Extract from ABC News
We often hear about violent crime, but not so much about the violence before the crime.
Key points:
- Researchers say it is through social media that abused people sometimes learn how to form healthy relationships
- While TV shows and movies can offer useful insights into how to break away from abuse, they can also romanticise unhealthy relationships, experts say
- Respondents in a study of intergenerational violence have flagged a lack of education in school around family violence
Violence is sometimes so much a part of a person's childhood, they can't help taking at least some of it into their adult life.
This could mean becoming a violent person, or falling into relationships with violent people.
University of South Australia researchers have been examining intergenerational violence and what helps young people who've experienced violence reject it later.
They surveyed more than 220 young people, conducting in-depth interviews with some of them.
One thing many said helped them as children was screen time, particularly social media, for its support groups and networks on sites such as Facebook.
"They were able to put a name to what they had experienced and [started] recognising abuse," University of South Australia senior research fellow Fiona Buchanan said.
"They felt seen and heard, in terms of being able to connect to people with similar backgrounds," Dr Buchanan said.
"It validated them. It validated their experiences, that they weren't making a fuss.
"In a way, their connection through social media was the first step towards them forming healthy relationships themselves."
Dr Buchanan — who has worked in domestic violence support in Australia and the United Kingdom — said TV shows and movies also offered information and alternatives, citing the Netflix series Maid as an example.
However, she said, survey participants were critical of many TV shows and movies for continuing to romanticise relationships that were, in fact, unhealthy.
"They're more the coercive behaviours — the put-downs, the controlling behaviours that can be romanticised, the strong male and the submissive female — that they still see in productions that go out today," she said.
'She was a bloody good mum'
Growing up, violence was all-too-common for Kellie Carter-Bell from Melbourne.
The now 53-year-old said it was her ex-boyfriend who gave her her first black eye at the age of 13.
She also remembers her step-dad abusing her mother.
"I can remember Mum many times having a swollen jaw, or a broken jaw, or a black eye," she said.
Kellie said she and her sisters all ended up in violent relationships, partly because they all believed being abused was akin to being loved.
Having lost three of her sisters to drug addiction, eventually Kellie was determined to help her own children navigate away from violence.
"What they've overcome to become five productive adults of this world, it's just amazing," she said.
The one who found it hardest to break the cycle was her son, Klay Wilson.
Klay, 28, started out on his father's path, spending time in prison, some of his crimes involving violence.
"When you grow up the way I did, you never get told you're going to be any different. You get told you're going to be nothing. You think you're going to be nothing," he said.
He thanks his Mum for her help to break the cycle, and says it's helped him to be a better dad to his son, Chayse.
"There was a lot going on, but she was a bloody good mum," he said.
He said he could have had more help had social media been as accessible when he was a teenager.
"I remember before I ever [did] my first stint in custody screaming out for help, calling every service I could," he said.
"Maybe, if I was more equipped with social media [and the] internet back then, I would have been OK."
Study results to be turned into a podcast
Dr Buchanan said the people her team surveyed flagged a lack of education in school around family violence.
"They felt, if they'd had that, they would have recognised what was going on for themselves earlier, and it would have made them aware that what was happening in their own homes was not normal," she said.
Many were wary of entering romantic relationships altogether.
"I don't see that as a bad thing," Dr Buchanan said.
"They were actually being clear and thinking through what they wanted and didn't want in their own relationships.
"And some were very vigilant about their own behaviour and the behaviour of others.
"So, yes, they were wary. Yes, they were hesitant, but that came from a place of thoughtfulness."
She said the results of the survey would be collated to form podcasts, presentations and papers that would be used to try to reduce rates of family violence.
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