Help for healing after the abuse

A counselor met with the five sons of Joan and John Bierdz onTuesday to assure them it's not their fault that domestic abusestalked their family.

That's what counselors tell all children who witness abuse in thehome.

"Everyone can always second-guess themselves but there's nothingthey could have done" to prevent the kind of violence that culminatedin Bierdz stabbing his wife to death and then being shot dead by apolice officer Sunday, Joan Bierdz's brother, Robert Waicekauskas,said Tuesday.

If children who witness abuse have healthy family support and goodrole models later, they are not doomed to re-enact the brutalitythey saw, say counselors and researchers …