Children living in this type of situation develop conflicted feelings of love and hate for both parents, and live in constant fear that the family will break up, that their mother will be badly hurt or leave them, or that they themselves could be hurt by the batterer. The consequences of children living with violence have social effects, as well as individual ones. Children from violent homes may display criminal behavior, or repeat the cycle of violence by growing up to abuse their own partners and children ("Middle Way House").
Studies that examined age as a factor point out that exposure to domestic violence produced different developmental problems in children at different ages. Infants and toddlers who witness violence in their homes show extreme irritability, immature behavior, sleeping disorders, emotional suffering, fears of being alone, and decline in toileting and language skills. Exposure to trauma, especially violence in the family, interferes with a child's normal growth of trust and later investigative behaviors, which leads to the development of independence. The presence of symptoms in these young children is similar to posttraumatic stress disorder in adults, including continual experiencing of the traumatic event, avoidance, and lack of response ("Health Plus").
As with preschoolers, school-age children exposed to domestic violence are more prone to show an increase in sleep disturbances, and less likely to investigate and play freely and to show motivation to control their environment (Katz 157). Other studies have reported that school-age children, age 6-12, who are exposed to family violence, are affected similarly to those exposed to community violence (Houskamp 364). Such children often show a greater occurrence of internalizing (withdrawal, anxiety) and externalizing (aggressiveness, wrongdoing) behavior problems in comparison to children from nonviolent families.