Abused Children Should Not Have to Die

Physical abuse is deliberately hurting a child causing injuries such as bruises, broken bones, burns or cuts. This can also be when a parent or career induces illness on a child; this can be through giving the child medicine they don’t need to make them unwell. The signs a child could be going through this are, being withdrawn from activates and playing with children, being clingy, not eating properly, having trouble sleeping, wetting the bed and being anxious within them self.

Physical abuse – involves causing deliberate physical harm to a child and may include burning, drowning, hitting, poisoning, scalding, shaking, suffocating or throwing. Physical abuse also includes deliberately causing, or fabricating the symptoms of, ill health in a child.

Child abuse in America is an ongoing problem and something needs to be done. There are approximately one million children abused annually in the United States. (Table 339) Cases of child abuse and neglect are reported every ten seconds, and researchers believe that there’s three times that amount that goes unnoticed. (Child Abuse: Know the Signs and Stop the Violence Against Children.) Something needs to be done for these children who are too weak and too powerless to help themselves.

“The Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act” states’ that “child abuse is the leading cause of death in children under the age of eighteen.” Child abuse occurs when adults inflict violence and cruelty upon children. Abuse is any willful act that results in physical, mental, or sexual injury that causes or is likely to cause the child to be physically, mental, or emotionally impaired. Abuse happens to children of any age, sex, race, religion, and social status.

Physical abuse also defined as non-accidental trauma or physical injury, of which can be caused by punching, beating, kicking, biting, burning or harming the child. Physical abuse is the most visible and second most common form of child maltreatment.

Child Protective Services (CPS) is a complex system of assessments, investigations, and conclusions. CPS is the central agency in each communities child abuse and neglect service system. It is responsible for ensuring that preventative, investigative, and treatment services are available to children and families endangered by child abuse and neglect. As a result, CPS workers must perform a variety of functions when responding to situations of child maltreatment and play a variety of roles throughout their involvement with child protective clients. Reporting a suspective case of child maltreatment to the local CPS agency (or a family member’s own request for help with the problem) initiates

Somebody may abuse or neglect a child by inflicting harm, or by failing to act to prevent harm. Children may be abused in a family or in an institutional or community setting, by those known to them or, more rarely, by a stranger for example, via the internet. They may be abused by an adult or adults, or another child or children. Physical abuse: Physical abuse may involve hitting, shaking, throwing, poisoning, burning or scalding, drowning, suffocating, or otherwise causing physical harm to a child. Physical harm may also be caused when a parent or carer fabricates the symptoms of, or deliberately induces, illness in a child.

Emotional abuse is one of the most harmful abuses for a child because it has the potential to impact their entire life in such a negative aspect. Emotional abuse is doing things to hurt the child emotionally or hurt their feelings and often making them feel unwanted and useless. A child is most often emotionally abused by a parent or trusted adult because the child is seeking approval from them and that causes them to be emotionally hurt a lot more when the adult says degrading or hurtful things. A child that has been emotionally abused may not care about things that are going on around him/her, might not react as a normal child would to pain, avoid a certain person or caregiver, act more fearful, angry and sad than normal, his/her grades in school may go down and they may even result to harming themselves.

Emotional abuse is one of the most common forms of child abuse. When it comes to children emotional abuse includes encouraging children to develop self-destructive behavior, behavior that is threatening or likely to place the child or the child’s loved ones in danger, excessive, aggressive or unreasonable demands in which place expectations on a child that a child cannot meet, and ignoring a child’s attempt to interact. Emotional abuse in a child also includes the failure to provide the proper nurturing necessary for a child’s psychological growth and development. Terrorizing is the most common form of emotional abuse recognized in the case files, with nearly 81.1 percent of emotionally abuse children suffering from it. 63 percent of the emotionally abused children have experienced physical abuse and

Physical abuse of a child is when a parent or caregiver causes any non-accidental physical harm to a child. Physical abuse may include, but is not limited to: striking, kicking, burning, biting, hair pulling, choking, throwing, shoving, or whipping. Even if the caregiver did not mean to cause harm, if the child is injured, the action is considered abuse.  Physical discipline from a parent that does not injure or impair a child is not considered abuse; however, non-violent alternatives are always available. There are signs that a parent or caregiver is causing physical harm to the child, and they include but are not limited to a history of violence/abuse, that keeps the child away from school, church, or clubs, delays or prevents medical care for the child, takes the child to different doctors or hospitals, displays aggression towards the child, is overly anxious about the child’s behavior, and last, cannot or will not explain the injuries of the child, or

Child abuse affects millions of children every year. Child abuse is defined as “the hurting or causing harm to a child” (Stewart, 2003, p. 6). Most people do not understand why a parent would want to hurt their children. “The general belief is that parents who maltreat their children are pathological and certainly not like us” (Polonko, 2005). It is not just parents that abuse the children it is also teachers, babysitters, and daycare workers (Stewart, 2003). Lingern (2008) reported the following:

According to Pecora, Sanders, Wilson, English, Puckett & Rudlang-Perman (2014), “Every year in the USA, about 695,000 unique children are confirmed as victims of child maltreatment (US Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Administration on Children, Youth and Families, Children’s Bureau 2011) (p. 321). Such startling statistics suggest that child abuse is not just a public health issue; it is an epidemic. However, research reveals that prevention is possible through a collaborative effort made by parents, schools, the government, social services, and the

However, all forms of child abuse carry emotional consequences because the child's psychological and emotional development inevitably suffers from all forms of abuse. An intervention model that would focus on emotional abuse could also focus on preventing other forms of abuse because violent behavior towards children often comes from the same underlying causes, and most risk factors for child maltreatment are associated with caregiver, family, and environmental factors (McDonald, 2007). With this in mind, a possible solution would have to include early detection, but the intervention would most likely focus on factors that cause all types of child abuse. Despite the widespread occurrences of all forms of abuse, emotional neglect or maltreatment are practically impossible to detect while they occur and impair the child's normal development and social integration. Emotional abuse includes includes verbal, mental, and psychological maltreatment of children, and it is frequently overlooked by the community and mental health professionals who do not define emotional abuse as a suitable factor for diagnostic purposes (as cited in Schneider, Baumrind, & Kimerling, 2007). In reality, emotional abuse is frequently used in many families, it occurs in several worldwide cultures, and it carries significant consequences that should not be overlooked.

INTRODUCTION: “Child Abuse occurs when a parent or a care taker physically, emotionally, or sexually mistreats or neglects a child resulting in the physical, emotional, or sexual harm or imminent risk of harm or exploitation, or in extreme cases the death of a child,” child abuse is a big deal because in today’s society many children face abuse, there are many effects and reasons as to why a child may be abuse.

The issue of child emotional abuse is often a difficult topic to discuss as well as treat. Emotional abuse can be very difficult to recognize since it is generally a relationship between a child and a caretaker and not a specific incident or series of events that can be pointed to as abuse. In fact, emotional and psychological maltreatment have no definition that is universally agreed upon, therefore, the two terms are often used interchangeably. Emotional abuse is the most common form of child abuse. While emotional abuse can be present absent any other type of abuse, such as physical or sexual abuse, there is almost certainly emotional abuse present with all other forms of abuse. Emotional abuse may not leave physical scars but it does appear to leave long lasting psychological scars. While there is evidence of psychological damage due to emotional abuse, it is not clear exactly how deep and lasting the damage may be. There is a great need to research the effects, treatment, and interventions for emotional abuse.