Children Unharmed? Oh, please.

I read an article in the News and Observer today about a man who murdered his wife and the couple's two children were in the home at the time.

Here is the link to the article titled, Prosecutors: Wilson planned to kill wife
http://www.newsobserver.com/news/crime_safety/story/1125328.html

Here we are in 2008, and still I am reading sentences like this one in newspaper articles, "The couple's two children were home at the time but were unharmed." That just isn't even possible. This may seem like a minor point - you may be thinking that it's obvious that the writer means the children weren't physically harmed.
It's one more example of how communities minimize the impact of battering on children. These two children's father murdered their mother. Their mother is gone and their father is facing a possible life sentence for murdering her. The children were harmed. We owe it to children to acknowledge the harm of witnessing their father murder their mother. The children did not escape emotional and psychological harm. When we don't acknowledge that harm, it's like we're saying it doesn't exist. If it doesn't exist then it lets us off the hook of addressing the emotional trauma of the children. Then we scratch our heads and wonder at the troubled children in the world and then marvel again at the troubled adults in the world.

We have to start by acknowledging the emotional and psychological harm to children who witness battering and abuse of one parent by another. When we acknowledge this harm, then we can work on helping children to heal.