signs of abuse.....

How does someone even know if there child is being abused? Like other problems and issues, child abuse has warning signs too. As everyone knows, there is different types of abuse. For each different type of abuse there is also different warning signs. If a child has been physically abused they may have unexplained bruises, cuts, or burns on them. Signs of neglect include frequent absences from school, begs or steals, and is consistently dirty. A child suffering from emotional abuse will show extremes in behavior,may attempt suicide, and is delayed in physical development. As a parent/guardian or a concerned citizen is get help for the child. Some other ways of helping a child, when they have been abused is, avoid denial and remain calm, don't interrogate, and reassure the child they did nothing wrong.

Are authorities doing all they can to protect children? I know that child abuse is hard to catch, but are they doing absolutely everything they can to prevent it? In a recent article that appeared in the New York Times explains that maybe they aren't doing everything they can. The story is about two child welfare workers and police found a girl dead and her sister abused. The were found in an apartment closet, with bruises and cuts on them. They found out that it was her mother that killed her. Her mother was in jail previously for assaulting a foster child. So my question is how was the mother around the kids? Also the workers weren't looking after the kids very good if something like that happened.

Effects of Child Abuse

Child abuse isn't just physical abuse, it goes deeper than that. Child abuse can also be emotional and sexual abuse, and child neglect. Emotional abuse is basically abuse that gets to your emotional, for example, getting yelled at all the time or getting the blame for everything.Emotional abuse is draining and can lead to depression. Sexual abuse is exactly what it sounds like, it can be rape, sexual assault, or sexual molestation. In other words, forcing a child to do things they don't want to sexually. Child neglect is failure to give children emotional and physical care. Child neglect can also be not taking care of a child in terms of maltreatment. Maltreatment basically sums child abuse up by itself. Other effects from child abuse are aggression, alcohol/drug abuse, eating disorders, failure to thrive, behavior and concentration problems, dehydration, insomnia, etc.

As we all know, child abuse happens for many different reasons. An article I found interesting is about a mother and her four children. The mother was abused as a child and transferred it over to her kids. She ended up killing all four of her children due to her past experiences. Also when she was 18 months old her father killed her mother. Child abuse is a very powerful thing that can transfer over to someone's children. People need to think of the consequences before they abuse a child.

Why child abuse happens.....

Why does child abuse happen? To start off, child abuse can be defined as mistreatment of a child by a parent or guardian, including neglect, beating, and sexual molestation. There are many different opinions on why people abuse children. In this article by Kelli Deister, http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art52929.asp, she explains that some people speculate child abuse happens because the abuser has mental issues. Also their religious backgrounds might be a contributing factor to child abuse. In her article she goes more into detail on how people's religion may affect how they treat their child.
Child abuse doesn't happen in a certain type of household. Living in a poor neighborhood or low income apartments doesn't automatically make a family bad or child abusers. Child abuse happens everywhere, for reasons only the family knows. A significant amount of research was done to prove that there is many factors involved with child abuse, and not just where they live. Some factors include immaturity and unrealistic needs, stress of child care, lack of parenting knowledge, depression, and drug or alcohol abuse from the parents.