Children's Needs – Parenting Capacity - Digital Education Resource ...

Child development and parents’ responses – children under 5 years 133environment. Alternatively, they may exhibit controlling behaviour, which is oftenaccompanied by a good deal of inner turmoil. Children who cope with disturbingparental behaviours by apparently not responding can appear more competentin dealing with adverse parental behaviours, but in reality they are attempting toprevent further frightening responses from the parent (Jones et al. 1991).The further problem is that young children model their parents’ behaviour.Research indicates that children as young as 3 and 4 years who are exposed to domesticviolence are more likely to display significantly more anger, peer aggression andbehaviour problems than non-exposed children (Covell and Howe 2009). Aggressiveand acting-out behaviour may result both from children learning to resolve conflictthrough violence and from mirroring what they see. ‘Like my son, he had this thingwith hitting little girls, I would just see him hitting on little girls’ (DeVoe and Smith2002, p.1086). Research also found that mothers in violent relationships worriedthat their children would grow up to be violent in their adult relationships.I discipline him every time he needs to be disciplined. Cause he’s 4 years old, andI feel at this point that – he told me once, ‘When I get bigger, I’m gonna hit youlike my dad.’ So I feel if I don’t stop it now, he’ll walk all over me by the time he’s13 ’cause I’m a single parent.(Mother, quoted in DeVoe and Smith 2002, p.1086)When parents’ problems require hospitalisation or are so extreme that childrenneed to be looked after full-time by others, children of this age will find separationbewildering and frightening. This is because of their inability to think beyondthe immediate and the concrete. Unlike older children, the cognitive ability ofchildren aged 3–4 years is less developed, which makes it difficult for them to graspexplanations for the long-term absence of a parent (see Aldgate 1992). In situationsof domestic violence which has resulted in family separation, some children mayhave conflicting feelings of relief and a sense of greater safety, mixed with sadnessand a sense of loss (McGee 2000).Many parents with learning disabilities have the additional challenge of parentinga disabled child. The challenge is enormous for even the most skilful of parents, butcan overwhelm parents with learning disabilities.It was about Sammie, how to cope with him. We needed help with him. Theysaid he had autism. I had never heard of it, they said it was some form of braindamage. I was very upset, it would go on forever.(Mother, from unpublished material gathered for the Cleaver andNicholson 2007 study)Parents who are preoccupied with their own needs may leave children in thecare of inappropriate adults, thus exposing them to the possibility of abuse. Forexample, parents with learning disabilities who experienced familial sexual abuse aschildren may find it difficult to protect their own children; grandparents and other