Fathers & Families of Massachusetts conducted an extensive review of the assertions made in Breaking the Silence: Children’s Stories and found numerous falsehoods and half-truths. The group detailed these in its document A Critique of the Scientific Basis for Key Assertions in Breaking the Silence: Children’s Stories. 

The report found that while the film and those connected to it repeatedly asserted that batterers win shared or sole custody approximately 67% of the time, the only data available in the publications cited shows results of between 3% and 18%.

The Fathers & Families report also asserts:

"No data whatsoever are presented to support the film’s central assertion that 75% of fathers who seek custody of their children over the mother’s objections are batterers.  The references cited by the film’s supporters in most cases are a round-robin of assertions, in which the same pool of authors repeatedly cites each other’s opinions, without supporting data."

The film's supporters cited a supportive document which they claimed was written by the American Judges Association. In fact, it was instead written by  the American Judges Foundation, a group which does not consist of judges but instead of advocates who seek to "educate" and influence judges. The AJF's lead author was Dr. Lenore Walker, known as the architect of the controversial "battered woman syndrome" defense of women who kill the men whom they claim abused them.

The document also noted that professor Murray Straus, a noted and widely published domestic violence researcher, has charged in writing that two of his research studies have been misrepresented in the Viewer’s Guide that accompanies the film.  In addition, while the film asserts that “children are in most danger from their fathers, according to Straus, “The evidence from many studies, including Federal statistics on child abuse, shows that mothers physically abuse children at a slightly higher rate than fathers.”

The entire Fathers & Families report can be read by clicking here.