Children who experience any sexual act of abuse needs to be involved in a sufficient therapy to confront and overcome their traumatic event and effects of sexual abuse. Children should never experience sexual abuse feeling powerless and victimized. Finally, this paper will discuss an effective counseling model that can be utilized for children that are sexually abused. Many children who have experienced sexual abuse do not realize the impact it has on their lives. Children are afraid to break the silence about their sexual abuse and report it because of the reaction from parents, family members, or the fear of breaking up the family.
First of all, it is not just the initial incident that is the crime. The psychological issues facing children who have been sexually abused are numerous. Children who are abused sexually have the event (or multiple events) follow them into their adult l... ... middle of paper ... ...ldren that sexual advances from adults are wrong and against the law. (Preventing Sexual Child Abuse) The national hotline for sexual assault is 1-800-656-HOPE. Other numbers to call are 1-800- CHILDREN (Prevent Child Abuse America) and 1-800-4-A-CHILD (Child Help USA).
Finally, the effects of childhood sexual abuse include sleeping disorders, co-dependency, and may continue to be abused by others even after they leave an abusive environment (Lipovsky & Hanson, 2007). The encounter of child sexual abuse differs between individuals. The seriousness, occurrence, and age of the child, relationship between the child and the offender, degree of support, admission by the perpetrator, active family life, and exact nature of the abuse all affect the type and severity of effects seen in the child victim. It is imperative to mention that no one symptom outline is exclusively to children who have been sexually abused. Furthermore, the majority of ch... ... middle of paper ... ..., H., Taylor, N., & Prentice, K. (2014).
Every child will have a different way of dealing with the problem that they think is alright because they have been raised knowing only that. Common effects of child abuse; Nightmares or difficulty sleeping, low self-esteem, antisocial behavior, including rebelliousness or running away, increased hostility or aggression. Feelings of fear, shame, anger, guilt, anxiety, or confusion are often found in a child that is being abused. The child will tend to stay away from other children and play by themselves. A child that is abused will most likely be abused until they are a teenager and will usually find themselves in an abusive relationship later in life, if they’re not being abused they will usually be the abuser.
There is emotional abuse or neglect which is when a person puts down a child or fails to give adequate love and attention. And lastly there is sexual abuse which is ‘any unwanted inappropriate sexual contact’ done to a child, by a parent, guardian, relative, or other individual (Types of Child Abuse). Not one type of abuse is worse than the other, and they all can hurt a child emotionally and physically. Child abuse is not just beatings and bruises, it can have long lasting effects on children’s lives; children who have been abused can experience physiological issues, health problems, and relationship problems later in life. Children can experience many different psychological issues after being abused.
Children of any age can be expose to abuse, child can be brought to dangerous drugs, beaten or even sexual taken advantaged of. A child as young as still in the mother’s womb can be abused. Children are mistreated by their loved one’s all over, but does taking them out of that situation help them? A child that often gets removed from a dangerous situation has to still relive the memories and hurt, when having to be forced to visit with the one’s who hurt them or even by the system itself. Child abuse does not discriminate against any child, it can happen to any age, race, religion, sex, or socioeconomic background.
According to London et al. (2005) “ a major problem with relying on children’s statements in forensic investigations is that many sexually abused children remain silent about abuse; they may deny that abuse ever occurred, or they may produce a series of disclosures of abuse followed by recantations of these disclosures” (p.195). Most of this happens because children blame themselves; attempt to make everything better in the family or mothers pressure them to change their
When one thinks of a young child one thinks of joy, innocence, and being carefree. Too often than not though that innocence is taken from a young child through sexual abuse. Studies have shown over and over again that a child who has been sexually abused carries those scars with them into adulthood, many times affecting adult relationships. When a person thinks of a child molester they see in their minds the dirty old man image. This is not the case in most abuse cases.
The associated between peer victimization, PTSD, and dissociated in child victims of sexual abuse. Journal of Affective Disorders, 193, 227-232. doi:10.1016/j.jad.2015.12.080 Ho, G. K., Gross, D. A., & Bettencourt, A. (2017). Universal mandatory reporting policies and the odds of identifying child physical abuse. American Journal of Public Health, 107(5), 709-716.
Getting treatment for a victim of child sexual abuse is a difficult process because of the lack of trust by the child. When child sexual abuse occurs the victim’s family has a difficult time talking about the abuse, which leads to the family pretending the abuse never happened. Once the family ignores the abuse, this tends to leave the child to face their worst fears by themselves. When sexual abuse to a child occurs, the abuser is usually someone the child knows like a relative, friend, babysitter and etc. The offender is a person that the child knows and trusts.