Negative Effects of Child Abuse and Prevention

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All children have certainly many experiences before they became truly mature. A child can face lot of dangerous things from the environment surrounding them which might seriously affect their whole life. As definition in the Federal Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act: Child abuse is any action from adult to a child that it could be harmful to the child’s body or mental (Children Welfare Information Gateway 2007). In 2005, among 3.6 million investigations by Child Protective Services agencies in the U.S, an estimated 899,000 children (24.97%) were confirmed to be victims of child abuse (Children’s Bureau 2005). In generally, there are 4 typical kinds of child abuse: neglect, physical abuse, sexual abuse and emotional maltreatment. Child neglect is situation that child’s primary needs were lacked from adults, especially parents or caregivers of the child. Physical child abuse is an adult’s action which causes visible or potential harmfulness to the child. Sexual abuse in children is any sexual activity from adult within a child. Emotional maltreatment is known as a behavior of children abuse that affects to psychology life or social skills of a child (Jaffe-Gill et al 2007). We can classify the reasons of child abuse into 3 different ways: parental causes, ecological causes and child problems (Childline Gauteng 2006). Besides, child abuse also has strongly influenced to all sides of the child’s life, such as: physical effects, behavior effects and emotional effects (Jaffe-Gill et al 2007). This essay will discuss the causes and negative effects of child abuse as well as provide suggestions to assist the victims. It is completely surprising to know that one of the causes is due to the child’s parents. Actually, either the child’s father or mother falls into an addicted situation such drugs or alcohols, these children will not be able to receive suitable cares to grow up as usual. Even, the child will be beaten or neglected without any regret (Australian Childhood Foundation 2004). Based on the report from the Department of Health and Human Services, in 2006, approximately 82.4% abused child cases were made by at least one of the child’s parents (Childhelp 2006). There was a real story about an eleven-year old boy, named Josh, who had experienced extreme neglect during his younger years by his parents. After over a year receiving treatment at the Tennyson Center for Children in Colorado, Josh has finally rejoined to normal life (Tennyson Center for Children at Colorado Christian Home 2006).

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