CHILD ABUSE

Child Abuse

Child Abuse

Introduction

Dave Pelzer, a leading writer and thinker has given remarkable ideas about children lives. Dave starts his unbelievable story as an abused child with his latest book usually called, "A Child Called "It". Highlighting this book a "page turner" wouldn't give it fairness. This piece of work tells us a traumatic true story of an innocent child who suffers for years at the hands of his mentally ill Mother. (Pelzer, 1995) Just a four year old boy, David Pelzer, is beaten, kicked, famished and distressed in the most awful ways possible by his mentally ill mother. He slowly separated from his family and became a slave. This book has given me enough knowledge about physical abuse and its overall impact on my personal emotions and cognitive skills is very positive. This book really deals with emotional and cognitive practices and its theme and message is very clear for all readers.

Child abuse takes many forms, including physical, emotional, and sexual abuse and neglect. (Pelzer, 1995) These forms are not mutually exclusive and are often difficult to define with precision. Physical child abuse is the excessive and unjustified use of physical force against a child. The abuse might include punching, kicking, beating, biting, burning, and shaking. Injuries from physical abuse might include welts, burns, bites, and broken bones. Physical abuse therefore differs from spanking, a common parenting practice in the United States widely perceived as appropriate and justifiable. Not all societies recognize this distinction between spanking and child abuse. A number of Scandinavian societies have passed laws against physical punishment in homes, recognizing that such punishment is inconsistent with healthy child development. The logic in these countries seems to be, “If we do not use corporal punishment with adults, why employ it against children?”

The emotional abuse of a child usually builds over time, eroding the child's sense of competence and self-esteem. Such abuse can result in serious behavioural, cognitive, emotional, or mental health problems. Abusive behaviours include name calling, ridiculing, degradation, worsening a child's fears, destroying a child's possessions, torturing or destroying a child's pet, making excessive demands, and criticizing the child to excess. More recently, experts have recognized the devastating effects of children witnessing domestic violence, typically the battering of their mothers. Estimates suggest that between 3.3 million and 10 million children in the United States witness such violence every year. These child witnesses report an array of problems, including posttraumatic stress and a plethora of social, cognitive, emotional, and behavioural difficulties. (Pelzer, 1995)

Child sexual abuse includes fondling a child's genitals (usually to sexually gratify the abuser), intercourse, incest, rape, oral sex, sodomy, exhibitionism, and the commercial exploitation of children by prostituting them or offering their bodies to pornographers. It is nearly always committed by men.

Neglect results from the failure of parents or guardians to provide for their children's healthy development and physical security. Examples include refusing to seek or delaying medical care, abandoning the child, expelling the child from the home, and refusing to take back a ...