What causes domestic violence - Essay Example

Domestic violence is different from other forms of violence like school bullying and street violence. School bullying, as the name implies is the bullying a student experiences in the school. Bullies in the school are mostly class fellows, but they may also be seniors or juniors. Bullying includes such behaviors as physical abuse, verbal abuse, racism and threat. Street violence and school bullying are similar to each other. What makes the street violence differ from the school bullying is the identity of the persons causing the abuse.

Street violence is created by neighbors or gangs whereas the school bullying is caused by students. Domestic violence, on the other hand, is the violence inside homes and between family members. Drug use and alcoholism are the prime factors that influence people to cause domestic violence. Both of these factors cause addiction. While alcoholism might be legal provided that the age limits have been respected, drugs are mostly prohibited. Therefore, people have to develop and make part of underground networks to make the drugs available both to themselves and to their gangs.

Drug use and alcoholism cause several kinds of illnesses that include but are not limited to stress, anxiety, anterograde amnesia, dizziness and weakness and death of the brain cells. All of these conditions sap an individual’s ability to socialize with others in a healthy way. People addicted to the drugs and alcohol become short tempered and unnecessarily reactive. Children increase their susceptibility to the drug abuse and alcoholism if they see their parents consuming them. The nurturing parents provide to the children shape their public identities as well as perceptions and acceptability towards such things as drugs and alcoholism.

Hence, parents’ addiction leads to more addiction in the family. There are numerous other practices and activities of the parents that have a devastating impact on the psychology of the children in addition to the drug abuse and alcoholism of the parents. Such activities include but are not limited to blame, abuse, and divorce. “The greatest irony of the divorce gone mad is that the very people who would run into a burning building to save a child are now engaged in a conflict that is doing more than anything else to tear apart that child’s heart and spirit” (Asher, 2005, p. 1). Parental conflict causes the children to feel isolated.

Children need parents as their role models in order to feel proud of them and feel happy while relating to them. Domestic violence exposes such characteristics of the parents that their characters seem too weak to the children to idealize. Lack of this pride causes the children to suffer from inferiority complex particularly when they see other children their age taking pride in their families. Consequently, children are put into social exclusion. In addition to that, domestic violence creates such an atmosphere in the home where children learn bad manners.

Violence becomes a part of their identity. They frequently indulge into conflicts with people both within and outside the home. Many end up becoming criminals. One of my friends Bob had to go through a lot of troubles as a result of the divorce between his parents. Bob was too attached to his father when he left him and got married to his girlfriend. His father took him along, but his new mother left no opportunity to scold him. After a period of six months, Bob was returned to his