Saving the Children
Throughout history children have been deliberately killed, abused, and neglected by rulers, society or parents. Child abuse is an injury or pattern of injuries to a child that is not accidental. According to the National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect, in 1995 about 2.9 million children in the United States were reported as abused or neglected to government agencies that investigate child abuse. Child abuse can be hard to recognize sometimes because it is often under the name of spanking or discipline ("According to the National Committee for the Prevention of Child Abuse", par. 1). "Even when the state takes children away from parents because of the severity of the abuse, parents sometimes deny that they did anything wrong" (par.2). But when does discipline become abuse? "According to Utah State law, if you spank a child too hard and he/she gets a bruise, that technically counts as an incidence of child abuse" (par. 2). Refraining from physical punishment, as practiced by parents and recommended by children psychologist today, would have shocked parents of earlier times (Murdock 7). "Before the 1960's parental discipline often took the form of physical punishment. When spankings became beatings physical ab
The consequences of child abuse are unfortunate. A child assaulted by a parent loses self-respect, hope, and trust and with no choice available, resorts to doing what they were taught, the only thing they know, abuse (Fong 27). Sexual abuse occurs when adults use children for sexual gratification ("According to the National Committee for the Prevention of Child Abuse", par. 1). Sexual abuse may begin with kissing or fondling and progress to more intrusive sexual acts, such as oral sex and vaginal or anal penetration. "Experts estimate that one out of every three or four girls and one out of every seven to ten boys below the age of eighteen are violated" (Murdock 11). Other acts that use children as sexual objects, such as, child pornography and subjecting children to view sexual acts committed by adults, are also include in the definition of child sexual abuse (Gitterman 346). The US Department of Health and Human Services categorizes sexual abuse into three groups: intrusion (evidence of actual penile penetration), molestation with genital contact (acts where some form of actual genital contact had occurred), and other or unknown sexual abuse (unspecified acts not known to have involved actual genital contact: e.g., fondling of breasts or buttocks, exposure) (11). Maltreated teenagers are filled with anger caused by years of pain and rejection. They become afraid when under stress of minor frustrations. "Underneath the anger is pain, which makes these young people particularly vulnerable to additional disappointment and mistreatment" (23). "Denial is a natural response to painful experiences." Some of the behaviors in which these young people hide their denial are of victims of physical child abuse is eight years old (Wallace 33). "Twenty-seven percent of all child maltreatment cases involve physical abuse. Three percent of these cases involve life-threatening injuries such as poisoning, fractures, or brain damage. Fourteen percent involve minor injuries, including bruises, cuts or shaking. The remaining eleven percent are unspecified injuries" (33). The data is probably a low estimate of the true incidence of abuse since there is no exact method of determining unreported cases. There is also a strong relationship between stress and violent physical outburst directed at youngsters who are at the wrong place at the wrong time. "Abusive mothers report high levels of parental-stress which they claim is brought about by their child's poor compliance with behavior-directed instructions and their own tolerance levels towards their child's behavior" (Busby 47). Stress that is brought on by a variety of conditions raises the risk of child abuse within a family. These conditions include unemployment, illness, poor housing conditions, a larger-than-average-family size, the presence of a new baby, a disabled person in the home, or the death of a family member, but as always, families living in p
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Approximate Word count = 1966
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page double spaced)
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