The Relatioship Between Mental Illness and Child Abuse Essay

Child abuse is epidemic in many countries as well as the United States. It is estimated that every thirteen seconds a child is abused in some manner: physically, sexually, emotionally or by neglect (Friedman). Each year, there are over 3 million reports of child abuse in the United States involving more than 6 million children. Child abuse can be reduced with proper education of the parents and with greater public awareness.

What is child abuse? From the word “abuse” we can understand that it is some sort of a maltreatment of a child, causing harm and damage both to his physical and psychological well-being. At the Federal level, the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA) describes child abuse and neglect as: “any recent act or failure to act on the part of a parent or caretaker, which results in death, serious physical or emotional harm, sexual abuse, or exploitation, or an act or failure to act which presents an imminent risk of serious harm.” Child abuse is a very substantial and widely spread problem in U.S. affecting children of any age, gender, race, background or income, with more than 1.8 million investigations done every year and on average, killing more than 5 children every day. The main issue of child abuse is that the abuser is usually someone a child loves or depends on (a parent, sibling, coach, neighbor, etc.), who violates child’s trust putting personal interests first, therefore official numbers of how many children suffer maltreatment might be not accurate enough as remarkable amount of these cases go unreported. Each case of child abuse is unique, with a lot of individual factors involved, nevertheless, we can distinguish some of the common causes, such as poverty, lack of education, depression, mental or physical health

Most parents and other caregivers do not intend to hurt their children, but abuse is defined by the effect on the child, not the motivation of the parents or caregiver.Tens of thousands of children each year are traumatized by physical, sexual, and emotional abusers or by caregivers who neglect them.Child abuse as common as it is shocking. Most of us can’t imagine what would make an adult use violence against a child, and the worse the behavior is, the more unimaginable it seems. But the incidence of parents and other caregivers consciously, even willfully, committing acts that harm the very children they’re supposed to be nurturing is a sad fact of human society that cuts

Child maltreatment has been a serious public health problem not just in the United States but globally. Maltreatment is defined as neglect which means failure to provide for a child’s basic physical, educational, or psychological needs. Physical abuse such as causing physical harm, sexual abuse, abuse that includes fondling a child’s genitals or breasts, and psychological abuse, such as verbal put-downs and other behavior that terrorizes, threatens, rejects or isolates the child. “According to the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System (NCANDS), in 2007 approximately 794,000 children (10.6 per 1,000 children of all ages) were identified as victims of child abuse or neglect. Approximately one-half (46.1%) of all victims were non-Hispanic white, 21.7% were African American, and 20.8% were Hispanic. One-third (31.9%) were under the age of 4 years.” (Gross, 2010)

Although no one is perfect, it is important that parents put their children into consideration when acting upon certain situations. Children are the future of America and every child deserves to have all the tools necessary to succeed in life. In some cases, the physical effects are temporary; however, the pain and suffering can cause long term effects such as anxiety and depression as their brain matures. All forms of abuse take effect on a child’s outlook on life and are equally damaging. Children have the ability to become an extraordinary individual who can one day change the world.

According to statistics there are “40 million children subjected to child abuse each year” (Cause and Effects). “Child abuse occurs when a parent or caretaker physically, emotionally, sexually, mistreats or neglects a child resulting in the physical, emotional, or sexual harm or exploitation, or imminent risk of harm or exploitation, or in extreme cases death of a child” (Child Safety). Child abuse is not only a sensitive subject but a complex one because of the long-term/ short-term effects and the difference between discipline and abuse.

There are many things in our society today that unfortunately go overlooked. One such thing that is overlooked is the number of children who are being abused. Unfortunately these children are going through life not knowing whether or not their parents will loose their temper and perhaps kill them. There are many types of child abuse, such as physical, sexual, and emotional. Physical abuse is physical injury as a result of punching, beating, kicking, biting, shaking, throwing, stabbing, choking, hitting, burning, or otherwise harming a child. Such injury is considered abuse regardless of whether the caretaker intended to hurt the child. Sexual abuse includes activities by a parent or caretaker such as fondling a child's genitals,

According to federal law child abuse is deemed as any type of current act or failure to act upon on the part of a parent or caretaker which can result in death, serious physical or emotional pain, sexually explicit abuse or exploitation or an action or failure of an action in which anything presents an imminent risk of serious harm. According to the journal of Family Violence every year 3.3 to 10 million children endure and witness abuse and violence in their homes. Research also shows that even 900,000 children are classified as maltreated by parents and other guardians in the U.S alone. (Moylan p.1-2) Child abuse has been seen to make a big impact on children’s mental processes way into adulthood. Studies show that children who witness

Child Abuse and Neglect continue to be a serious pediatric and social threat to the nation’s children. Child maltreatment is more than bruises and broken bones. While physical abuse may be the most noticeable, other types of abuse, such as emotional and sexual abuses, leave deep, lasting scars. Child Maltreatment includes significant negative experiences with long-lasting effects. These childhood experiences cause detrimental, long lasting effects during cognitive, behavioral, and emotional development and often well into adulthood. This paper will look at the various types of child maltreatment and the causes attributed to them, as well as the long term effects of child abuse and what can be done to prevent these abuses.

A serious social problem in modern American society is child abuse. "There have been widespread reports of infanticide, mutilation, abandonment, and other forms of physical and sexual violence against children" (Moylan, 2010). When a child is abused, a non-accidental injury is inflicted, or permitted to be imparted, by the person accountable for the child's care, regardless of reason (Durfour, 2011). This may include any form of injury, including undernourishment, sexual molestation, emotional maltreatment, cruel punishment or deprivation of necessities (Holt, 2011).

“While physical abuse is shocking due to the scars it leaves, not all child abuse is as obvious. Ignoring children’s needs, putting them in unsupervised, dangerous situations, or making a child feel worthless or stupid are also child abuse. Regardless of the type of child abuse, the result is serious emotional harm” (Saison, Smith and Segal). The only way to stomp out these myths and to insure our children’s safety is to educate ourselves about these myths, so that this does not happen to them.

However, all forms of child abuse carry emotional consequences because the child's psychological and emotional development inevitably suffers from all forms of abuse. An intervention model that would focus on emotional abuse could also focus on preventing other forms of abuse because violent behavior towards children often comes from the same underlying causes, and most risk factors for child maltreatment are associated with caregiver, family, and environmental factors (McDonald, 2007). With this in mind, a possible solution would have to include early detection, but the intervention would most likely focus on factors that cause all types of child abuse. Despite the widespread occurrences of all forms of abuse, emotional neglect or maltreatment are practically impossible to detect while they occur and impair the child's normal development and social integration. Emotional abuse includes includes verbal, mental, and psychological maltreatment of children, and it is frequently overlooked by the community and mental health professionals who do not define emotional abuse as a suitable factor for diagnostic purposes (as cited in Schneider, Baumrind, & Kimerling, 2007). In reality, emotional abuse is frequently used in many families, it occurs in several worldwide cultures, and it carries significant consequences that should not be overlooked.

In today’s society, child abuse is widespread and has an affect on everyone who comes across it. The act of child abuse happens everyday to a variety of kids who are typically younger and scared to tell anyone. All children are born with the right to be able to develop, grow, live and love according to their needs and feelings. For a child 's development they need protection and reassurance from adults who love them and help them acquire the skills to be a successful adult. However, some children are neglected and hurt by adults that they trust. The abuse a child receives makes them feel bad about themselves, and it is much worse when it occurs within a family because it makes them feel unloved and alone causing them to have problems. “Abuse of all types was more frequent in those from disturbed and disrupted family backgrounds. Logistic regressions indicated that some, though not all, of the apparent associations between abuse and adult problems was accounted for by this matrix of childhood disadvantage from which abuse so often emerged. Numerous studies have investigated the psychological sequelae of childhood trauma, including posttraumatic stress disorder(PTSD), dissociation, personality disorder, and substance abuse ”(“New Retrospective Measure of Child Abuse and Neglect” by David P. Bernstein). The act of child abuse causes kids to have one or more mental problems. Additionally, since people do not recognize the abuse while it is occurring, it causes these problems to

Although child abuse has soon become a more discussed issue, it is nothing new in today’s society. Dating back to ancient times, physical child abuse has always attributed to lives of people around the world. Approaching and understanding child mistreatment has changed as societies have modernized and progressed; whereas one thing remains an unalterable issue, child abuse happens constantly and continuously worldwide.

Why do parents abuse their children? This could be for a number of reasons since parents who abuse their children usually went through the same abuse too so that’s why they feel the need to hit or punish their children as well. One reason may be because their expectations of being a parent wasn’t the same as they imagined it or they had no one to support them and they had to go through everything alone. Children can be abused either mentally or physically, many people don’t know why this happens but there is definitely a problem with these types of cases going on in the United States. Laws that have been created with the attempt to protect children from abuse and neglect are not being enforced, and the federal government is at fault. Approximately 680,000 children in the United States were victims of abuse and neglect in 2013. Over 1,500 of them died as a result. Although federal officials claim that the numbers are lower than they were in 2012, but children 's advocates state that abuse is so often not reported that it 's impossible to truly know if there has really been a considerable decline (Pam Fessler). “Child abuse is the physical, sexual or emotional neglect of a child. In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Department for Children and Families, define child maltreatment as any act or series of acts of commission or omission by a parent or other caregiver that results in harm, potential for harm, or threat of harm