Analysis Of A Child Called It By Dave Pelzer

Abuse and neglect comes in all different forms and each one of them are as equally as damaging as the next. Others will agree that abuse and neglect are hard to define in some cases, but there are clues and signs that professionals and nonprofessionals can detect in a child if they just pay attention. Being observant isn’t the only key to saving these children, but also being willing to speak up and tell someone what you know and or saw. In “A Child Called It”, David Pelzer is a young boy who goes through horrendous abuse and neglect who might have been able to endure much less pain if one adult would have spoken up, despite the fear of any consequences. There is a disgusting number of examples of abuse and neglect in this book, but there will be three different experiences that will showcase neglect, psychological abuse, and physical abuse discussed in the rest of this text.

You may remember that in training we emphasize how many abused and neglected children remain so attached to their families that they want to live with them at any cost. This was not Dave Pelzer's experience. He grew to hate his mother for singling him out for systematic torture. His anger helped him survive: "I wanted to show The Bitch that she could beat me only if I died, and I was determined not to give in, even to death." (91)

Emotional abuse may include screaming, yelling, biting, name-calling, lack of love/affection, and so on. Children may be emotionally scarred when the y are labeled as stupid, ugly, crazy, or unwanted. Emotional abuse includes acts of omission by the child’s primary caregivers that could cause behavioral, emotional, or mental disorders. In some cases of emotional abuse the child’s caregiver may use excessive and bizarre forms of punishment like torture, or locking a child in a dark closet. These things emphasize the need for the intervention of The Child Protective Services.

Possibly worst of all for Pelzer was the fact that the abuse and neglect he experienced also included psychological maltreatment. Psychological maltreatment is also known as emotional or mental abuse. It refers to “a repeated pattern of caregiver behavior or extreme incident(s) that conveys to the child that they are worthless, flawed, unloved, unwanted, endangered, or only of value in meeting another’s needs” (Burgess et al., 2013 p. 202). Pelzer’s mother did exactly that and utilized various forms of psychological maltreatment. She singled him out from the rest of the family, terrorized him, played mind games, had unreasonable expectations, ridiculed, belittled, and rejected him. She began by telling him he was a bad boy and eventually stopped calling him by his name and called him “the boy” and “it” (Pelzer, 1995). She isolated him physically and emotionally from the rest of the family and would not let the other children acknowledge his presence.

In the world today, there are different types of child abuse including physical, emotional, sexual and also neglect. Each form of abuse is a contribution to a child 's future being unsuccessful. Dave’s form of

There are so many ways that children are abused in the world. Since 1980 abuse and neglect has increased 134% in America. Kingsolver portrays sexual and physical abuse the most in her story. Her character Turtle is a 2-3 year old child who experiences both the physical and sexual abuse in the first few years of her life. Taylor, Turtle’s new guardian takes Turtle to the doctor and finds out just a bit of Turtle’s past. Turtle has “healed fractures, some of them compound”(Kingsolver 165), along with “spiral fibular fractures here and excellent healing and some contraindications for physchomotor development” (Kingsolver 166). These are just a few things that are found in children who have experienced physical and sexual abuse. Emotional abuse occurs in children the most. “Unlike physical or sexual abuse, where a single incident constitutes abuse, emotional abuse is made up of a series of incidents, or a pattern of

Child abuse in American today is amongst the most saddened topics of mankind. Many children are subjected to neglect and abuse on a daily basis. The sex and age of child makes no difference when it comes to child abuse.. Boys and girls are equally likely to suffer maltreatment. The problem is how often child abuse goes unreported. Millions of children across the world are abused in some way, whether it is verbal, emotional, physical or sexual. Child abuse has been happening all over the world to young children, however many children keep this a secret because of fear of what could happen. Child Abuse consists of any act of commission or omission that endangers or impairs a child’s physical or emotional health and development. It can be

Titled Child Abuse.A thesis paper on child abuse with a look into Dave Pelzers autobiography "United States more than three children die as a result of

A Child Called "It," by Dave Pelzer, is Pelzer's autobiographical depiction of the years of abuse he endured by his alcoholic mother. The abuse continued for many horrible years until Pelzer was finally saved by teachers at his school at the age of 12 on March 5, 1973. While reading this skin crawling story one question arises, where was Pelzer's father during this abuse? To answer this question we must first look into the book. In chapter 4 (the fight for food)

213). Physical abuse is the most common type of child maltreatment. Boys and girls are about equally likely to be physically abused. Physical abuse include: hitting, kicking, shaking, throwing, burning, stabbing or shocking the child (Downs, Moore and McFaden, 2009, pg. 211). Lastly, according to Downs, Moore and McFadden sexual abuse is an “act of a person, adult or child, which forces, coerces, or threatens a child to have any form of sexual contact or to engage in any type of sexual activity at the perpetrator’s direction” (2009,p214). The terms of “sexual abuse” encompasses a wide range of behaviors which are the follow: fondling, making a child touch an adult’s sexual organs and penetrating a child’s vagina or anus (Downs, Moore and McFaden, 2009, p.214). Among the abuses Antwone was subjected to, he was a victim of repeated sexual abuse. He did not receive adequate supervision and he was always hoping that someone would find out and stop the abuse.

Although this book is sad, Dave learned what it's like to have a hard upbringing childhood. His experiences with child abuse can teach us that if you end up being abused as a child you can change your life and make it a positive thing when you become an adult. The subject of child abuse is hard to talk about and deal with but if you don’t educate yourself on it you might think whatever it's not important or that it's ok but in all reality it's not and it's

This emotional child abuse usually occurs frequently in the forms of excessive criticism, threatening behaviour, withholding affection, intimidation or exposure to domestic violence. (NSW Department of Family and Community Services, (n.d))

Child abuse is the physical, sexual, emotional mistreatment, or neglect of children. In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or also known as CDC defines child abuse as any act or series of acts by a parent or other caregiver that could result in harm to a child. Most child abuse occurs in a child's home, but it could also be found within organizations, schools, or communities that the child interacts with. There are four major categories of child abuse: neglect, physical abuse, psychological/emotional abuse, and also sexual abuse. In the story I selected, it shows many signs of sexual and physical abuse within a little girl and her older brother. Of course the mother

Child abuse is a term impacted by copious multidimensional and interactive factors that relate to its origins and effects upon a child's developing capacities and which may act as a catalyst to broader, longer-term implications for adulthood. Such maltreatment may be of a sexual, physical, emotional or neglectful nature, each form holding a proportion of shared and abuse-specific psychological considerations (Mash & Wolfe, 2005). Certainly in terms of the effects / impairments of abuse, developmental factors have been identified across all classifications of child abuse, leading to a comparably greater risk of emotional / mental health problems in adult life within the general population

    There are many different forms of child abuse. In “A Child Called It” Dave suffers many different kinds of extreme abuse. Child Abuse can be physical, emotional , psychological and neglect.  Kids that are abused are 25% more likely to have mental health issues.  Statically that means 1.8 million children that were abused are going to suffer from a mental health issue.  One out of four kids are going to suffer for a circumstances which they where they were helpless in. According to Victor Carrion a professor at the University of Stanford says "Children experiencing four types of trauma were 30 times more likely to have behavior and learning problems than those not exposed to trauma." As well as these kids suffering from a mental illness, 30% are more likely they will also suffer a learning disability too. Imagine going to school depressed and your mind is