Abuse comes in various forms like physical, sexual, emotional, psychological, and neglect. People of all ages are at risk for experiencing some type of abuse or neglect. In the book, A Child Called “It” written by Dave Pelzer, the author shares the horrific experience he lived as a child until he was rescued. Dave Pelzer was tortured, mentally abused, and starved as a young child. The abuser was someone whom Dave Pelzer had a tremendous amount of love for at one time. In the following narrative, various types of abuse that Dave Pelzer was put through by his own mother will be discussed. Physical Abuse Child abuse has many definitions. “Physical abuse of children refers to nonaccidental injury inflicted by a care giver” (Crosson-Tower, 2008, p. 96). There is a problem with this definition though. Physical abuse is not only inflicted by caregivers. “The medical community sees abused children by virtue of the bruises, welts, broken bones, burns they present in a hospital of other medical setting” (Crosson-Tower, 2008, p. 96). And finally, “the legal community, including the police,
There is nothing you can do to impress me! Do you understand me? You are a nobody! An it! You are nonexistent! You are a bastard child! I hate you and I wish you were dead! Dead! Do you hear me? Dead!” (Pelzer, 1995, p. 140). What powerful and hurtful words to say to a child, or to anyone of any age. This is a perfect example of psychological abuse. These words do not just go in through one ear and come out through the other, they tend to hurt, and stick for a very long time. According to the text book, psychological maltreatment includes, “rejecting, isolating, terrorizing, ignoring, and corrupting” (Crosson-Tower, 2008, p. 216). Dave Pelzer fell victim to each one of these types of psychological maltreatment. From when the abuse began, until his rescue, Dave’s mother rejected him in many
'You are a nobody! An It!?(Pelzer 140). These were the raw, disheartened remarks that came from the disgusting coldhearted mother's mouth. These painful hurting remarks at her son was how the book got its title and that's what interested me in reading this book. A Child Called 'It', by Dave Pelzer, is a life-changing story about, a young boy who is starved, beat, and tortured by his mother and her cruel games, yet he manages to turn his life around when he grows up. This young boy uses his faith, self-discipline, and will power to overrule his mother's destruction and life damaging obstacles.
The book A Child Called “It” was written by Dave Pelzer. “In the years before I was abused, my family was the “Brady Bunch” of the 1960s. My two brothers and I were blessed with the perfect parents. Our every whim was fulfilled with love and care.” These are Dave’s words about his family before he was abused by his mother. Dave Pelzer has experienced a truly extraordinary life. As a child, he was abused by his alcoholic mother, which included physical torture, mental cruelty, and near starvation. Upon Dave's rescue, he was identified as one of the most severely abused children in California's history. At age 12, Dave's teachers risked their careers to notify the authorities and saved his life. Upon Dave's removal, he was made a ward of the court and placed in foster care until he enlisted in the U.S. Air Force at age 18. As a young adult Dave was determined to better himself--no matter what the odds.
In childhood Pelzer could have developed severe anxiety, always fearing what his mother may do or say next and not knowing if he will survive it or not. He could have developed depression or suicidal thoughts. Being constantly treating like a slave and being abused may lead one to believe to think those things or just the lack of love may have led to depression. With that, never knowing when his mother may kill him, Dave could have decided just to do it himself, to not give his mother the pleasure and to finally escape the world where the only thing he knows is hate and abuse. As he grew up, even being away from the situation, Dave could have developed self-esteem issues and poor body health. Again relating to the negative image his mother forced upon him, Dave could have looked at himself as a “bad boy” or garbage as he was commonly called and that could have destroyed his confidence, and because his body was treated so poorly, he himself may not take the best care of it. Many child abuse victims end up having attachment issues as the grow up as well. The relationship between parents and child is supposed to teach the child what relationships should be like, that should be the foundation for love and trust in the future. However, when that bond is destroyed for whatever reason, in this case the abuse from the mother and
Mother is introduced to us from “The Rescue” and we continue to learn of her tortures throughout the book. Mother is a woman who is angry, specially towards Dave, specially when he is in need of punishment. Mother does not take care of her appearance anymore, she walks around in robes all day, watches tv, never bothers to put on make up, and often smells of alcohol. She is vindictive, cruel and abusive, always barking orders, assigning impossible chores and coming up with more sickening ways to break Dave. Mother attacks Dave’s self esteem by making him repeat and believe that he is a bad boy. Dave’s self esteem deteriorates even more as she treats him worse than one would a dog, yet acts towards his brothers with care and affection and even goes on to teach them to look down on Dave.
The traumatic effect of the physical, mental, and emotional abuse marked Pelzer’s life. Through a psychological point of view, it is visible that there are many ways the abuse affected David. David was mistreated in ways that made him wonder why. I was also left feeling perplexed and sometimes feeling frustrated, I wanted to know why David 's mother singled him out for her abuse. Then, I realized that this was the same frustration David has lived with most of his
I was impacted by Dave Pelzer’s book, “A Child Called It” (1995) emotionally and cognitively, due to the nature of abuse the author experienced, it’s heartbreaking to hear a mother renouncing her son, her flesh and blood, a child she carried for nine months; nurtured
Besides telling her child that she hated him and wished him dead Dave’s mother put him through tremendous physical pain and abuse. From a young child till the fifth grade Dave Pelzer had been made to sleep away from the family in the basement in a small army cot. He was starved for days and days on end. His mother longed for any time to severely beat him, it made her day, she would think of morbid things all day to do to him when he got home from school. Among many other things, Dave Pelzer was; stabbed, made to drink ammonia, bleach, and dishwashing detergent, made to sit in a bathroom for hours with many chemicals creating a small gas chamber, put in freezing cold water for hours with just his nose sticking out of the tub, burnt on an open fire on the stove, and made to eat his little brother’s dirty diaper. These were only some of the torturous things his mother could think of to do to her little boy.
Dave Pelzer is the survivor of the third worst case of child abuse in California's history. Dave grew up with his two brothers and two parents. Catherine, Dave's mother, loved to cook exotic meals for her family and decorate their home in creative and imaginative ways each holiday season. She was full of energy, often taking her kids on tours of downtown San Francisco while her husband was at work as a fire fighter, exposing them to Golden Gate Park and Chinatown. Once, while on a family camping trip, young Dave was watching the sunset when he felt his mother embrace him from behind and watch the sunset with him over his shoulder. "I never felt as safe and warm as at that moment in time," he recalls.
In the story, A Child Called It, by Dave Pelzer narrates his traumatic childhood abuse through the lenses of a mere ten year old child.The book accounts of terrifying, disturbing tortures inflicted on a young boy who is starved, stabbed, smashed face first into mirrors, forced to eat crap from his brother’s diaper, forced to drink ammonia/chlorine, and burned over a stove by an alcoholic, insane mother. Dave is the oldest of his brothers and the only one to receive abuse from his mother.The abuse started as Dave was four years old with minimum punishment and quickly escalated to life threatening punishments as the years passed. The punishments grew to physical and emotional abuse and neglect from his mother. The neglect escalates to rarely
In Dave Pelzer's award winning autobiography, “The Child Called It”, he recounts the horrors of his childhood where he was abused by his alcoholic mother from the ages of four through twelve. His mother did unspeakable and heinous things to him. She slapped him, she starved him, she beat him, and she even stabbed him. Pelzer’s father, nor his brothers, did not try to intervene and stop Catherine from abusing Dave.
...g and filled with detailed solutions for each act of child abuse. The book allows the reader to visual themselves in each situation and knows how to react towards such each incident. It helped me understand why adults abused as children act the way they do when it comes to social interaction. Personally, I have attained new information that I was unaware of. In the beginning, I have always believed that child abuse only involved physical or sexual abuse. I did not know that emotional abuse actually existed. I was unaware of the fact that emotional abuse gravely affects children as they grow up. This book may open up the minds of people who are unaware of or refuse to believe that child abuse is occurring daily in our society because it is so informative and persuasive at the same time. If one needs to educate themselves concerning child abuse, consider this book.
Physical abuse is any non-accidental physical injury to a child. Physical abuse is an injury that results from physical aggression. Types of physical abuse can consist of beating, whipping, hitting, pinching, biting, or spanking.
Physical abuse is to cause or inflict physical injury upon the child. This may include, burning, hitting, punching, shaking, kicking, beating, or otherwise harming a child. The parent or caretaker may claim not to have intended to hurt the child, that the injury was an accident. It may have however, been the result of over-disciplines or physical punishment that is inappropriate to the child?s age.
The physical abuse of children covers a wide range of actions from what some might term ‘justifiable chastisement’ such as slapping or spanning to the sort of actions which most would agree constitute deliberate, sadistic cruelty against children.
Secondly, physical abuse is purposely causing physical harm or injuries to a child. Being physically abused includes being hit, kicked, or shaken. Parents who are abusive to their children often claim that their abuse is a form of discipline. There is a significant difference in abusing your child and trying to show them discipline. The whole point of using discipline is to show a child right from wrong. It becomes physical abuse instead of discipline when your...