Infants and Toddlers (0-2.5 years)

• Developmental Delay
• Failure to Thrive - Due to the chaotic, loud and harmful environment
• Emotional withdrawal/low frustration tolerance
• Physical problems - frequent colds, ear infections, diarrhea

• Developmental delay - especially in language development. The child may be afraid to speak, afraid of becoming the target of anger. This is due in part to not being spoken to by adults or experiencing meaningful discussions with adults.
• Low frustration tolerance. - Child cries easily and often. Her world is so chaotic she cannot handle ordinary stress. Usually has not witnessed appropriate ways of dealing with stress.
• Acting out aggressively toward peers and adults - modeling the aggressive behaviors observed in home.
• Emotional withdrawal - Excessive thumbsucking, rocking, infantile behaviors. The child is seeking safety and security by reverting to behaviors characteristic of a time when he felt secure.
• Inability to play constructively - Lots of throwing or kicking, possibly even destruction of playthings. Many children have not been shown how to play. Children are working out their frustration and worry in play.
• Inconsistent or inappropriate display of emotions - The result of the child not learning appropriate emotional responses, as well as not being in touch with their true feelings.

• Scholastically delayed/poor school performance - Child finds studying and learning difficult when he can't keep from worrying about what happened at home last night, or who is going to get hurt, maybe killed, later tonight.
• Behavior problems with peers and adults - Because of lack of observable appropriate interpersonal relationships, child has not learned appropriate ways to interact with others. Child may be crying out for help the only way they can and still keep the "family secret."
• Aggressive acting out becomes more severe and purposeful - Modeling the violent behavior witnessed in the home.
• Severe behavioral difficulties - Culmination of low frustration tolerance.
• Fearful/nightmares/night terrors - Child reliving fears in her sleep. May be afraid of sleep because incidents of physical and/or sexual abuse occur at night. May have history of being wakened by mother's screams, father yelling.
• Withdrawn/depressed/hopeless/despondent - Life offers little other than physical and/or emotional pain. Joy is lost.
• Chronic physical complaints - Headaches, stomachaches. Child knows no other way to realize or describe emotional distress. Stress level too high for child to cope.
• Beginning to mimic adult roles - Girls adopting role of victim; boys becoming aggressive, abusive.
• Chronic low self-esteem - Child blames himself for situation at home. Child's good feelings about himself have not been nurtured.

• Depression - Loss of home, joy. Child full of sadness.
• Emotional neglect - By this time the child has learned there is no one to listen or care especially parents. Many children have abandoned efforts to reach parents.
• Signs of physical injuries, maiming, crippling, scarring
• Aggression/delinquency/running away - Realizing no one will take care of their needs except themselves, adolescents will use the only coping skills they have learned; violence and self-destruction.
• Poor school adjustment - Academically and socially unable to perform.
• Proficient at mimicking adult roles - Teenager carries role of victim or aggressor into interpersonal relationships outside the family.
• Early sexual activity/marriage - Provides a means of escape or acting out.
• Alcohol/drug experimentation or use - Another form of escapism; self-medicating for the pain; modeling behavior of adults.
• Death by suicide or murder - Taking of one's own life to end the pain, or intervening to protect mother results in harm of death to child, or child killing abuser.
• Expansion of violence into the community - Criminal activity sometimes through gang involvement where teen finds surrogate family. Anger and frustration spills over into community.

24 Hour Crisis Line: (479) 782-4956 1-800-359-0056 Toll Free Number Crisis Center for Women 500 Lexington Avenue Suite A Ft. Smith, AR 72901 Telephone: (479) 782-1821 Fax: (479) 782-9035