and allowed to develop physically, socially, intellectually and emotionally into unique individuals . Parents are not so caught up in their own struggles as to overlook or misunderstand their children's needs.
Children growing up in violent homes are often behind developmentally .
Often they do not receive the parental nurturing that is necessary to develop trust . A general feeling of anxiety can contribute to difficulty in paying attention at school and in forming positive relationships with peers and other adults. Children learn how to appropriately express anger from seeing such expressions modeled by their parents. They learn constructive ways of resolving conflicts and realize conflicts will happen and do not have to end in violence. Children learn that the way to handle conflict is to be aggressive and physically abusive .