ENC 1101
Cause and effect
Every year hundreds of thousands of child abuse cases are reported in the US. Although sometimes the effects of an abuse are not tangible, child abuse and neglect have serious consequences in a child’s life and his family that could last for all his life and even by generations, These are; Health consequences caused by physical abuse, psychological and behavioral consequences.
Physical effects of abuse could be relatively minors, like bruises and scratches; or really severe, like broken bones, bleeding or even death. In some cases these effects are not visible and they disappear quickly, but the pain and suffer that a child experienced could last forever. Some health consequence of child abuse could be neck damage, broken bones or brain damage in a baby that has been shaken really strongly. In some cases, child abuse could create brain development problems causing abnormal changes that would affect the ability of a child to process information, to speak and to study.
Immediate psychological effects of child abuse, like isolation, fear, lack of confidence, could have lifetime consequences like low self-stem, depression and socialization problems. Depression is a common consequence of physical and emotional abuse. In many of the cases of child abuse, children have poor mental and emotional health that makes them have eating disorders, anxiety, depression and a lot of them even try to commit suicide. Child abuse could also create a trauma in a child.
Not all the victims of child abuse have immediate behavioral changes. However, most of them have them in long term. Abused children are more likely to get into drugs, being bad students and even become teen pregnant; also, they are most likely to be sexually risky and get an STD. Abused children are more likely to be arrested for criminal acts before they turn eighteen and to be arrested for violent or criminal acts as adults. Abused children tend more to use drugs, smoke and to...