The domestic violence discourse has largely failed to adequately capture children’s experiences of domestic violence, particularly in the context of coercive control, and to quantify its impacts across the life course. Data from the Australian Child Maltreatment Study (ACMS) were used to addresses this critical evidence gap by providing nationally representative insights into children’s experiences of domestic violence and their associated mental health outcomes. Four forms of (parental) domestic violence were described: physical violence, threats of harm, property damage, and intimidation or control, and associations with outcomes in childhood and adulthood were examined. Two in five (39.6%) of Australians experienced childhood domestic violence, with approximately half involving physical violence. Experiences involving intimidation and control (reflecting coercively controlling behaviours) were more pervasive, endured over more years, more likely to persist into mid-to-late adolescence, and were strongly associated with childhood emotional abuse by a parent. Intimidation and control was also associated with an increased risk of mental illness and mental health service use across the life course. This study finds coercively controlling behaviour is a significant indicator of harm in children’s experiences of domestic violence regardless of the presence (or absence) of physical violence. These findings underscore the need to move beyond incident-based, physical-violence frameworks of domestic violence to understand the risks of harm to children, and to advance their recognition as victim-survivors of domestic violence in their own right.