Child abuse is a subject many people try to overlook because of the taunting stories and misconceptions that are assumed by many oblivious people; Controversially, this subject manner should be something that people should educate themselves in, and should be aware that this is and urgent concern, and children are in desperate need of aid. One of the most common forms of child abuse is incest: Incest is any sexual contact or act between relatives, or with any individual the child believes to be trustworthy. This severe form of neglect, and breaking of trust with a child, can cause them to have maladaptive relationships in the future. The first people kids are exposed to are the same people who that they learn trust from, and are the ones to model what a healthy relationship resembles. Nonetheless, if the first represented relationships are manipulative, abusive, or misrepresented in any way, it’s nearly impossible for an individual to exhibit appropriate relationships in the future. Despite all the misapprehensions, and the psychological effects on child abuse victims, a more simplified, but tragic still, is the deterring obstacle that abuse puts on education. Even the simplest forms of disregardance can discourage any child from the process of learning, whether and education is available or not. There have been reported cases of feral children that are animalistic, and cannot even speak. “A feral child is a child who has been isolated from human interaction for most of his/her life.” (NOVA, 1997). The most harmful thing about child abuse however, is that fact that abused, abuse. The more compelling types of abuse are sexual and physical, where incest is the most sever form of sexual abuse, considering the trauma it’s... ... middle of paper ... ... potty chair and her crib. Finally, social workers found Genie and took this feral child away from the birth parents. When they took her out of her house, she could not walk, or speak. She was animalistic in the fact that she constantly spat and clawed at her face. Social workers thought Genie would be incapable of leading a somewhat normal life, however they thought wrong. “Although Genie spent years isolated from the world, she was beginning to speak and grow both physically and mentally. This gave doctors hope that Genie may fully recover.” (NOVA, 1997). In conclusion, children that are cut off from society have a difficult time learning later in life when other specialists are trying to teach them. At extremely late stages in life children have to learn to do the basics that infants learn, and in many cases it is nearly impossible to live a normal life.
As of 2005, 16.6% of children experience physical abuse and 9.3% experience sexual abuse (USDHHS, 2007). Besides bruises and scars, the effects of physical abuse are long lasting. Children are physically taught to be submissive to others, so they often become more reserved socially. In relation to sexual abuse, children often say that being raped causes them to feel “dirty,” meaning that they are, from that point on, corrupted. Unfortunately, very few realize that this abuse is not their fault. Since all children are taught that punishment is given because they did something wrong, foster children often believe that they deserve to be beaten or raped. Due to
Especially in the book Miss America by Day, it mentioned about one of the maltreatments called incest (Maltreatment is intentional harm to or endangerment of a child, Incest is a sexual relations between persons closely related.). Like in the situation of Marilyn, author of the Miss America, she went through incest with her father at the age of five to eighteen, so until she became an adult it was very hard for her to tell her own story to anybody because she was afraid nobody would believe in her. Like the Child, Family, School, Community says, “the closer the victim and offender are emotionally, the greater trauma the victim experiences.” I agree with this statement, it is true that the closer the offender to the victim which the greater the trauma victim experiences. Some of the maltreatments are temperament of the child, marital distress, unemployment, lack of community support, and cultural values such as tolerance of violence can be considered as maltreatment. Other symptoms are poor social skills with peers of their own age(s), unable to trust other people, feel depression, commit suicide, have self-destructive, and confusion about their sexuality. It also said that high percentage of drug abusers, juvenile runaways, and prostitutes have been sexually abused when they were children. But for Marilyn Van Derbur felt very depressed and had temperament, but she coped with her pain by socializing and acting out as if nothing happened to her because she has to keep it as secret from everybody else ( Child, Family, School,
Psychological maltreatment, like many other forms of abuse can also be passed down through intergenerational transmission. It is not unlikely for parents to psychologically mistreat their children due to their own past or childhood experiences with psychologically abuse. For example, it is not uncommon during the course of an investigation of physiological maltreatment that it is discovered that the perpetrator had their own form of abuse history in the past. Often time’s people look at psychological maltreatment as a consequence resulting from some other form of abuse, mainly physical and sexual, but tend to overlook the fact that it may also occur as an individual form. Psychological maltreatment can take more than one form. During the course of researching for this paper I learned that there are three typical forms of behavior in which people follow when displaying this type of abuse against children. The three types are acting in an aggressive, rejecting, and lessening
On November 4, 1970 in Los Angeles, California Genie’s condition was brought to attention by a social worker. The worker discovered the 13-year old girl in a small, dimly lit, confined bedroom. An investigation by authorities exposed that the child had spent most of her life in this room and typically was tied to a potty chair. Genie was found in diapers because she was not potty trained. Her case is an example of extreme isolation from human contact, society, sunlight, and any other environments besides her room. The deprivation of attachment showed when she was timid to humans, almost afraid. Someone whose life was a developmental nightmare could not possibly be expected to have the basic trust that the world is trustworthy and predictable. The life she lived was incredibly horrifying as morals, and psychology portray just how severe the consequences were on Genie.
One of the worse cases of child abuse has been the case of Genie. Genie was living in a room in her parent’s house for over 10 years; this is a case of severe isolation. To point out, Genie would be punished for making any noise while she was in that room, and because of this she never learned to talk. She was also strapped in a potty chair for the majority of her early life, which resulted in poor motor functions and her inability to walk normally. According to a phycologist on Genie’s case, a person can experience symptoms of isolation after only 15 minutes. I was surprised that Genie could have withstood these adverse conditions for more than 10 years. Socialization and social interaction became a challenge Genie and her peers had to face following her rescue.
Children who grow up being abused physically or mentally will develop problems and the response by children to abuse and neglect could manifest in behaviors of delinquency such as dropping out of school, drugs, alcohol abuse, sexual promiscuity, prostitution, self-mutilation, stealing and other crimes and offenses. It does not matter whether you are born into a wealthy, middle class or poor family; children who are abused commit most of the same acts of delinquency.
In this case, Genie was considered a feral child because of the abuse she underwent. At only twenty months, her father locked her up in a bedroom with a cage like crib and a potty chair that had restraints because he thought she was mentally challenged. If she made a noise, her father would hit her with a wooden board. Since she never had a lot of human contact, she never learned to speak. When they found her she had the cognitive skills of a baby and she had the weight of a six year old. Since Genie didn’t get the human contact she needed as a baby it affected her learning. She had nobody to show her how to walk, talk, eat and many other skills that are vital to learning basic needs.
Child abuse encompasses far more than merely beating or hitting a child. Other, more silent—and even more widespread—forms of abuse exist. Emotional abuse, sexual abuse, neglect, and child endangerment are all other forms of abuse that are much more difficult to detect because they seldom lead to visible imprints on a child the way physical abuse can. And the problem is far more pervasive than one might imaging: the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) reports that about five children die as a result of abuse every day. The impact child abuse can have on victims is both extensive and profound. Effects can vary from health issues to developmental and emotional impairments. With heightened awareness of the nature, the implications, and
In 1970, a case that was so unique and hard to believe would impact the world of psychology in understanding the crucial long-term effects of severe abuse and how it can take a toll on the child’s way of growing up and fully functioning in terms of language, relationships, and ability to handle basic tasks. The case study was of a child under the pseudonym, Genie, who was a victim of critical child abuse and neglect so severe that the circumstances of her abuse caused her to become immobilized, severely malnourished, and prevented her from learning language due to her isolation from society causing her a lack of speech, which psychologists wanted to find out if there was a critical period of time when language needs to be learned and the excruciating circumstances that would prevent a person from learning speech at all. Not only did this case have such a huge impact on the world of psychology and giving them more insight into child abuse and how much the abuse can be a strain on the victim, but it also for the first time really gave the public an insight on how much they should pay attention to any strange living arrangements for kids, but also really pay attention to the people in their communities and help in any way possible. Communities need to strengthen the trust and unity in their residence, know the names of neighbors, the names of each individual child in the family, and make sure that the family also has some type of relationship or interaction returned.
The documentary called Secret of the Wild Child presents a compelling story of a young girl named Genie, who was kept in isolation for 13 years by her father due to the fact that he assumed she was mentally retarded. This feral child presents one of the most extreme cases of neglect discovered in the United States. Genie faced abuse by her father, minimal human contact, development issues, and malnourishment until found by authorities in 1970.
van der Kolk et al., 2005). The type of trauma has also been considered with multiple findings supporting childhood sexual abuse as an etiological factor (Amariglio, 2014; Dorahy et al., 2009; Mahoney, 2006; McLean & Gallop, 2003; Vielhauer, 1996), but also emotional neglect (Dorahy et al., 2009), and perceived betrayal by the perpetrator and perceived failure to protect by the non-offending caregiver (Winnett, 2014). In addition to timing and type of trauma, repeated or cumulative trauma has been found associated with the development of CPTSD (Boroske-Leiner et al., 2008; Castelda, 2006; Marylene Cloitre et al., 2009; Hall, 1999; Mayfield-Schwarz, 2007; McTeague et al., 2010; Pelaprat, 2010; B. van der Kolk et al., 2005). Some literature has identified the severity or perceived severity of the abuse in childhood to be a contributing factor (Dorahy et al., 2009; Mayfield-Schwarz, 2007). Other researchers have looked at mediators and moderators such as the parent-child relationship moderating the development of CPTSD (Bruns, 2002), kinship and spirituality buffering exposure to violence in the etiology of CPTSD for
Imagine being a child and having your own father or mother hitting or burning your body, making sexual advances towards you, or just never being there for you when you need them. Becca, who decided to keep her last name anonymous, told about her experiences with being abused as a child in the Admit to Child Abuse web page. She told of her story by saying that she was "the victim of child sexual abuse and was abused for approximately 7 years by my father. Even at my age (22) now it is hard to put what happened to me into words" (Admit to Child Abuse). Well, more abuse like Becca's happens to children in today's society and they are victims of just those things. Many people may not realize this but child abuse has become prevalent in the United States throughout these past couple of years. Not only are children being physically abused but they are also being sexual abused, emotionally abused and neglected by people that are suppose to be the closest to them. There are many signs and effects of abuse, depending on the child that is being abused. Throughout this paper, each form of abuse will be addressed and those forms will be analyzed to find a proper treatment for these problems.
Child abuse is a social problem that affects millions of children each year. Not only does child abuse have multiple societal repercussions, but also individual repercussions that produce lifelong scars. There are many forms of child abuse; sexual, physical, verbal, and emotional. Some of the facts presented in this paper will be painful to absorb. That does not change the fact that these problems must be addressed. It has been reported that one out of three girls, and one out of seven boys are sexually abused by the time they reach the age of 18. The most prevalent form of child sexual abuse is now recognized to be, incest. A study that showed approximately 27% of the women in every state of the union, and 16% of the men said they had been sexually abused as children.
Many children in the US have to endure child abuse. Most people do not understand the consequences the abused children have to live with for the rest of their lives. Because child abuse is a long-term problem, it impacts not only the child and family, but also the society as a whole. Children who are abused usually end up with self-esteem problems and lose their self-confidence. Therefore, they end up getting addicted to drugs or alcohol, which can create problems for their whole community. As adults, children who have experienced child abuse suffer long-term consequences physically and mentally, which can cause them to have more chances of abusing their own children; therefore there should be more ways to help children and adults cope with their devastating childhoods so that their children wont have to go through the same thing growing up (Mersch).
Every individual breathing in this world is generally assumed and anticipated to experience a childhood filled with joy, laughter, and smiles. However, pain, tears, and silence are the memoirs of some children due to child abuse. Child abuse is an issue that has become an epidemic, developing into children’s most unwelcomed nightmares that haunts them on a daily basis. Child victims of abuse can consider the cruel acts being done to them as their preeminent complication of their lives causing them to become unstable. These children tend to lose control over their own lives, bodies, and minds creating catastrophic obstacles to build up in their lives and causing themselves to become weakened and vulnerable due to being confronted by fear that they cannot endure. The many lives of abused children are misguided as they mature because the events that they encounter during their early childhood years influence the construction of their future and behaviors. Child abuse is the barbarous act of maltreatment directed towards children that includes physical abuse, emotional abuse, and sexual molestation which all serve as elements towards leading to the destruction of their lives.