Intergenerational Family Violence Essay

The family violence has taken a new toll in the current times. The family violence has become very common indeed and the number of offenders in these crimes has increased far beyond the reach. The cases originate on daily basis and the statistics show that most of the times victims are females who are physically and mental abused in different ways. In these scenarios it has been observed that these events cause much more damage to the children who watch these events often. The child abuse on the other hand has also become debatable as the cases increase. The intergenerational family violence might not have been studied before but it has always been available to study whenever there is an event of family violence. The human nature is based on social learning theory. It is the human tendency to watch the behaviors and then try to implement in their personalities (Murrell et al, 2007). Behaviorists have put forward the theory that the social learning theory is applicable only when if it triggers a change in the behavior of the observer whereas the theorists say that the learning process is an ever going process and it is not incomplete if it doesn’t cause any change in the behavior (Kernsmith, 2006). Whatever the theorists and behaviorists state about the social learning theory, it is evident that the observations of these events cause damage to the future lives of those who watch these family violence events. Postmodern thinking supports these claims, stating that individuals â€Å"create the social reality for their behavior according to how they interpret norms in particular milieus† (Markward, 1997). Child abuse has different effects on the victims. Some children after these events become reserve and some become violent. Even also watching the abusing of their mothers in front of them creates a negative notion in their minds about the realities of life (Pollak, 2004). This is the learning process as described by the theorists. The observations made by child make a deep impact on the mind intentionally or unintentionally. Sometimes the action doesn’t come right after the observation. It is dependent about the mental strength of the individual on how much extreme extent he has to formalize his mind towards these events. But surely the mind is working as the interpretation process continues from time to time (Kernsmith, 2006). In order to cause change the mind works in such a way to determine how much impact such event has made. For example, continuous abusing observations might make the child to become violent at times, even if he is not violent the aggregation of emotions might be taking place in his mind which makes him to get reserved to the situations from time to time. A time comes when the mentality of the child becomes harnessed by the violent activities and he also starts to become violent at times (Corvo, 2006). Thus the change has been triggered in the behavior of the child after looking at these abusing events continuously. This makes the situation awful not only for the child because by this way they cause different violent activities and the victims may increase in numbers depending upon the strength of activities (Pollak, 2004). The violent psychology taken forward by the children has been creating lot of issues. The US population is filled with those who have tensions grown up in their households due to different financial and emotionally problems (Kernsmith, 2006). These usually end up fighting and one of them getting beaten. The children also come down in the impact of these fighting resulting in long term future damage to their lives. The behaviorists say that the children have a tendency to attract to those thing quickly which make a deep impact on their mind and heart. They are emotionally immature at early stages and an action like abusing them or their parents can increase their interest towards these activities (Murrell et al, 2007). It has also been observed that the continuous family violence has been exhibited by those who have gone through this violence before in their lives when they were young (Corvo, 2006). Thus an event like this happening in their early lives provides them the luxury to be like them in the future as they commit family violence by abusing their children and their spouses. Many researchers have observed a relation between the events happening in an early age of a young one when he experienced violence and those offences which he committed when he was adult. This phenomenon is now known as intergenerational transmission of violence and aggression. Researchers believe that the pattern of social learning theory makes its mark by providing the model to the child as he also sees the positive results due to this violence (Kernsmith, 2006). Most often the result of abusing her mother by her father results in the victory of the father due to his aggressive attitude and then therefore inherits these positive results to implement them in his behavior. Learning theories, such as socialization, social learning, and elements of feminist theory, asserts that behaviors are learned throughout our lives through our interactions with others. This is how the socialization then gets affected by the family violence as it is then exhibited outside the homes (Corvo, 2006). The social learning theory is based on the study of behaviors. With change in behaviors the extremism of these violent acts can be configured by the child as he observes all these events. When we critically evaluate the works of the researchers we come to know that there theories are practical and are very close to reality. That is, formally it was believed that the social learning theory doesn’t have any impact on the child’s behaviors and how he interprets different things and scenarios differently. These theories are nevertheless were thought to be just taught in the classrooms without any practical implementations to be viewed. But certain examples with results have provided the evidence that each and every action is based on some behavior and behavioral change in the children. Alan Sears has been the follower of the social learning theory and he stated the change to be inevitable in each case. It, however, depends upon the current and future scenarios when the person feels the extreme need to behave in a particular order. According to Hume Lock’s theory of empiricism the child mind is a blank slate after he is born. He just starts to observe things when his mind becomes little bit old. But still the child doesn’t have any ability to differentiate between the things quickly. He first acknowledges difference between things and then tries to remember them. The object of family violence plays its part when the child starts to learn these behaviors and try to compare them with others in contexts of their results. This learning process binds these actions in his mind and produce intimidation. The intimidation is considered as the urge of something to do. This urge is the force that drives the child to implement those actions which he had learnt over time and time. Now when this intimidation gets extreme, the action follows (Pollak, 2004). The strength of the action will be less at first but the result might be satisfying for him thus providing him the strength to commit this again. These continuous steps will make the child habitual of these things and the interpretation of things and difference between good and bad become ineligible in the mental stature of the child. The intimidation process is then followed by reinforcement. The reinforcement is the final phase of the social learning theory where the mind of the person has become mature enough to stand by his rules and principles and actions which he first observed and then followed over the course of his. The string of these events has made the mind to do violent as a good act and the maturity of the man accepts these actions as inevitable to bring about a change in others as well. In order to clearly view the reasons of these violent activities we have to go through a number of research steps through the prison record checks and the information provided by various NGOs. This information depicts the facts that the family violence is caused by difference in mental statures of the two who are involved. The gender differences, the act of domination by male on his spouse, the financial and emotionally tensions and the mentality of the person of his childhood when he would have experienced such event and would have thought that it will be better off to get aggressive and make people agree by force rather than negotiations, thus providing a lot easier battleground to them to conquer (Pollak, 2004). The intergenerational transmission of family violence has made the problems to arise in whole of the America. There are very common cases of these events taking place on common basis. People get hurt physically without any reasons and the innocent children who grow up by being abused or watching get people abused try to implement these behaviors afterwards. In order to remove these kinds of violent activities it is imperative that the laws should be made more severe for those who are adult and also they have to provide a facility where they can control their aggression and should be treated for the change in behaviors. The children which have been affected by these events should be taken in for great care as to change their pattern of thinking process which could benefit them in their future lives. References Murrell, Amy R. Christoff, Karen A. & Henning, Kris R. (2007). Characteristics of Domestic Violence Offenders: Associations with Childhood Exposure to Violence. Springer Science + Business Media. Corvo, Kenneth. (2006). Violence, Separation, and Loss in the Families of Origin of Domestically Violent Men. Kernsmith, Poco. (2006). Gender Differences in the Impact of Family of Origin Violence on Perpetrators of Domestic Violence. Pollak, Robert A. (2004). An Intergenerational Model of Violence. Springer Verlag.