The Silent Victims: What Happens When Children Witness Emotional Abuse

Did you know that children do not have to be the direct target of abuse to experience significant traumatic effects of it?

This is absolutely true. As a matter of fact, studies have shown that children who only witness abuse happening to one of their caregivers have outcomes comparable to children who are directly abused (Kitzmann, Gaylord, Holt & Kenny, 2003; Stiller, Neubery & Krieg, 2022). Children who witness emotional abuse are not just observing harm to someone important to them; the child is developing inside a home environment where attachment, safety, stress regulation, and relationship patterns are repeatedly disrupted.

Some people think that children are only affected if their parent is being physically abused, but that is absolutely not the case. Young people don’t just measure safety by whether or not they’re getting injured physically or emotionally or sexually; they measure safety by whether the people protecting them are safe. When a child watches one parent constantly criticized, humiliated, dismissed, or intimidated by someone else, their brain receives a very powerful message: the people who are supposed to keep me safe aren’t safe themselves.

Children depend on their caregivers not only for food and protection, but also for co-regulation, which is the process through which a calm, responsive adult helps their child manage fear and distress. When one parent or another relative humiliates, intimidates, controls, threatens, or destabilizes the other, the child faces some attachment dilemmas. First, the person they rely on for protection may appear frightened, powerless, emotionally unavailable, or overwhelmed. Second, the abusive parent or relative may be loving at times and terrifying at others. Next, the child will feel confused about feeling compelled to protect their abused parent while still depending on both parents (if a parent is the abuser). Finally, seeking comfort may feel dangerous because the people who should provide safety are also connected to the threat they’re feeling (Noonan & Pilkington, 2020).

Children in this environment might become an emotional caretaker for the abused parent and/or younger siblings.

They might feel the need to comfort the parent who was hurt. They might get in the middle of arguments or try to intervene before anyone has the opportunity to say something that might trigger a negative response from the other person. They might try to shield younger siblings from the emotional abuse happening by removing them from earshot, or taking them outside. Their childhood is cut short by behaviors that put the child in a parental role.

That realization changes the child’s nervous system. The child will start listening for the sound of the abuser’s footsteps, watch for their vehicle arriving or leaving; they will be hypervigilant about changes in vocal tones, slammed doors, and tense silence. They become hyperaware of other people’s moods because predicting danger is part of their survival. Many adults who grew up in this type of environment report that they still find themselves scanning every room, reading people’s emotions before their own, or relaxing only when everyone else seems ok and no one is about to blow up at anyone else (Yang, Park, & Thor, 2026). Their body learned long ago that safety wasn’t something they could count on; instead, it was something they had to constantly search for.

Children are learning a very difficult and damaging lesson when they witness chronic emotional abuse toward their parent: that love means suffering. The child will wonder, and might even ask why the abused parent is staying in the relationship when they end up being hurt so often. If the parent is tolerating it, then the child’s nervous system is getting the message that disrespect might be normal in adult relationships, that relationships will require personal sacrifice, that enduring an abusive relationship means they love the person too much to put a stop to the abuse or leave. A dangerous implication of this is that the child might grow up chasing relationships with abusive partners because that’s what feels like home.

If this witnessing of abuse happens chronically, the child’s nervous system becomes addicted to unpredictability. That means their nervous systems can get stuck in “triggered” mode because they’re waiting for the next explosion. They feel disconcerted in calm homes free from abusive people because conflict is what is familiar. Their systems are trained to see chaos as normal. Again, like being attracted to an unhealthy, abusive partner as stated previously, the child might even think that emotionally healthy people are boring.

Besides that, the child’s nervous system responds to the chronic threats of parental emotional abuse much like it would respond to physical danger, especially if the abuse is frequent, unpredictable, and directed at their caregiver (Kitzmann, Gaylord, Holt & Kenny, 2003; Stiller, Neubert & Krieg, 2022). Children witnessing emotional abuse frequently experience several adversities simultaneously: chronic conflict and fear; emotional neglect because a parent is consumed by surviving; direct verbal or psychological abuse; separation or family instability; substance misuse or mental health difficulties in the household; pressure to take sides, keep secrets, or care for siblings; and economic instability or social isolation.

This is important because the child’s outcome may not result from one isolated event. Instead, it may result from years of accumulated stress without proper protection or relationship repair (Edwards, Holden, Felitti, &Anda, 2003).

Other than the nervous system, a child’s brain is negatively affected. Each child’s brain develops in response to experience. When their home life repeatedly feels unpredictable, the developing brain may become increasingly organized around detecting and surviving threat. Research on early adversity and violence exposure (emotional abuse is considered a form of violence) has identified differences in a victim’s systems that are involved in: threat detection, emotional regulation, attention, memory, stress hormone activity, executive functioning, and distinguishing danger from safety (vanRooij et al., 2020). This does not mean that every exposed child develops brain damage. Neurodevelopment is shaped by many factors, and children are resilient and can recover substantially when they feel safe, have stable relationships, get appropriate treatment, and have opportunities for healthy development in a healthy home.

If a child is not removed from this type of abusive environment, the effects of the trauma will likely carry into adulthood. That trauma might manifest in the following behaviors and thought patterns: fear of abandonment; difficulty trusting people; compulsive care-giving or people-pleasing; emotional distancing; confusion between control and love; tendency to choose unhealthy partners; heightened sensitivity to rejection or changes in another person’s mood; hypervigilance. That adult would need to focus on healing their trauma so they are emotionally available and seek emotionally healthy partners.

Because of this research and compounding evidence that witnessing the abuse of another parent affects children in a devastating and destructive way, abused parents need to consider what is best for their children as well as what is best for their own mental well-being. There are ways to confront an emotional abuser, as long as it is safe to do so. I created a document that I’ve shared through my social media outlets for my project called the Still I Heal Project. It might be of help for those seeking a way of addressing abusive behavior.

In summary, as parents we have a fundamental duty to keep our children safe from harm, and it is an awful realization that their own home may be one of the most detrimental experiences of the child’s life. Talking to your children about what is happening is key, as long as they are old enough to understand. They need to be able to express themselves. Kids will want to know why the behavior is tolerated. Kids need to know what you’re going to do to help them feel safe, and that might require extremely difficult discussions and decisions.

References

Edwards, V. J., Holden, G. W., Felitti, V. J., & Anda, R. F. (2003). Relationship between multiple forms of childhood maltreatment and adult mental health in community respondents: Results from the Adverse Childhood Experiences study. American Journal of Psychiatry, 160(8), 1453–1460. https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.ajp.160.8.1453

Kitzmann, K. M., Gaylord, N. K., Holt, A. R., & Kenny, E. D. (2003). Child witnesses to domestic violence: a meta-analytic review. Journal of consulting and clinical psychology, 71(2), 339–352. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-006x.71.2.339

Noonan, C. B., & Pilkington, P. D. (2020). Intimate partner violence and child attachment: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Child abuse & neglect, 109, 104765. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chiabu.2020.104765

Stiller, A., Neubert, C., & Krieg, Y. (2022). Witnessing Intimate Partner Violence as a Child and Associated Consequences. Journal of interpersonal violence, 37(21-22), NP20898–NP20927. https://doi.org/10.1177/08862605211055147

van Rooij, S. J. H., Smith, R. D., Stenson, A. F., Ely, T. D., Yang, X., Tottenham, N., Stevens, J. S., & Jovanovic, T. (2020). Increased activation of the fear neurocircuitry in children exposed to violence. Depression and anxiety, 37(4), 303–312. https://doi.org/10.1002/da.22994

Yang, S., Park, Y., & Thor, P. (2026). Intergenerational Transmission of Family Violence: A Narrative Review of Pathways from Childhood Exposure to Family Violence to Adult Intimate Partner Violence Perpetration. Behavioral Sciences, 16(2), 299. https://doi.org/10.3390/bs16020299

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