Child Abuse: A Topic to Take Lightly?In recent years, child abuse has become, for the first time, an issue worthy of muchattention.
Child abuse happens everywhere; it is deeply embedded and practiced in manyvarious cultures and geographical locations. Everyone has his or her own opinion on thesignificance of child abuse. To some, abuse merely is a topic that people have becomeobsessed with. Many people believe that abuse is only an extreme word for gooddiscipline. These people are blind to the seriousness of child abuse.
There are several verynegative effects that spur from child abuse. These effects are anything but healthy inreference to the development of a child abused in any way. Many parents, in every culture, use child abuse as a method of conditioning theirchildren to behave well. They use severe negative reinforcement too punish their children. These parents only see the immediate effects of child abuse.
Naturally, if a child is beatenfor doing something wrong, they will learn not to do it again. However, abused childrentend to develop many problems later in life. In some cases, abused children will avoid growing close to people. They feel morecomfortable trying to hide all of their pain and suffering. An approach like this to buildingrelationships can lead to a lack of the true sense of intimacy and trust. A child will isolatethemselves from others and experience severe loneliness.
Abused children are more likelyto bully other children around, isolating themselves from their peers (Judith 117). Theysometimes fall into the pattern of befriending people who will only betray and cause themAbuse to a child can be a source of very painful experiences. Children often handlethese experiences in the wrong way. Sometimes, these children try to ignore these painfulfeelings, which makes it difficult to learn how to cope with them. This behavior may leadto confusion and high stress.
Children often become lost in the wavering maze of feelinglittle or no emotion, then switching to being overwhelmed with emotion and not knowinghow to handle their feelings. These children may become psychologically unhealthy due totheir emotionally instability (www. childabuse. com). Someone that was abused as a child is more likely to become an abusive parentthan someone who was not (Judith 221). In this way, abuse can carry on from generationfrom generation.
These families have unhealthy relationships. Family members frequentlylack the love, caring, and friendship that everyone needs. Being neglected of theseimportant feelings can cause frustration; this can cause a child to feel secluded, depressed,or cause them to be violent. It is even hard on me at the age of 18 being away from myfamily.
Sometimes I don’t have anyone to talk to about personal feelings or anyone toshow me true love and compassion. My friends have become more close to me than I everthought they would. Tender love and care are things that everyone needs to experience. Abuses is a problem that more people face than most think.
If more people learnedabout the effects of abuse, the general development of our children would be much better. Some people, however, just don’t care to learn about abuse or problems it may cause. Child abuse is a problem that is so prevalent, it is difficult to prevent. Hopefully, in thefuture, a much higher percentage of our society will better understand the devastation thatBibliography:Work CitedHerman L.
, Judith. Trauma and Recovery. Basic Books, 1992. DiScala, C. , Sege, R.
, Guohua, L. , and Reece, R. Child Abuse and Unintentional Injuries:A 10-Year Retrospective. Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med. , 2000. http://www.
childabuse. comU. S. Department of Health and Human Services, Advisory Board on Child Abuse andNeglect. “A Nations Shame: Fatal Child Abuse and Neglect”. April 1995.
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