Child Abuse
June 24, 2007
What is child abuse? Child abuse is the mistreatment of a child in four different ways. Those four ways consist of sexual abuse, physical abuse, emotional abuse, and neglect. The topic has been researched and discussed for many years, but no one took the time to report such horrid information. As many recall, there is no exact answer as to why child abuse occurs, but majority of it depends on the abuser’s lifestyle. Several factors have been determined for probable cause of child abuse that comes from the abuser. Such factors would include stress, difficulty controlling their anger, alcohol or drug abuse, and personal history of being abused. However, throughout this reading, the types, signs, symptoms, and causes will be explained along with ways to help.
The first type of abuse would be physical abuse. Physical abuse happens when a parent loses control of their selves and takes it out on the child. Some signs of this type of abuse would be unexplained bruises, burns, welts, bone fractures, head injuries (sometimes resulting in death), fear of adults, and not wanting to go home. To determine physical abuse in children is by watching how they act towards others or around others. The abuser, in most cases, is the parent such as a mother, father, or foster parent.
The second type of abuse is sexual abuse. “Sexual abuse of a child is any sexual act between an adult and a child, including penetration, intercourse, incest, rape, oral sex, and sodomy* (Child Abuse: Types, Signs, Symptoms, Causes, and Help. 2007).” Some causes of child sexual abuse come from alcohol and drug abuse, belief that the sexual acts are not harmful to the child, and poor impulse* control. The signs of sexual abuse include: fear of family members or a particular person, depression, insecure of oneself, distance or isolated from everyone, and inappropriate interest in sexual acts.
Emotional abuse can happen anywhere. At a friend’s house, at...