Four Types of Abuse
Child abuse can be categorized into four different types, that are negligence, emotional abuse, physical abuse, and sexual abuse. A child may be subjected to one or more forms of abuse at any given time. Abuse and negligence can occur within the family, in the community, or in an institutional setting. The abuser may be someone known to the child or a stranger and can be an adult, or another child. In a situation where abuse is found out that has been happening to a child, they should consider it a child welfare and protection issue for those children and they should follow child protection procedures for the victim and the alleged abuser. Most of parents want to love and take care of their children in a safe home. Stress, tiredness, lack of parenting skills, or family support makes the pressures of taking care of a child is overwhelming and causes unconscious abuse. Being a parent can be joyful, meaningful, but sometimes it can also be an overwhelming experience. There may be times when their children’s behavior makes touch the limit of their parents. They may feel driven to some behavior which their children don’t know was wrong or dangerous. Sadly, child abuse most often involves the biological parent of the child but it may also be at the hands of another caregiver or family member. In conclusion, child abuse will cause many negative effects on children. The three major effects of child abuse are emotional effects, physical effects, and psychological effects.
Adverse Effects of Child Abuse
First of all, child abuse can cause a range of emotional effects. Those children who experience child abuse may have a disrupted emotional development. This is because they are often get neglected, humiliated, or frightened and these factors caused them to be low in confidence. In daily life, we might think that knowing new people and building a new relationship like dating are exciting but children that experience child abuse and have low confidence will find it very difficult to form relationships and socialize. They do not easily trust people because they feel insecure with the surroundings. They are scared to be neglected and easily get hurt by people’s actions. When they face society, they will experience depression and anxiety disorder. They have barriers communicating with other people and thus when they face problems they didn’t even dare to seek help from others. They may attempt to run away from that place because they are really scared about people who are not familiar with them. For example, when school starts on the first day, they might be running away from school because there are so many students with different behaviour that makes them feel uncomfortable. These emotional effects influence the lives of these people a lot because children that have low confidence hardly believe themselves in finishing a task. They need confirmation from other people, especially when chasing their dreams. They easily get hurt by what others say and feel it’s hard to stand on their own standpoint. Some of them will be trying to get people’s attention and get sympathy but it usually turns into something silly. In conclusion, emotional abuse on a child will cause a lot of negative effects such as barriers in communicating and socializing with them.
Physical Effects of Child Abuse
Furthermore, another effect of child abuse is the physical effect. Physical abuse is the second most frequently reported form of child abuse. Child physical abuse takes many forms, patterns and severity of injury vary by age of the child. Physical abuse is more common among older children which is between 6 to 12 years old, and the youngest victims that between 3 to 6 years old or even infants that between 0 to 3 years old because they have the highest rates of death from physical abuse. The age at which the abuse occurs influences the way the injuries or any permanent damage affect the child. Infant victims of physical abuse have the greatest risk of suffering long-term physical problems, such as neurological damage that manifests as tremors, lethargy, or vomiting. In more serious cases, the effects of child physical abuse can include permanent blindness or deafness, paralysis, mental and developmental delays, and of course, death. We should know that the longer the abuse continues, the greater the impact on a child. Physical abuse can range from relatively minor effects such as bruises or cuts to severe effects like broken bones, haemorrhage, or even death. The abuser does not realize that there will be wounds, burns that occur on a child after physical abuse. In addition, burns account for approximately 10% of all child abuse and may have a mortality rate up to 30%. For most abused children burns are common and well-marked especially on the dorsal aspect of the hand or the buttocks because those wounds are invisible to others, and these will well cover up their abuser’s behaviour. Not only is that but for most abused children fractures is a common injury because a child’s bones are fragile. It is well known that multiple fractures and fractures at different stages of healing also indicate the presence of abuse and highlight signs of abuse and require a comprehensive bone examination of children under 2 years of age. Physical abusers are normally close persons to the child. Sometimes parents or caregivers are unable to differentiate between physical abuse and punishment. They try to punish children for their mistakes but it crosses limits without them noticing and causes tragedy. They should know that all of their actions may cause the child can’t live normally in the future. Thus, child abuse can cause a lot of physical effects on a child.
Psychological Effects of Child Abuse
Last but not least, child abuse can also lead to psychological effects. Cathy Spatz Wisdom, a professor of psychology at the State University of New York, rightly summed up the evidence “Violence leads to Violence”. People who have witnessed or experienced abuse have often begun to show violent tendencies to others when things are not under their control. Since born, children were a sheet of white paper, pure and simple which parents are the first ones who coloured the paper. Therefore, the behaviour of parents is their role model. For instance, if parents use violence to solve problems, then children will use the same method to solve their problems. When they hit or beat someone, they will feel very enjoyable. However, not all children who grow up witnessing abuse between their parents or experiencing abuse themselves go on to become abusers but approximately one-third of them do. Some psychologists have found out that about 20% of abusive and neglecting parents were themselves victims of child abuse and neglect when they were young. Professionals were able to prove that there is a cycle of violence that passes from parents to child, making the chances for an abused child to become an abusive parent very high. Some of them may become perpetrators of violent crimes. Many inmates in our jails and prisons have been victims of child abuse. However, it is not necessarily true that abused children will become abusive parents in the end because some of them understand the consequences and get rid of those types of behaviours on their own. Instead, they will be more sensible, and will not let their children suffer. They don’t want their children to have the same bad childhood and memories as they do. Overall, child abuse can cause many different types of psychological effects on a child.
Conclusion: Dealing with the issue
In conclusion, child abuse will cause undesirable and negative effects towards children. Child abuse has always existed in our society, and it is time for us to become more aware of it. It is true that there are no statistics to prove that these problems exist, but we know it does, from the ways we see other parents treat their children or the cases we saw in hospitals, or even newspapers. These cases exist all the time, and cannot be underestimated by society. For child abuse, there are many ways to solve these problems. Children need support from child-rights agencies, from the government, and most importantly, from society. Therefore, it is important for society to be aware of this issue especially for parents when they bring up their children, and all this helps to minimize cases of child abuse. Let’s make this world a better and safer place for our children and the future generation.
