Child Abuse is a Reality

Domestic Violence is everywhere around the world, it is hard for victims to talk about the violence that happens to them. Consider how hard it is for children of all ages, try to cope with their parents being abused every day or even going through it. Looking for help can be difficult because they do not want anyone to know or even to cause more problems with the abuser and victim.

The intended audience of this paper is for people who wants to try to help children get treatment on the trauma they experienced. Even people who are interested in learning the different types of abuse and ways of treating the trauma to help the family or the victim.

The purpose of my research is to let people who deals with domestic violence with their children and people who are looking for treatment for the kids that helps children who has seen and dealt with the violence. I want to persuade the reader to help children who has been in or seen domestic violence, have a clear mindset as an adult so they can have a healthy life. The reader will be able to understand different ways to help and get a better understanding on children with trauma from domestic violence.

Child abuse is when a caregiver or parent does an action of failing to act which causes injury, death, and emotional harm or risk a serious harm to child. There are different forms on how a child can be abused which is physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, and child neglect. Physical abuse is when someone causes non- accidental injuries. Sexual abuse occurs when a child is used for sexual acts. Emotional abuse is when someone harms the child mental and social development or causes serve emotional harm. The last one is child neglect where the parent or caregiver does not give care or supervision, affection and support needed for a child's health, the different types of child neglect is physical neglect, emotional neglect, medical neglect and educational neglect (Help).

Physical abuse deals with unexplained bruises on the child body that cannot be explained. Ways to diagnosis abuse is by seeing if there are injuries in various stages of healing, or suspicious injury patterns. Examples are bruises, bites, burns, fractures, abdominal trauma and head trauma is very common (K. Mcdonald 3). An example of physical abuse is battered child this is when a young child usually under the age of three, has been repeatedly beaten and neglected by their caretakers (Medicine). This is more common to see on children and adolescents because someone at home can have beaten them for no reason or just not taking care of the child.

Emotional abuse is very hard to try and find within a child. Some ways you can probably spot that a child has been emotionally abused is by looking at what the child is doing. Examples that a child has been emotionally abused is they have a social withdrawal from not talking to anyone, excessive anger or aggression, eating disorders, failure to thrive, developmental delay and emotional disturbances (K. Mcdonald). There are many other ways to spot emotional abuse those are just examples of what you can see. Even though it is hard to spot there are ways you can treat the abuse by getting the parent educated and psychotherapy prevent child maltreatment.

Sexual abuse is when a male or female mostly males touch or even rape a child without their consent. Once a child or adolescent tells you what has happen to them you should take them to be examine immediately by a doctor. Children who has been sexual abused might complain about dysuria (painful or difficult urination), anal or vaginal bleeding, vaginal discharge or pain with defecation (Mcdonald).there are many risk with dealing with sexual abuse a child might become pregnant or even have a disease from the abuser.

Neglect is hard for a child to develop starting at a young age this can bring them down when at school and see what everyone has that they don't have it makes them think they can steal or have an attitude with anyone they want because they do not have what others have. There are four ways that a child can be neglected is physical, emotional, educational, and medical neglect. Physical neglect is when there is a failure to provide adequate food, clothing, shelter, hygiene, protection, or supervision. (K. Mcdonald) Emotional neglect is the failure to provide love, security, affection, emotional support, or psychological care when needed (K. Mcdonald). Educational abuse involves the lack of proper enrollment in school, lack of supervision of school attendance, or failure to meet essential educational needs (K. Mcdonald). The last is medical neglect is the delay in or refusal to seek medical care, resulting in damage to the child's wellbeing. (K. Mcdonald)

There are many statistics with dealing with child abuse since it is so common in the different cultures, religions, and even throughout many countries some are worse than others in the countries. Starting with national statistics with dealing with child abuse.

• Child abuser reports involved 7.4 million children
• 74.8% of victims are neglected
• 18.2%victims are physically neglected
• 8.5% victims are sexually abused
• 6.9% victims are psychologically abused
• The highest rate of child abuse is under the age of one 24.8% per 1,000
• 28.5% of the victims are under the age of three years old
• 78.0% of child fatalities involve at least one parent.

There are also the numbers who has abused and neglected children, which is very outrageous for what they have done to these children who has been abused.

• 83.4% perpetrators were between ages of 18 and 44 years of age
• .7% perpetrators were women
• 45.3% of perpetrators were men

All my statics come from The Child Maltreatment statistics in the U.S.

There are many signs you can tell that a child or even an adolescent has been abused, it can be hard at first but once you have examined their nature of the way they do things it can become clear that there might have been abusing to happen to them. Symptoms to look for in young children is anxiety, depression, loss of interest in school or friends, sleeping problems examples are nightmares or bedwetting, increased aggression, anger, spending more time alone, fighting at school, bullying or being bullied, and changes in appetite. (Domestic Violence and Children) These are some ways to notice abuse in young child who does not tell no one or is afraid to. There is also some difference when it comes to adolescents because they are older it can be harder for them to tell and find ways to cope at an older age. Some of the symptoms are drug or alcohol abuse, skipping school, changes in peer groups, new rebellious or oppositional behavior, declining grades, depression or anxiety, and loss of interest in school, friends or other things. (Domestic Violence and Children). Getting treatment can be another thing to help children and adolescents to become a better adult without having so much stress on their heart or even going down a dangerous path, but before they are able to get treatment they would need to be diagnosis first.

Many people think that child abuse is not important because it cannot be real or it is just discipline their child. There could be false allegation of child abuse which is more common than people think epically in dysfunctional families and parents who cannot work things out. Also, the injuries that are shown up on a child is caused by an accident of children rough housing or even acting reckless examples of these are riding a bike and helping the child push off and they fall and scrap their knee on accident. Parents have the right to discipline their child in the way that they choose that is reasonable and no bodily injury, it can sometimes cause minor bruising. (Defenses)

For a child to be diagnosis is by physical exam which includes evaluating injuries or signs and symptoms of suspected abuse or neglect, lab test, x-rays, information about the child medical and development history, description or observation of the child behavior, observing interactions between parents or caregivers, discussions with parents or caregivers, and talking when possible with the child (Clinic). This can help you determine what type of abuse that they child has gone through. There are many ways to get help with the domestic violence that has happened to the child, but the two most common therapy routes are child-parent psychotherapy and trauma focused cognitive behavioral therapy. Child- parent psychotherapy is where the treatment focuses on improving the parent child relationship and building a stronger attachment between child and parent (Clinic). Trauma- focused cognitive behavioral therapy helps a child who has been abused to better manage distressing feelings and trauma related memories. (Clinic).Also having group therapy with others that have been through the same thing you have been through can help you get through it with ease because they know others have been through it also. Group Therapy works best with victims that have been sexually abused, it provides increasing empowerment and psychological well-being, it can also provide a supportive environment that facilities development of trust which leads it the ability to connect with others again. (Sinanan). Some children who have been abused are afraid to tell anyone because they think they will be blamed or no one will believe them. Also, a child who has been abused needs special support and treatment early as possible.

Preventing abuse can be hard when you do not know what is going on at home with the child and the parent. But there are ways that you can prevent some of the abuse from happening is teaching the abused victim how to cope with what is going on including their anger and frustration without having to vent to anyone. Also, you can prevent things from happening is personal supervision on the child activates. And teaching them the basic rules of safety in a non-threating matter. (Children).Ways that you can help victims and ways that the victim can help their self is by calling a hotline that is open 24 hours a day such as 1-800-4-A-CHILD. (Health)

Throughout the essay the common ground that is find is that both people who think child is abuse is important and the people who do not think it is really child abuse can agree that they have to take a look at what the child is doing to be able to determine is this a serious situation that deals with child abuse and the different marking that is done to them. Having to see if the child has big bruises and not just doing right in school or having a hard time emotionally can determine the outcomes of what it can really be about and what level and emergency needs to be sought out.

In conclusion child abuse affects a lot of children all over the world even if no one know and without the child telling an adult of what happened to them they can be affected in the long run. Having to keep hold of a secret like that is no good to victims because things will start to go downhill in the matter of years that they might regret in the future.

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