Serious Violence By Youth Issue: Youths that cause serious violence often come from broken homes and past family abuse

SERIOUS VIOLENCE BY YOUTH

CRM 333 Comment by Jeff Golden: Required abstract is missing.

TANESHA SMITH

SAINT LEO UNIVERSITY

Serious violence by youth

Introduction

Over the years, the rate of violence has been on the rise with many cases being reported on a daily basis. From the many violence cases, a majority of them are caused by young people between the ages of 13 to 30 years. The trend has been generating a massive alarm because, in different correction facilities and rehabilitation centers, the number of youths exceeds the number of adults. The central challenge has been to determine the reason behind the severe, increasing violence cases caused by youths. A series of reasons have been pointed out by psychologists, and one of the reasons is broken homes and past family abuse. Some psychologists have claimed that the critical brain and behavior development stages are the childhood stages between 2-10 years. The actions of parents and adults in the family make the child to either develop good or bad behaviors that the child starts to demonstrate in his/her youth period. This report shall hence focus on analyzing the impact that broken homes and past family abuse has to make youth to engage in serious violence. Comment by Jeff Golden: No sources or citations to support any of these assertions.

Youth’s violence situation

According to the World Health Organization, serious violence is the intentional use of power, physical force against oneself, other people, or a group of people and the results are death, physical or psychological injury. The psychology of youth or child is the primary determinant of the actions and behaviors that the child or youth is likely to take. When the youth's psychology is stable, he/she tends to handle provoking situations calmly and in an organized manner. Unstable psychology makes a youth to act violently beyond his/her control. However, different theories and facts tend to prove how family conflicts and abuse cases affect a child's psychology to the extent of making the child act violently during the youth stage. Comment by Jeff Golden: If you refer to a source you must also provide an APA in-text citation.

According to Theobald, Farrington, & Piquero, (2013); it is likely that youths that cause serious violence are from broken families as well as those with a past family abuse experience. Through research conducted on youths in different correctional facilities and rehabilitation centers after being determined that they caused serious violence though they have mental instability, it was determined that 98% of those youths were from broken homes or have a past family abuse history (Moylan et al., 2010). The youths that shared the information claimed how their parents could fight each other and even some claiming that they have marks on their bodies that they received from family violence. Some of these youths claimed that in their childhood, life was bad since they could not get enough sleep, food, or even basic needs as a result of family conflicts. Some youths also claimed that after family breakdown, some became homeless as neither the mother nor the father wanted to stay with them (Theobald, Farrington, & Piquero, 2013). Others landed in the hands of relatives and others in the street. From the violent behaviors that these children learned, it has become hard to control their emotions whether provoked to the extent they tend to hurt any person who offends them seriously. Comment by Jeff Golden: Source? Citation?

The relation between broken families and youths psychology

There exists a strong connection between broken families and the psychology of the children in that family. Newland, (2015); claims that broken homes do not commence and immediately get broken through parent's divorce or one parent dying as a result of violence. It is a gradual process that takes a lot of time to the extent of years before home breakdown can be realized. It is a situation that entails days and nights of fights between parents before one of the parents can opt to leave home and settle elsewhere. During these fights, the children witness, and they also get fed with hateful information as parents strive to win the children to have their support. Newland, (2015); claims that constant conflicts between parents that leads to family breakdown communicate a dangerous message to the child's mind. The reason is that the child or the youth grows up being exposed to violence and hence he/she learns that the only way that things can be solved is through violence. It is for this reason during the youth stage of the child's development; any provocation leads to serious violence.

According to Moylan et al., (2010); early childhood situations determine a child's psychological well-being. It is during the 2nd to the 10th year of a child's development that a child can develop a stable mind and emotions or tends to have unstable emotions and brain. Family conflicts are one of the most impactful things in a child’s psychology (Newman, 2017). The constant conflicts send a wrong signal to the child’s brain thus leading to abnormal brain development. Thus, the child grows not differentiating or realizing the adverse effect of violence because he/she is familiar with violence in his/her life. Additionally, Theobald, Farrington, & Piquero, (2013); claims that behaviors that children learn in their childhood are extremely hard to break as they gradually develop to become habits which determines the personality of a person.

According to Landau et al., (2015); not all family conflicts have a serious adverse effect on a child because some conflicts are seasonal and minor. The author clarifies that protracted conflict that leads to homes breakage where parents get divorced, or one of the parents dies in the process of family violence, or a situation where the child due to family conflicts and instability was abused in any way have the greater impact (Hetherington, & Arasteh, 2014). The reason is that the violent action despite having taken place a long time ago does not get erased in the mind of the child. As a matter of reality, Landau et al., (2015); claims that such actions leave permanent blueprint that affects the behavior of the child throughout his/her life. For instance, a child that was molested in his/her childhood tends to copy similar molestation behaviors as children learn to do things that those close to them do.

According to Newland, (2015); a psychologist is family conflicts issues claimed that in most cases, youths from broken homes or those with past family abuse history tends to act violently as a mean of self-defense. The reason is that in their growing up, their parents did not educate their children on how to defend themselves in a normal way without violence. These children have observed their parents defend themselves violently or acting violently as a survival means. Thus, in their youths when they start realizing that they have what it takes to keep away from being abused or hurt, they tend to hurt others, and they do not know how to put an end to a violent case (Hetherington, & Arasteh, 2014). As a result, the violent cases that such youths’ tends to get involved in always ends up being severe to the point of leading to their arrest and being charged to court so that they can have their behaviors and attitude rehabilitated for the better.

The relation between past family abuse and youth’s psychology

Abuse is the act of molesting or physically maltreating a child. According to Newman, (2017); youths that have a past family abuse history tends to engage in severe violent cases as compared to youths that never experienced cases of abuse. This is the case because during childhood, children tend to have a higher trust on family members and it is in them that they find easy to share their feelings and emotions. According to Landau et al., (2015); the vulnerable nature of children makes them dependent on their parents and other close family members for protection. It is normally against children’s expectations that a family member can abuse them in any way and this is the reason why any form of abuse from a family member tends to have a higher and long-lasting impact on the child.

According to Anderson, (2014); when a person abuses a child that he/she know and trust, the levels of trust and self-confidence are lost. The experience makes the child start acting weirdly as he/she starts to rely on his/her mind to make decisions. The reason is that the child feels that he/she cannot trust family members again and thus ignores even advice granted unto him/her by the parents or the family member that abused the child (Swahn et al., 2012). This is said to be the beginning of the gradual development of violent behaviors that the child only starts to show as a youth. Because the behaviors developed unconsciously; the youth is not aware of how to stop going to the extreme when engaging in violent actions (Theobald, Farrington, & Piquero, 2013). The case is also worse when the child or the youth is abused by a close family member and fails to inform the parents. The youth develops secrecy that is hard to eliminate and even when he/she engages in violence tends to conceal. Comment by Jeff Golden: Source? Citation?

Another reason why past family abuse experience tends to make youths to engage in serious violence is the fact violence makes them feel that they are not worthy (Theobald, Farrington, & Piquero, 2013). In the youth stage, the youth who a past family abuse feels like he/she is not being valued and appreciated enough and that every person that he/she encounters is looking down on him/her. This experience is most common in male youths, and gradually they develop low self-esteem (Swahn et al., 2012). In efforts to liberate themselves from the feeling since it is a bad and adverse affecting feeling, the youth's only option is to become extremely violent in efforts to change the perception that they believe other people have about them. Comment by Jeff Golden: Source? Citation?

Conclusion

Research and facts have it that a majority of severe violence caused by youths is from youths from broken homes and also those with a past family abuse history. Research has proved that broken homes are caused by constant family conflicts that for a long time send a strong violent message to the child and the child tends to utilize the learned lessoned in his/her youth. Abuse, on the other hand, creates a feeling of distrust and lack of self-worth thus using force as an alternative to making other people value and appreciate you as a person. Thus, it is evident that family breakages and past family abuse leave a permanent blueprint in the life of a child and the outward signs of violence that the youth demonstrates are only an expression of the feelings, anger, and confusion that the youth has been carrying internally for a long time causing mental and emotional instability.

References

Anderson, J. (2014). The impact of family structure on the health of children: Effects of divorce. The Linacre Quarterly, 81(4), 378-387.

Hetherington, E. M., & Arasteh, J. D. (2014). Impact of divorce, single parenting, and stepparenting on children: a case study of visual agnosia. Psychology Press.

Landau, S. F., Dvir-Gvirsman, S., Huesmann, R., Dubow, E. F., Boxer, P., Ginges, J., & Shikaki, K. (2015). The effects of exposure to violence on aggressive behavior: The case of Arab and Jewish children in Israel.

Moylan, C. A., Herrenkohl, T. I., Sousa, C., Tajima, E. A., Herrenkohl, R. C., & Russo, M. J. (2010). The effects of child abuse and exposure to domestic violence on adolescent internalizing and externalizing behavior problems. Journal of Family Violence, 25(1), 53-63.

Newland, L. A. (2015). Family well‐being, parenting, and child well‐being: Pathways to healthy adjustment. Clinical Psychologist, 19(1), 3-14.

Newman, B. M., & Newman, P. R. (2017). Development through life: A psychosocial approach. Cengage Learning.

Swahn, M. H., Gressard, L., Palmer, J. B., Kasirye, R., Lynch, C., & Yao, H. (2012). Serious violence victimization and perpetration among youth living in the slums of Kampala, Uganda. Western Journal of Emergency Medicine, 13(3), 253.

Theobald, D., Farrington, D. P., & Piquero, A. R. (2013). Childhood broken homes and adult violence: An analysis of moderators and mediators. Journal of Criminal Justice, 41(1), 44-52.

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