Reeves' mother belongs to a cult. The cult believes that you must be a Soldier of Christ. But to be a soldier, you must fight. Robbie is the son of an addict prostitute. He's raising his little brother alone, while trying to avoid his mother's pimp. Gracie is a pretty girl that lives in a nice house in the suburbs. Life is perfect for her family from the outside. None of her neighbors know the truth- her father is an enforcer for the mafia. Cole's father is a neglectful alcoholic. His father lives only for one reason- to kill again. These kids all have to face the violence eventually, and it all comes together in a climax where even the best of intentions results in innocence lost.

Discover research from across the United States and around the world on children exposed to domestic violence! If you are a member of a helping, medical, or legal profession, Children Exposed to Domestic Violence: Current Issues in Research, Intervention, Prevention, and Policy Development will help you explore research, assessments, interventions, and policy and prevention for children, victims of battering, batterers, and their families. This important book focuses on various aspects of spousal/partner abuse and child maltreatment. Comprehensive and thorough, Children Exposed to Domestic Violence focuses on three major sections: theoretical and research issues, intervention and prevention strategies, and policy development from an international perspective. Some of the important issues you will examine include: exploring the importance of partnerships between the domestic violence front-line workers and researchers at universities addressing the thorny issues of parenting in abused women assessing all areas of children's adjustment as well as their various relationships that may be problematic investigating the results of a quarter century research on men who batter by focusing on the crucial link between exposure to violence in childhood and adult marital behavior understanding the role of physiological and environmental factors as central to the role in domestic violence exploring the challenges faced by shelter staff in providing services to children who accompany their mother to find refuge examining new ideas for primary prevention programs in schools understanding policy and legislative implications of the growing body of literature on the impact of exposure to violence on children Children Exposed to Domestic Violence exemplifies the serious challenges faced by social workers, educators, policymakers, psychologists and others in helping professions working with children who have been exposed to domestic violence. You will gain insight into the vast amount of research that has taken place in the last ten years on this problem that will assist you with creating research ideas, interventions, prevention programs, and policies concerning children exposed to domestic violence.

For the last ten years Betsy Groves has been working with children traumatized by witnessing violence. In this book she shows how children understand, respond to, and are affected by violence, especially domestic violence. Groves makes the powerful case that traumatic events carried out by family members carry the most severe psychological risks for very young children. She uses clinical case studies to show that being young does not protect against the lasting effects of witnessing violence, and she offers ways adults can help.

This timely, much-needed resource identifies gaps in our understanding of the effects of exposure to violence on children -- and sets a direction for future research to support interventions and violence prevention.;

"Each chapter contains recommendations for legislators, policy makers, researchers, and families. This book should be on the desk, and minds, of legislators, attorneys, social workers and other mental health professionals who encounter and wish to ameliorate the effects of violence in the lives of their young constituents, clients, and patients." -JOURNAL OF CHILD AND FAMILY STUDIESQuestions relating to violence and children surround us in the media: should V-chips be placed in every television set? How can we prevent another Columbine school shooting from occurring? How should pornography on the internet be regulated? The Handbook of Children, Culture and Violence addresses these questions and more, providing a comprehensive, interdisciplinary examination of childhood violence that considers children as both consumers and perpetrators of violence, as well as victims of it. The Handbook offers much-needed empirical evidence that will help inform debate about these important policy decisions. Moreover, it is the first single volume to consider situations when children are responsible for violence, rather than focusing exclusively on occasions when they are victimized. Providing the first comprehensive overview of current research in the field, the editors have brought together the work of a group of prominent scholars whose work is united by a common concern for the impact of violence on the lives of children. The Handbook of Children, Culture and Violence is poised to become the ultimate resource and reference work on children and violence for researchers, teachers, and students of psychology, human development and family studies, law, communications, education, sociology, and political science/ public policy. It will also appeal to policymakers, media professionals, and special interest groups concerned with reducing violence in children's lives. Law firms specializing in family law, as well as think tanks, will also be interested in the Handbook.

Explains the neurological, emotional, and behavioral impacts of violence and trauma experienced by newborns, infants, children, and teenagers. Traumatic events known as adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) can affect children physically, mentally, and emotionally, sometimes with long-term health and behavioral effects. Abuse, neglect, exposure to community and domestic violence, and household dysfunction all have the potential to alter brain development and behavior, but few people are able to recognize or respond to trauma in children. Given the prevalence of childhood exposure to violence—with one in four children ages 5 to 15 living in households with only moderate levels of safety and nurturance and infants and children ages 0 to 3 comprising the highest percentage of those maltreated—it is imperative that students and professionals alike be able to identify types and consequences of violence and trauma. This book provides readers with the information they need in order to know how to detect and prevent ACEs and to help children who have lived through them.

The past decade has seen a burgeoning of research and conceptualization on the implications of parental violence exposure on children's development and well-being. Meanwhile, seemingly daily accounts of violent tragedies committed by our youth brings to our attention the urgency of conveying this information. With these ideas in mind, Children and Interparental Violence focuses on childrens exposure to violence between their caretakers and the subsequent effects on child development. To this end, the authors review current theories, research, and treatment strategies of the 1990s, paying specific attention to families' ethnic backgrounds, parents' sexual orientation, and forensic and legal issues, all factors affecting the nature and severity of impact. Prevention and intervention models (including great detail on risk and protective factors), techniques, and programs are discussed, as well as research evaluating their usefulness. Keeping in mind the goal of integrating practice and policy with current violence and developmental research and theory, numerous case examples take the reader from the lab and classroom into the session room and courtroom.