Every year millions of children face and experience child abuse. It includes not only physical, but also sexual and emotional abuse, and neglect. Usually child abuse leads to a number of serious consequences including mental disorders such as posttraumatic stress disorder, depression and anxiety. Moreover many such children might have physiological health problems, difficulties with learning and social problems that do not allow them to get along with peers and family members in a normal way. In most of the cases children, who do not receive a proper support and assistance after abuse experience and incidents are more likely to have different mental disorders, therefore provision of sufficient help is extremely important.
As it has been mentioned above, child abuse can be different and each type of child abuse has its own definition. Physical child abuse, for example, is defined as a physical hurt or injury as a result of such actions as kicking, hitting, shaking or even burning. Sexual abuse is another form that is defined as the use of child by another person with the purpose of his or her own sexual satisfaction. Emotional abuse is an abusive behaviour that causes child’s emotional trauma and has a negative impact on child’s emotional development. Child neglect is also a common form of abuse that is characterized by a failure of a caregiver to provide basic needs to a child including food, clothing, shelter or schooling. There is also interpersonal abuse that usually happens in a community or a family, when one person intentionally hurts another one. The most typical example of interpersonal abuse is domestic violence. Intimate partner violence is also a form of sexual or emotional abuse towards a past or current intimate partner. The last form is bullying that is defined as abuse happening usually in school, when a child is abused by a peer or a group of peers. Bullying might be both emotional and physical. (What is Child Abuse?)
Unfortunately, child abuse is much more common than it might be expected. According to the statistics, 3.6 million referrals are made in the United States to child protection agencies, which involves in total approximately 6.6 million children. The United States remains the nation with one of the worst statistics on child abuse among all highly developed countries, where every day 4-7 children are abused daily. In terms of the prevalence of child abuse types, the most common category is physical abuse – 28.3%. Then goes sexual abuse – approximately 20% of abused children experience this. Emotional neglect is the third common type of abuse – almost 15% of children. Frightening statistics also shows that many cases of child abuse might be fatal for victims. Thus, in 2014 it was indicated that 1 580 children died as a result of child abuse, and the majority of them (70%) were two years old or even younger. (Child Abuse Statistics & Facts)
There are several theories that are linked to child abuse and that explain this social problems. The first theory is social learning theory, according to which children always learn parental practices through their own observation and experience. Thus, those children who are physically punished and emotionally neglected may learn to believe that it is an appropriate, healthy and acceptable form of discipline, and thus they are quiet likely to use it as well later for their own children when they become parents. Thus social learning theory leads to a conclusion that those parents, who abuse their children, must have been victims themselves in their childhood. (Daro et al. 70) Another theory that explains the problem of child abuse is attachment theory that was developed by John Bowlby in 1970. According to this theory, close and good relationships between a child and a mother during child’s first five years are extremely important. Therefore, if a child is neglected or abused by a mother during his or her early years, it might lead to many psychological and mental problems. Such children also might experience problems with development of verbal and nonverbal skills, and have difficulties in adolescence and even adulthood. It also might negatively influence their own pattern of behaviour with their future children. (Frost 125) The third theory was also developed in 70s by the scholar Garbarino and is called ecological theory. This theory explains the reason of child abuse in a family and claims that it happens because of a mismatch of a parent to a child, or a family to a neighbourhood or community. For example, parents who experience a high level of stress and do not have strong coping skills might have problems with meeting needs of their children. In such families a possibility of domestic violence and child abuse is quiet high. Moreover, a risk of child abuse is even higher, if a child has inborn disabilities or learning problems. Ecological theory also emphasized the importance of special social agencies and institutions that play a significant role in preventing of child abuse in communities. Thus, if a community lacks such institutions, the risk of child abuse is also further increased. The last interesting theory that is worth mentioning in relation to child abuse is sociobiological theory. According to it, child abuse or neglect is the result of the reproductive success potential and parental investment. It means that parents recognize only their own offspring and therefore they are so attached to the children that genetically belong to them. Thus, if parent-offspring relationships are artificial (foster or adopted children), parents will not be so emotionally attached to such children, and are more like to hurt and abuse these children. It also related to children with low reproductive potential (handicapped children or children with mental and physical disabilities), even though they are genetically related to their parents. (Clark and Freeman 14)
The good thing in terms of child abuse is that the number of abused children has decreased a little bit during the last decade. For example, in 1998 there are 13 cases of child mistreatment per 1000, 11 cases in 2007 and 10 cases in 2010. However, at the same time the rate of child abuse of infants under the age of 1 has been increasing since the year of 2009. (Child Maltreatment) The reason of why child abuse still remains one of the main social problems nowadays is that it is quiet a controversial issue, especially in terms of child abuse prevention. As specialists and psychologists claim, it is quiet difficult, if not impossible, to identify when a child is at risk of abuse until it is too late. Moreover, the situation is exacerbated by the fact that many parents and families complain that government and social institutions are involving in their personal life too much. However, it does not mean that it is not possible to do anything in order to solve this issue and improve the statistics. Social agencies and institution still play a very important role by providing counselling to children and families and by teaching many parents, especially those who have problematic kids and children with disabilities, how to be good parents, which can be a very helpful strategy.
Works Cited
“Child Abuse Statistics & Facts”. Childhelp. Childhelp. n.d. Web. 27 May 2016.
“Child Maltreatment” Childstats.gov. Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics. 2015. Web. 27 May 2016.
Clark, Robin and Judith Freeman. The Encyclopedia of Child Abuse. New York: Fact on File. 2007. Print
Daro, Deborah, Anne Cohn Donnelly, Lee Ann Huang, Byron Powell. Advances in Child Abuse Prevention Knowledge: The Perspective of New Leadership. Chicago: Springer. 2015. Print
Frost, Nick. Child Welfare: Child abuse and child protection. Oxon: Routledge. 2005. Print.
“What is Child Abuse?” American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry . American Academy of Child Adolescent Psychiatry. 2016. Web. 27 May 2016.
