Child Abuse
I often, as
a teenager, tried to imagine the escape and freedom that I would one day
experience from my tumultuous home life. I remember lying on a mattress on the
floor, by myself, in the unfinished basement. I had been exiled from my room,
as well as from the family’s presence by my step-father, dubbed a pariah, for
teasing my brother. I was confined to a portion of the house that was unfinished
except for a partially finished bathroom. The door to this area, locked with a
key. I was allowed to leave this room only for dinner, and
only after everyone else had already left the table. I would not be able to
have contact with anyone, which included my friends. It was summer time, and I
didn’t have the luxury of school to escape this very lonely and depriving time.
It's a sad story, and even sadder is
that it was a real incident that happened to me. How can a parent treat a child
like this and what can we do to help prevent it? In this paper you’ll find my
quest to understand these two questions.
The basic information about child abuse, the common causes & consequences
of abuse, the current prevention techniques/programs, and my conclusion.
First,
before we get into what the causes of abuse are, we need to know what
child abuse/maltreatment is. The Center for Disease Control defines child abuse
as “Any act or series of acts of commission or omission by a parent or other
caregiver (e.g., clergy, coach, teacher) that results in harm, potential for
harm, or threat of harm to a child.”
The term child abuse can be broken
down into four main categories: neglect, physical abuse, emotional abuse, and sexual
abuse. Neglect is when the caregiver fails to care for the basic emotional/physical
needs of a child. Physical abuse are acts committed by the caregiver that result
in bodily harm of a child. Emotional abuse is caused by subjecting another to
behaviors that cause mental trauma, such as berating another person’s
self-worth. Sexual abuse is when an individual coerces another to engage in
unwanted sexual contact.
The data shows that the majority of the time parents were the perpetrators of
abuse. Men and women were almost equally as likely to abuse children. I was surprised by this statistic because most of the people I have talked to, who have been abuse, were abuse by their father. I anticipated the men to be the abusers more often than women. The most
common abuse children were subjected to would be neglect. Though I don’t
have any evidence to support my claim, I am sure that the likelihood of neglect
being combined with one of the other three types of abuse are relatively
common.
There are
many causes that factor into child abuse. The use of drugs and alcohol, income,
employment, parent history, poor anger management, parent mental-health, and lack
of child-rearing skills. The top factor that seems to contribute to child abuse
the most appears to be substance abuse.
In all the peer-reviewed papers that
I read, with regards to substance abuse, as it related to maltreatment of
children supported the statement above. When adult indulge in substance abuse
they significantly increases the likelihood of abusing a child. I believe the reason
is substance abuse contributes to high rates of child abuse is due to the fact
that the parent or caregiver has impairment of higher thought processes and
reasoning. I find it extremely sad the amount of selfishness, on the part of
the parent, to allow drugs and/or alcohol, to dictate the kind of parent they
choose to be.
There’s a range of consequences to a
society that allows child abuse to exist. As abused children grow into
adulthood we can start to see the effect of abuse as a flood of emotional, mental health problems, and disorders surface. Some of these disorders
& health problems include the following: “Low self-esteem, depression and anxiety, Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), attachment difficulties, eating disorders, poor peer relations, self-injurious behaviors (e.g. suicide attempts)”
I also found articles that suggested
that adults who are abused as children are more likely than adults who weren’t
abused as children, to turn to substance abuse as a way of coping with the past
and present feelings. Thus, it seems to be a self-sustaining
perpetual cycle of abuse. Victims begin self-medicating in their teen-adulthood
years, and becoming abusers themselves in the process. So as you can see there
are far-reaching consequences that that allow the cycle of abuse to continue.
There is much in the way of
prevention. National and local ad campaigns, social media campaigns, public
service announcements, websites, hotlines, school programs, community programs,
self-help books, you name it’s probably been thought of. Prevention starts with the general public at
large, families who are at high risk for child abuse, and families where
abuse has already occurred.
There are many ways at-risk parents
& children can be reached to help prevent abuse. The sad thing is that
child abuse still happens. It will continue to happen. I am not saying these
programs don’t help, even if these programs cut abuse down forty percent, the
number of cases is still too high. One child abused is one child too many. I
think the real place prevention needs to start with is the individual. Child
abuse prevention starts with me. If everyone in a community would try to be the
best person, parent, neighbor, friend,
brother/sister, grandparent then we can be, doing all we can to love one
another as we love ourselves and having empathy one to another, learning to
control our stress levels and desires, we wouldn’t need to worry about prevention
programs. We would be the prevention we seek.
In conclusion
I found that there was much I didn’t know about child abuse, even being one who
was a victim of child abuse myself. I think that while we, as a society, are
doing everything we can feasibly do to prevent it, it still isn’t enough.
Scholars and psychologists are only able to speculate on the best ways to solve
problem. Prevention isn’t something we treat during or after the abuse. It’s
something we do to stop abuse before it starts. From what I’ve read I believe what we are
really treating is the symptoms. If we
were able to treat the problem, the real problem, which I believe is adults not dealing with stress well, and also not
holding themselves accountable to a higher moral code. If we
want this to change we need to start that change with ourselves. Each
individual has to make a concerted effort to change themselves. I have chosen
to change myself. I refuse to be another link in this chain that would allow
the abuse to continue. Much like a caterpillar I have shed my past life, my
pain, my sorrows, and I have begun a new one as a butterfly.
So now my question for
you is: Are you going to make the change?
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