first draft. quotes still needed!

          Child abuse not only affects a child physically, but emotionally and mentally. Children whose parents abuse them often turn to a life of crime, or suffer physical or mental scars. In severe cases the child may even die.
       What you may not know is child abuse isn’t only physical. It can be physical, mental, verbal, emotional or even sexual. A study that showed approximately 27% of the women in every state of the union, and 16% of the men said they had been sexually abused as children. That’s 43% more than the rate should actually be.

           I wish I could say that we all just live and learn from abuse, but I would be lying. There are many negative outcomes in both the child’s future and the child’s present. One effect may cause a child to become very shy, wary and cautious of people and become very vulnerable to be picked on, and soon this child begins to feel neglected. While researching, I found many psychological effects of emotional abuse which included unreasonable high levels of anger and aggression, anxiety, extreme and repetitive nightmares, sudden phobias from darkness or water and psychosomatic complaints and attempts of suicide. As I read along all of the negative outcomes from, I realized someone close to me had at least 95% of them. Unfortunately, some handle these aspects better than others.

            I’ve witnessed child abuse growing up through one of my best friends. I never knew what she was going through until one day she couldn’t take it and opened up to the one person she knew would listen. After listening to her stories, I put two and two together and I realized why she acted so different in school all of a sudden.
       Before her younger sister came along, it was her and her single mother living alone from the time she was 4 years old to 8 years old. As a kid she witnessed her parents splitting up and learned to adjust from traveling to two different homes throughout the week. She remembered feeling like her parents didn’t not only care for each other but didn’t care for her. As a result of this, she threw a lot of tantrums for attention and suffered a lot of consequences, some worse than others. First the verbal abuse started where screaming and cursing was the only thing she heard from her mother, but it soon led into physical abuse without her or my mom even knowing it. The one incident she told me is stuck with her forever, was when her mother threw a porcelain bowl at her head but missed .

When a child is not only emotionally abused but physically abused, their behavior takes a huge turn. They begin to behave more aggressively. Lie frequently, destroys and throws things, has poor self image, and change in school performance. A child who is being physically abused may also turn into the class clown to hide that they are suffering on the inside. These are just some negative effects physical abuse may have on a child. As the child gets older these symptoms begin to get worse. They may try running away, or even begin doing drugs, but all of it is a front to hide the pain that they suffer daily from their abuse.

We may think that child abuse is only caused at home. A lot of children suffer from verbal abuse while in school and sometimes it can turn into a domino effect with other students. Many kids will suffer from mainly verbal or physical abuse while in school from other children. Not only does this kid suffer and feel uncomfortable in his home away from home, he may go back home and verbally abuse his or her siblings at home because that’s the pain he was caused in school which causes the domino effect of his siblings then doing it to children in their class. The same exact effect happens when a parent or guardian uses their negative experiences from their childhood on their children.  Growing up in a negative environment either changes someone’s childhood for the best or for the worst. If a person was abused as a child, they will both travel with pain and take it out on their own children, or they will change themselves for the best making sure they don’t treat their children the same way they were treated as children.

Child abuse doesn’t only cause a child to have psychological and negative effects in their life; it may just cause them to lose their lives. In 2007, slightly more than one-third of fatalities (35.2 percent) were caused by multiple forms of maltreatment. Neglect accounted for 34.1 percent and physical abuse for 26.4 percent. Medical neglect accounted for 1.2 percent of fatalities. I’m sure your first though is what parent or guardian can do this to a poor innocent child, or what parent can neglect their child?

Many parents don’t wake up one day and say they want to hurt their child, but something in their child must trigger back to their own childhood, causing them to lash out on their own children. Whether it is the lack of parenting knowledge, or if they were abused or deprived as a child themselves, hurting your child not only hurts them but may end up hurting you. Research shows that parents may abuse their kids as a sign of discipline. This tends to end up backfiring on the parent in the long run. The parent who tried to “discipline” their child in the beginning tends to pave the way for their child. Teens who have been abused as a child are 25% more likely to become a teen parent, or to turn to drugs in the future. If the life of the abused child goes on this negatively, it is likely that they won’t end up in great places throughout their life. Not only did the abuser cause this turmoil for an innocent child, they ruined their life. When someone taught something or painfully hurt themselves as a child, they remember it forever whether they choose to or not and have to live with the pain caused by a person who thought it was okay to hurt them.

Here are some statistics found on ChildHelp.com

·         31% percent of women in prison in the United States were abused as children

·         Almost five children die everyday as a result of child abuse. More than three out of four are under the age of 4.

·         Over 60% of people in drug rehabilitation centers report being abused or neglected as a child.

·         The estimated annual cost of child abuse and neglect in the United States for 2007 is$104 billion.

These are just some statistics shown of what child abuse

Due to child abuse, many relationships between a parent and child or whoever the abuser may be have gone downhill. With trust which is a huge factor in any relationship being lost, it’s hard for a child to find someone to confide in to either deal with their pain or to begin a relationship with. They tend to keep their guard up more often knowing that they are more vulnerable to anyone and anything. Many children and adults who have suffered from emotional, physical, verbal or sexually abuse and do not know where to turn should go in treatment. Support groups and treatment centers are available to help any and every person who has been abused. Some people may even turn to becoming a motivational speaker on their experience and what they went and suffered through. This helps the person overcome what they’ve been holding in and helps others learn on where they can get help if ever needed.