Child Abuse or Discipline
When I was a child, I used to think that people made a big deal over nothing and child abuse was not a serious issue. I was wrong now I believe that not enough people are aware of the amount of people that are harmed by child abuse. You would think that after a while children would tell someone that they are being abused. Since only the child knows exactly what happened, the type of abuse, and now it is affecting them. If parents would just learn the when it is appropriate to discipline children this would not be as big of a deal. According to “Spanking isn’t parenting; it’s child abuse,” written by Mel Robbins some people tend to believe that there is not a problem with hitting children. In the article Robbins
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Maltreatment of a child can come in many different forms. Personally I think that physical child abuse is the worse because some children get hit for unnecessary reasons. Majority of children being abused would not tell since they are scared of their abuser. Children are more likely scared of their abuser when the abuser randomly decides to spank them just to relieve some stress that the child is causing at that moment. Signs of physical abuse in children could be bruises on covered body parts, hand print bruises, burn marks, fractures, and history of consistent …show more content…
If the child notices that you are frustrated they may not get the same discipline effect that they would have had if their parents would have been more reasonable. Physical child abuse can affect people differently and cause more problems than just physical bruises. Physically abusing a child can also hurt them emotionally. Abuse can cause many problems such as anxiety, depression, academic problems, flashbacks, and difficulty sleeping. I stated before some of the effects of physical child abuse but there are more such as bruises, swelling, abrasions, torn clothes, and difficulty in simple body movements. Nobody really knows what the children feel because majority of children are scared to speak up and let someone know that they are being abused. Even if a parent stops abusing the child at a young age the child is likely to remember what happened to them their whole
Child abuse is the intentional omission of care by a parent or guardian that can cause a
“In the same society who hold different moral or religious convictions may disagree about what type of behavior toward a child amounts to abuse.” (Gale, 2014). Slapping a child when they act up is a form discipline to some individuals. To a certain extent it would be considered abuse. As a parent, they do not want you to tell them how to handle their child simply because that is their child. Every day there is a child out there being abused and will not speak up. Some children think that if they do decide to try and get help, people would not believe them. Also being abused and letting someone know maybe embarrassing. In the article “Child Abuse.” Opposing Viewpoint Online Collection, it goes on to say, “Even people who are reasonably confident that they have witnessed child abuse may be reluctant to report it. Some may not want to become involved in what they consider a private family matter. Others may believe that reporting the problem will do no good.” People just turn a blind eye to things that do not involve them. They feel like it is not their business. Individuals that know the abuser could also be frightened themselves. CHARLES
“Simply having children does not make mothers,” said john A. Shedd (“John”). When it comes to child maltreatment this is especially true, if a parent does not know how to take care of a child, they can abuse or neglect their child. The definition that the Centers for disease Control and Prevention uses is, “Any act or series of acts of commission or omission by a parent or any other caregiver that results in harm, potential for harm, or threat of harm to a child.” Maltreatment can be split into two umbrella categories, acts of omission or acts of commission. Acts of omission are most commonly known as neglect, and can include not meeting the child’s physical, emotional, educational, or medical needs. An act of commission is most commonly physical abuse, but can also extend to the psychological or sexual abuse of a child (“Child Maltreatment”). Child maltreatment is a problem worldwide; the only way to stop it is to give parents a better understanding of the issue.
Physical and emotional abuse affects the child’s life equally, so one will never be better or worse than the other. Physical abuse is “any non-accidental physical injury”. (Morin 1) Child neglect is defined as “the failure to provide a child with food, clothing, shelter, medical care, and the supervision necessary to prevent harm”. (Morin 2) Emotional abuse can be defined as the, “willful destruction of significant impairment of a child’s competence.” (Network of Victim Assistance) Children sometimes challenge parental expectations, sometimes they misbehave to get what they want, but it is part of a learning process for children. Although, it should not go without some type of consequence but the consequence should be beneficial to the child and the parent. It should teach the child a lesson in a positive manner, it should be a learning opportunity, and you must be consistent when disciplining. If you are not consistent when giving you’re disciplining your child it may cause confusion in the future and it may continue to happen and could get much
You think that a child could trust their parents with anything but what if this isn’t something they would like to hear? So to avoid that, now you’re missing out on something that you might now even be upset over, but they can no longer trust you. When you spank a kid they’re not learning that what they did was right or wrong, they’re learning that now they have to be sneakier or that they can practice such behavior only when the parent that does the punishing is not around. So there is not real correction of behavior occurring. This may also effect the kinds of relationships the child gets into for example, abusive ones thinking that the hitting is coming out of love or quite frankly they’re not good enough for anything better than what they have, otherwise known as low self-esteem. When you’re angry you wish someone would understand you so why not talk to your child and try to understand what it is that is making them feel upset. When you are young you don’t know what other way to get attention or to be played with or touched but to cry. You wouldn’t hit a toddler if they drew on the wall because they didn’t know any better, yet. Taking that a child might be smaller that’s the only way they know how to express that they don’t like something due to their most obvious lack of experience. This may also cause a child to not know handle different
There are different types of child abuse. One type is physical abuse. It involves the parent inflicting injuries to the child’s body. These injuries can include: bruises, burns, broken bones, head injuries and even injuries to internal organs (General Information about Child Abuse). As a result of physical abuse, children may be scared and shy when people approach them and try to touch them. Another sign that abused children might show can be them wearing long clothing in order to cover and hide their injuries (General Information about Child Abuse). They do this in order to prevent outside factors from asking them questions. The main sign of this kind of physical abuse that the parents or caregivers can show are anger problems or the excessive need for control.
Children are abused, in part, because they are unable to defend themselves against stronger and more powerful adults (Barnett, Miller-Perrin, Perrin 61). Researchers only recently have recognized that spanking is used primarily with young children and that the incidence and severity of spanking often diminishes by the time children are 8-10 years of age (Day 80).
Finding a definition of child physical abuse is controversial, but the signs of a child being abused is straightforward if you know how to read them. For example, Hitting, punching, kicking them, or using objects to injure to abuse them. All those examples are seen in the case of 8- year- old, Gabriel Fernandez after he was brutally abused for eight months.
We have all encountered this situation: A small child is standing in the middle of a department store throwing a complete temper tantrum demanding a toy. His mother, exasperated threatens him with time-outs and other deprived privileges, but the stubborn child continues to kick and scream. In the "old days," a mother wouldn't think twice about marching the defiant child to the bathroom and giving him a good spanking to straighten him out, but these days, parents have to worry about someone screaming child abuse. Whether or not to spank a child has become a heated issue in today's society.
In Dent County alone, during the year of 2012, four children were physically abused, six were the objects of neglect, one was emotionally abused, and eleven more children were the victims of sexual abuse according to records kept by the Missouri Department of Social Services (“Child’s Division” 38). In that same year, 92,593 children were reported as being abused in the entire state of Missouri (“Child’s Division” 1). Fortunately, only 6,322 children were found to have been abused out of all of the children reported. However, an additional 7,092 were classified as ‘Unsubstantiated-Preventive Services Indicated.’ This means that not enough evidence existed to move further with prosecution, but still enough to indicate that abuse was imminent. Another 44,070 of the reports warranted an assessment of the child’s family in order to ensure the safety of the child (“Child’s Division” 5).
There are different kinds of abuse that children can experience by parents. Physical abuse pertains to “hitting, punching, shaking, kicking, beating, burning, or somehow harming the child” (Mikaeili 976). There is also emotional abuse and this is defined as:
There are different kinds of physical abuse, not only hitting or beating but also sexual abuse and neglect. Sign of physical abuse are bruises, unexplained sprains and fractures. There are two different types of neglect. There is neglect when one’s parents are incapable of taking care of their children do to their own mental illness. This type of neglect affects how children interact with their parents. If their mother or father suffer from depression it will affect the way, the child learns how to interact with the world they are disconnected because their parents are. Another form of neglect is that the parents are full aware and decided not to take care of their child. This will also make it harder for children to form bounds with other latter on in life. A sign of neglect is poor hygiene, clothing that is dirty or ripped and lack of medical treatment. Then there is sexual abuse, sexual abuse teaches some children that love is associated with physical acts. It also affects the way children trust. Sign of sexual abuse are vaginal infections and wetting or soiling of the
The Center of Disease Control and prevention defines child abuse as any act or series of events that results in harm, potential harm or threatens the child’s safety (Webb, 2007). While many people believe that child maltreatment is simply physical many other forms of maltreatment occur; sexual abuse, neglect and abandonment are also common forms of abuse. Domestic Violence is also included in the definition of child maltre...
“It hurts and it’s painful inside – it’s like breaking your bones; it’s loud and sore, and it stings; it feels like you’ve been adopted or something and you’re not part of their family; you feel like you don’t like your parents anymore; you feel upset because they are hurting you, and you love them so much, and then all of a sudden they hit you and you feel as though they don’t care about you” (Pritchard 9). These are the feelings of those juveniles who suffer from corporal punishment. Corporal punishment has been one of the main topics of research in Psychology in last few decades. Although people had believed, “Spare the rod and spoil the child” but in the present age of science, research has revealed that the corporal punishment causes more harm to the children instead of having a positive effect on them. According to UNICEF, “Corporal punishment is actually the use of physical measures that causes pain but no wounds, as a means of enforcing discipline” (1). It includes spanking, squeezing, slapping, pushing and hitting by hand or with some other instruments like belts etc. But it is different from physical abuse in which punishment result in wounds and the objective is different from teaching the discipline. Although Corporal punishment is considered to be a mode of teaching discipline and expeditious acquiescence, however, it leads to the disruption of parent-child relationship, poor mental health of juveniles, moral internalization along with their anti-social and aggressive behaviour and it is against the morality of humans.
Because many parents do not know or are confused in showing their children how to gain discipline they do not know whether to hit them or not to hit them. Many people think that by hitting their children that they are showing them violence but other people say that if you do the children would understand that they did something wrong and would not repeat it and gain discipline. What can parents do?