Child Abuse

Child Abuse

Kaley Deford

Axia College

COM 125 - Utilizing Information in College Writing

Gregory Kiewiet

July 29, 2007

Child Abuse

Child abuse is the mistreatment of a child and the children are victims of more than one type of abuse. Those types of abuse are: emotional abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse, and neglect. Most child abuse happens to children under the age of 18 and the abusers could be anyone from the parents to the siblings or even babysitters and neighbors. Experts are quick to point out that abuse can occur between all social, ethnic, and income families along with poor families with little education; young mothers, single-parent families, and parental alcohol or drug abuse are noticed in reported cases. "More than 90% of abusing parents have neither psychotic nor criminal personalities. Rather they tend to be lonely, unhappy, angry, young, and single parents who do not plan their pregnancies, have little or no knowledge or child development, and have unrealistic expectations for child behavior (Charles F. Johnson; 1996)." The people around the victims can report the abuse to hotlines or to the local police department, but some choose not to for the simple fact they do not want in the situation. Child abuse is wrong and it should not happen to innocent children. Here are the definitions, signs, symptoms, causes, treatment, diagnosis, prognosis, and prevention of each type of abuse.

Does abuse only happen to little children? No, it can happen to teenagers and adults as well. At times, it may seem that teenagers are able to fight back, but they do not because it is hard to stand up to an adult that is overpowering them. When adults are abused, they tend to react differently from children and teenagers. Adults fight back with horrible, rude words or even fist fights. Some adults go to counseling or start abusing drugs and alcohol. Sometimes they will not say anything to anyone. Teenagers might write in their journals, tell a friend, or keep the problem locked up inside until it is ready to explode. Children, on the other hand, do not know or understand what is happening to them because they are little and their minds do not work like a teenager's or adult's mind. Most abuse occurs when a child is 15 years old and younger because adults have more power over the child than they do a teenager. Why and who would abuse a child or anyone at all? There is no exact answer as to why this happens, but people who do abuse can be parents, siblings, doctors, teachers, coaches, friends, neighbors, relatives, or anyone doing a job close to young children. Majority of the time, people who abuse were often abused themselves. Statistics show percentages of what children suffer from. For instance, 61% of children suffer from child neglect. "Child protective services across the country found an estimated 896,000 children to be victims of maltreatment (neglect or abuse) (Children's Bureau, 2004)." Below is a chart to show the percentages of abuse children go through.

In the chart, it shows that 61% of children are neglected, 19% are physically abused, 10% are sexually abused, 7% are emotionally or psychologically maltreated, and 18.9% experience "other" types of maltreatment which can be drug addiction or abandonment. More statistics show that 52% of child maltreatment victims were girls and 48% were boys. Children were maltreated by their mothers at an approximately 40% and another 19% were maltreated by their fathers. However, 18% of children maltreated happened between both parents. This all leads to the different types of abuse.

The first type of abuse is emotional abuse. Emotional abuse is described as causing unwanted harm to a child verbally. The abuse can be any behavior, attitude, or failure to act that can destroy a child's mental health and/or social development. A few examples would be name-calling, being disrespectful, belittling, ignoring the child, telling the child he or she is worthless, and so forth. Emotional abuse can have more long-lasting effects than any other type of abuse and it can be found during other types of abuse as well. Emotional abuse, according to Richard D. Krugman (1997), "has been defined as the rejection, ignoring, criticizing, isolation, or terrorizing of children, all of which have the effect of eroding their self-esteem." Emotional abuse can happen anywhere at any time. Some places would be the home, school, a friend's house, on a sport's team, by the babysitter, and so on. For example, a child could bring home a bad grade, show the grade to their parents, and the parents would yell at the child calling him or her worthless, stupid, or even comparing them to their sibling (if they have one). Yelling at a child instead of encouraging them brings down their self-esteem and self-confidence. That may also cause the child to continue doing badly in school instead of trying harder. However, children are not the only ones who can be verbally abused. Teenagers and adults may experience this type of abuse all the time. Teenagers can receive it from their parents, friends, teachers, or relationships. Adults can receive it from their children, employees, bosses, or friends and relationships. It does not matter where it comes from, it is being able to understand how to control it and see the signs of being emotionally abused. The signs would consist of: lack of self-confidence or self-esteem, depression, constant self-depreciation ("I'm ugly,""stupid," etc.), fear of a new situation, overreaction to certain mistakes, aggression towards others, crying constantly, isolation from the world, running away, eating disorders, and more. Symptoms can also relate to the signs from being emotional abused. Loss of self-esteem, headaches and sleep disturbances, running away from home, avoiding school, and so on are a few symptoms to name. Emotional abuse leads to physical abuse and the other types of abuse because it develops when something disturbs the mind horribly.

Physical abuse is applying unwanted or unnecessary bruises or injuries to a child. "In 1996, 24% of the confirmed cases of United States child abuse involved physical abuse (Baker, no date)." That statement means that harm was caused to the child when it should not have been. There is a rare form of physical abuse which is Munchausen syndrome. That means the care taker (mainly the mother) strives for attention by making the child appear sick or getting the child sick on