Community Violence and Children

A detailed Summary of Community Violence and Children

As Carole Goguen wrote in her fact sheet for A National Center for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, community violence includes predatory violence, which involves a stranger being violent or making threats of violence, and violence arising from non-family interpersonal conflicts. Both of these types of violence include shootings, rapes, stabbings, beatings, and other brutal acts. Because children and adolescents see or become involved in community violence in their own neighborhoods and schools, it is now recognized as a public health issue.

All children and adolescents are at risk of being somehow involved in community violence. As you would think, living in poor, inner-city areas seems to increase the risk for community violence exposure. There are other things that can also put people at a greater risk; for example, gang affiliation and substance abuse, but nothing can guarantee that a child will or will not experience any violence.

Children are not only affected by community violence when they are hurt or threatened, but also when they see it being done to someone else. Our textbook, Exploring Child Development tells us that one-third of children in high crime areas in United States cities witness a homicide, and more tha

Children's exposure to community violence greatly affects them not only physically, through injuries caused by the assault, but also emotionally. Children often tend to try to avoid any discussion of the trauma, display disorganized behavior, have nightmares, become withdrawn, show fear, become aggressive, have difficulty paying attention, and often regress to doing things like wetting the bed, and sucking their thumb. Often after experiencing a serious trauma, children become depressed, angry, distrustful, alienated, and have a feeling of betrayal, causing them to no longer trust their own environment. This is a very difficult thing for a young person to experience, because they have very little influence on their surroundings. This makes the child realize that they cannot really protect themselves; therefore they feel unsafe in their own community. These things are all signs of, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD.

In general, violence can do many things to many people. Whether you are young or old, majority, or minority, male or a female, violence can affect you in different ways. Some become violent themselves, while others become very quiet and distant. Some need to talk about their experience, while others avoid it as much as they can. I believe the best way to keep your children from experiencing violence is to involve them in after school activiti

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Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: Miscellaneous