Child Abuse

Introduction

Child abuse is the emotional, physical, or sexual maltreatment of children. Children who are below age three are predominantly affected by child abuse, and this is the outcome of complex and multiple factors, which involve both the children and their parents, amalgamated by a number of traumatic environmental conditions like insufficient emotional and physical support within all main crisis or life changes and within the family, particularly those that emerge from marital dissension. Parents at elevated abuse risks are classified as entailing an inadequacy of nurturing experience, impractical expectations of the child, complications in shaping sufficient interpersonal links, and unsatisfied needs, frequently including abuse or neglect in their own adolescence. Amongst children the predisposing factors include constraint for special emotional or physical care ensuing from genetic or congenital abnormalities, illness, or premature birth; sensitivity to parental needs; birth orders within the family; and the activity level, temperament, and personality of the child. Distinguishing potential child abusers or abused children is one of the key concerns for each healthcare worker. Palpable physical marks on the body of the child like bruises, burns, or welts, and emotional distress signs, which include indications of being unsuccessful in thriving, are universal signs of some extent of abuse or neglect. Frequently, diagnostic tests used for identifying sexual molestation or the radiograph films used for detecting new or healed fractures of the extremities are essential. The healthcare workers are obliged for making the required report if abuse is suspected. Exclusive support groups or counseling services like Parents Anonymous assist households whose children are abused. A considerable role could be played by nurses to prevent abuse through endorsing an affirmative child-parent link, particularly within the neonatal periods, through instructing parents the appropriate techniques of discipline and child care, by elucidating normal behavior and development of children so that parents are capable of formulating pragmatic disciplinary principles, and through the identification of the parents who are at child abuse risk.

Thesis statement:

Child abuse gives rise to a number of issues like learning disabilities, growth failures and IQ deficits. Therefore, it must be stopped, reported and investigated at all times.

Discussion and Analysis

Emotional, physical, or sexual neglect or maltreatment of a child by his / her guardians, parents or anyone who is responsible for the welfare of that child is considered to be child abuse. Neglect could by emotional in nature (permitting the children to witness substance abuse by adults, abuse of another child or spouse in the presence of the child), physical (failure in seeking required healthcare, abandonment), or educational (failure in seeing that children are attending school). Scapegoating, unsuitable punishments, and verbal abuse are even types of psychological or emotional child abuse. Parental actions are sometimes considered as abusive by some authorities if they possess potential adverse outcomes, such as, child's exposure to harmful substances or violence, in few aspects broadening to the passive smoking. After reviewing the history of child abuse, it is found that in the year 1962, the 'battered child syndrome' term entered the field of ...