It's quite likely that if a jerk is punching on his wife, he is not in his right mind, it's only a matter of time before one of those punches goes astray and strikes the child.

I would assume very likely. But it varies..for example, some men may abuse their wives because of a bad relationship with their own mother, but will not harm their children.

very likely. even if he doesn't physically hit his kids just by seeing it or hearing it. kids pick up on everything.

Usually very likely. They have no reguards for anyone especially their self. Its usually just a matter of time before they go off on the children as well.

From the American Academy of Physicians, http://www.aafp.org/afp/990315ap/1577.html : "Child abuse is 15 times more likely to occur in families where spousal abuse occurs. Children are three times more likely to be abused by their fathers than by their mothers." And from The National Research Center for Women and Families (regarding two studies), http://www.center4research.org/v-childabuse.html#Spouseabuse "Both studies indicate that spouse abuse increases the risk of child abuse, and so relatives, neighbors, police, teachers, and others need to be sensitive to this possibility in homes where they know spousal abuse occurs. However, doubling a relatively small risk is not as strong association as was expected. Of course, the accuracy of these reports is always a shortcoming of studies of abuse, but that is more likely to decrease the reporting of both kinds of abuse, but not the statistical relationship between the two kinds of abuse. The findings clearly suggest that there are many factors that increase the risk of child abuse, and spouse abuse is just one of them. We have a long way to go before we can predict abuse, and that makes it difficult to prevent." I feel that even if there isn't direct physical abuse of the children, they suffer psychologically and emotionally, experiencing the pain of living with their parents in an abusive situation.

Probably 50/50.