final paper on Child Abuse.

          

            Child Abuse

   Child abuse is a phenomenon in today’s society. Many people have been victims and although it has been taken into consideration, more surveillance should be taking place. There are three types of abuse that ruin the life of a child: physical, emotional, and sexual. However, focusing on domestic violence, a child will be affected by physical and emotional abuse. The problem is that some parents may not even consider how it affects their child in public places. When a child has been abused, how long does it affect him or her into adulthood? Though there are different ways to discipline, a parent can choose from a variety of rewards to reinforce good behavior; furthermore, a trusted committee should organize ongoing parenting classes to help parents to control their temper. What are the other consequences of abuse? 

Parents who abuse their kids were most likely abused either growing up, or in a relationship and/or had a poor upbringing. Nowadays with technology and researches found, they could help change and also teach their kids to avoid the same mistakes when they grow up. As the child grows, parents can set limits instead of setting the idea that violence will solve their problems. 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. Children from abusive and neglectful grow up in environments that fail to provide consistent and appropriate opportunities to guide their development. Instead these children are placed in jeopardy of physical and emotional harm. (Wolfe & Jaffe,2001) yet their ties to their families and/or abusers are very important, so child victims may be torn between a sense of belonging and a sense of fear and apprehension. Children who are not raised in a good healthy environment become a lot more vulnerable to the people in their home and the outside world. They become more cautious and afraid because they were not raise by being protected by their parents which may make them feel unprotected from the people around them making it harder to trust others.

           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 did 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 luckily missed.

When a child is both emotionally abused and physically abused, their behavior takes a huge turn. They begin to behave more aggressively, lie frequently, destroy and throw 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.

Physical abuse is the most visible form of abuse and may be defined as any act which results in a non-accidental trauma or physical injury. 19% of all proven cases of child abuse stem from physical abuse. Inflicted physical injury most often represents unreasonable, severe bodily punishment or unjustifiable punishment. This usually happens when a frustrated or angry parent strikes, shakes or throws a child.
Physical abuse injuries result from punching, beating, kicking, biting, burning or otherwise harming a child. While any of these injuries can occur accidentally when a child is at play, physical abuse should be suspected if the explanations do not fit the injury or if a pattern of frequency is apparent. The longer the abuse continues, the more serious the injuries to the child and the more difficult it is to eliminate the abusive behavior.
            Physical abuse is a form of child maltreatment. As a general rule, physical abuse refers to the infliction of physical harm on a child by a parent or caregiver. It is not necessary for the harm to be happen intentionally to the child, and in most situations physical abuse is the unintentional end result of harsh disciplinary methods or corporal punishment that have escalated to point of physical injury or the risk of physical injury.
Physical abuse often occurs simultaneously with other forms of child maltreatment. An unfortunate but common example of this is when a boy is hit with closed fists by his father while also being belittled and verbally insulted. In this case, the boy would be considered to have experienced both physical and emotional abuse.

Other than physical abuse, emotional abuse also has a huge impact on a child’s life. Emotional child abuse is any attitude, behavior, or failure to act that interferes with a child's mental health or social development. It can range from a simple verbal insult to an extreme form of punishment. Emotional abuse is almost always present when another form of abuse is found. Surprisingly, emotional abuse can have more long-lasting negative psychiatric effects than either physical abuse or sexual abuse. Emotional abuse towards a child can consist of rejection, humiliation, isolation, exploitation and corruption. These all affect the childs attitude and personality causing them to suffer from low confidence, fearful and unable to trust others, aggressive and emotionally/socially and academically delayed n their future. Emotional abuse takes a huge toll on a childs confidence because they were put down so many times by someone who felt the need to affect a childs life in a negative way. A child may go through life not feeling good enough physically and socially because their low confidence and memory of negative experiences throughout their childhood have affected their life in the future.

Amongst physical and emotional abuse comes sexual abuse. Children are very vulnerable to abuse due to their age, innocence and size. Children are unable to defend and fight for themselves and are unable to identify the actions that may take place that are considered sexual abuse. Sexual abuse seems to be the most harmful to a child’s future and usually affects their relationships as they get older, whether it is with friends or a boyfriend/girlfriend. A person who was once sexual abused as a child tends to hide their pain from others, due to embarrassment, threats, or just not being 100% sure if they were in fact sexually abused by someone depending on how extreme and obvious the abuse was. People who have been sexually abused as children tend to find it hard to get into a physical relationship with a boyfriend or girlfriend because they feel as if they cannot trust their partner’s intentions. Having to deal with sexual abuse as a child whether it be from someone in your family or a stranger, there are many factors that become automatically incorporated in your life after the abuse. As a child, some behavior effects may be occurring nightmares, bed wetting, thumb sucking, and the child tends to become clingy and insecure. Some may be grief which may lead into depression, mistrust, anger, hostility and guilt. These factors may lead into anxiety, fear, shame, the need to take control of situations and other people and a sense of inadequacy.  Sexual abuse has such a huge effect in both your personal life and your life with other, which may cause issues within relationships due to one of the main factors in not being able to trust someone.

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? Some parents may or may not even notice that they are neglecting their child until they see their childs attitude towards them change.

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 how child abuse can effect their present and future.

            While experts debate the accuracy of the statistics, few dispute the harm that child abuse can cause. While some children die of neglect and abuse, most victims survive with scars that stay with them throughout their lives. As stated by the National Council on Child Abuse and Family Violence, “Abuse robs children of the opportunity to develop healthy, trusting relationships with adults, contributes to low self-esteem, and impairs healthy psycho-social development. Indeed, the effects of childhood abuse often last a lifetime.” Abuse changes the entire turn out of a child, most likely causing the child to do a 180 degree change from the personality they would have turned out to have if they grew up without dealing with abuse in their childhood. Unfortunately scarring, whether it be external or internal both affect a childs mind severely causing them either teaching them to learn and grow from their experiences or go down a long dark road in a negative way causing them to hurt themselves psychically or by committing suicide.

          Due to child abuse, many relationships between a parent and child or whoever the abuser may be have gone downhill. With trust being such 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. Children will learn 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 who do not know where to turn should go in treatment for help. Support groups and treatment centers are available to help any and every person who has been abused.

Many people cope with abusive situations differently and may not find treatment centers helpful for them. Both psychologist and therapist may help in this situation. Some people may even turn to becoming a motivational speaker on their experience and what they went through and suffered from. This may help the person overcome what they’ve been holding in for a long time and also helps others learn on where they can get help if it were ever needed. Many children are afraid to ask for help, they feel they will be hurt again or punished. It is so very important that children know it is necessary and right to seek help. Unfortunately, 90% of children abused are under the age of 10.