The Neglect of Children
Introduction
The difficulty of understanding of child abuse and neglect phenomenon lies in the great amount of issues and problems, which this phenomenon occupies; and the variety of themes, that can be essential parts of this study or just have slight relation with child maltreatment studies. The information which is given in C. Crosson-Tower’s book of “Understanding Child Abuse and Neglect” has well-organized structure that is very important because the spectrum of child maltreatment problems is enormous and it is hard to assimilate it for the first time. That is why the author’s material is a concentration of the most significant works, theories and discoveries in this field of study, which were made by a lot of scientists. From the chapters I have read I could find out about types and causes of child abuse and neglect; psychological characteristics of abused children and neglectful parents; sexual abuse – its categories, characteristics and the consequences of sexual relationships both for children and adults.
The paper covers themes of neglectful parents (mothers in particular), physical symptoms of maltreatment (their possible causes, types with descriptions) and child prostitution (boys’ in particular).
New/ Interesting/ Thought-Provoking Information
One of the most important and significant consequences that we can make about causes of child abuse and neglect is that child, who has suffered from this in childhood and has had dysfunctional relationships within his family of origin, is more likely to become neglectful parent in the adulthood; it is like circle when offended becomes the offender. It was also interesting to get to know about classification of neglectful mothers developed by Polansky and his colleagues. Among five types, there are two (apathetic-futile and impulse-ridden) which are the most common and are observed in the most of the women. First group of women is distinguished by unenthusiastic and apathetic style of living, negative attitude to life and chaotic relationships. Second most “popular” type of neglectful mothers is impulse-ridden; it is characterized by their low resistance to stress and disappointments, they often satisfy their desires and needs rather than children’s. The rarest type of neglectful parents but, as for me, the most dangerous is when an adult is psychotic and suffers from an inability to perceive the real world because of his illusory one.
Having studied the classification of mothers, who maltreat their children, I started to think how many families develop with child abuse and how hard to control the extension of this tragic problem. Apparently, there should be methods to inform all potential parents about possible problems with raising the children and the harm they can receive because of neglect.
Other new and interesting information I have received from the reading of this book connected with physical symptoms of child maltreatment, which are quite easy to identify. Although childhood is that time, when person is often injured by himself, some kind of bruises, burns or, for example, internal injuries appear on such a body part, which the child could not injure by himself: “It may not always be easy to differentiate the accidental injury from the intentional one. The wise investigator, however, armed with a knowledge of indicators, considers other factors as well. It is vital to have a complete explanation of how the injury occurred” (Crosson-Tower, 2014, p. 95). The classification of symptoms accompanied by detailed explanations and descriptions of the injuries. Completely new and shocking information touches shaken baby syndrome, which if does not kill the baby, it causes huge damages in the further child development. The existence of such disease as well as a high probability that mothers can cause their children’s head injuries makes me feel terrible about children’s future; physical abuse is often hard to recognize and prove, that is why it is more difficult to cope with it. While studying this material, I was thinking this information is incredibly hard to accept emotionally until I have started reading about sexual abuse.
The main conclusion I have made by learning about sexual abuse is that the closer relationships between the rapist and the victim the more harmful it would be for child personality, and this statement surprised and impressed me. Also it was rather unexpectedly to find out that girls and boys have different reasons for starting doing prostitution, though common causes such as obtaining drugs and seeking the money remain. It is stated that males, usually, begin to prostitute in order to take an adventure, to be more sociable, to seek attention and – if they are homosexuals – in order to have sexual contacts with men. Speaking about homosexual relationship the pederasty phenomenon also needs to be specified. After reading the material from the book about pederasty, I have an ambiguous attitude to the men who love boys. On the one hand, pederasty has been always associated with mental disorder and pedophilia. On the other hand, I have got to know that this type of “love” and sexual relationships is not men’s psychological disease or disorder. Moreover, boys usually like such relationships or at least do not appear as victims and do not deeply traumatized by this connection. It turned out that special organizations and associations exist to protect the rights of men who love boys: “they [pederasts] see themselves as guided by a particular code of ethics. This ethical code suggests that the boys are not merely sexual objects but have feelings and interests of their own the pederast is encouraged to protect the best interests of the boy by discouraging drugs and alcohol and encouraging him to stay in school” (Freeman-Longo and Blanchard, 1998, p. 108). So I join the author’s question: should we think about pederasty as criminal relationship that abuses the children or it is a pure love based on mutual feelings?
Difficult Information and Explanatory Theories
For those who read about neglectful parents for the first time it can be difficult to understand characteristics of all five types which is given. Therefore, the author uses several things that help to accept the theory. Firstly, explanation of every new type begins on a new paragraph with bold type. It helps to structure all previously unknown information in reader’s head. Secondly, Crosson-Tower often resorts to modeling the dialogues between abusive mother and her child to demonstrate how each of the neglecting types appears in real life. Finally, the author cites real stories as examples of the behavior of neglectful mothers. They (stories) appear as short texts in italics and represent the practical guide to the theory above. All these methods (structuring of the information in the text, highlighting with different fonts, modeling situation and giving demonstrative stories) allow the reader to accept and understand brand new information easier.
Learning about physical symptoms can cause difficulties with understanding of medical terms, classification of severity of injuries and shaken baby syndrome, though the text does not have a great number of terminologies and the author gives clear explanations for all difficult information. There are no tables or graphics throughout the whole “The Physical Abuse of Children” paragraph, which means that in general the material about this theme does not complicate to understand.
The theme of sexual abuse of children was the hardest to perceive emotionally. Considering the fact that the coverage of this theme is wide, and it consists of numerous sub-themes and subtopics, it was also difficult to examine the whole material cognitively. Cynthia Crosson-Tower gives the readers all of the truth just for what it is: about incest, pedophilia, child pornography, child prostitution. The last one is one of the hardest truth to believe. In this case, the presentation of the information does not complicate – the plenty of terminologies, words that are hard to remember or theories that are difficult to perceive are missed. But the way this material influence on the emotional part of the mind is stressful enough. In the same time, it is also a good way to absorb new knowledge due to the ability of the brain to remember the things which shocked or impressed the most, even if they are negative.
In such a tough theme as pederasty author uses one good method to occupy the reader’s attention: she asks questions. Addressing to the readers by asking them something is an effective method of getting readers’ maximal involvement into the problem; it encourages them to think about the answer on the question thus consciously or unconsciously readers start to pay much of their attention to the discussed problem.
Conclusion
The material that I have learned from chapters touches both rational and emotional parts of the consciousness. A lot of new information has helped to broaden the horizons of knowledge in the field of child-care. Numerous names of researchers, theorists, psychologist and other academics and the presentation of their works demonstrates multiple points of view and allows to consider one or another problem from different aspects.
It was interesting for me to get to know about neglectful parents, physical and sexual abuse in more details, so I found out that there are five types of neglectful mothers, that shaken baby syndrome can kill the child and that pederasty is not a disorder and besides that boys voluntarily become prostitutes to have sex with adult men.
References
Crosson-Tower, C. (2014). Understanding Child Abuse and Neglect, Ninth Edition. New Jersey: Pearson.
Freeman-Longo, R. E., and Blanchard, G. (1998). Sexual Abuse in America: Epidemic of the 21st
Century. Brandon, VT: Safer Society Press.
Polansky, N., Chalmers, M. A., Buttenwieser, E., and Williams, D. (1981). Damaged Parents: An
Anatomy of Child Neglect. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
