Physical Child Abuse, Child Neglect, and Child Sexual Abuse
Introduction
Physical child abuse is the physical injury caused to a child with a spiteful intention. This can be in form of beating, punching, biting, burning, and kicking among others. Child neglect is the lack of meeting a child’s basic needs and not providing for them in terms of healthcare. It is the lack of social, emotional, physical and education needs of a child. Child sexual abuse is a form of child abuse whereby an older person uses a child for sexual pleasures or activities.
According to Wekerle, Wolfe, Cohen, Bromberg & Murray (2019), physical abuse is the intentional use of force on a child’s body which is harmful and dangerous and results to an unexpected injury. Child physical abuse is sometimes connected to a child’s physical punishment as a way of discipline. Lack of the developmental knowledge for a child as a parent or caretaker can lead to physical abuse thinking that they are doing it to discipline the child. Lack of compassion or knowledge of the different developments of a child leads to the risk of abusing the child physically by their parents or their caretakers. Physical child abuse can lead to death in cases where there is abusive head injury, abdominal injuries, and suffocation. It is important for professional to know about the physical and psychological outcomes of physical child abuse. They then should help parents and caretaker to know these effects on a child and start practicing non-violent disciplinary approaches.
Wekerle, Wolfe, Cohen, Bromberg & Murray (2019) explain that child neglect is the failure of a parent or a caregiver to provide the child with the necessary care at the time. It occurs when a parent cannot provide the essentials for a child’s psychological, emotional and physical growth. Physical neglect of a child happens when the basic needs which are food, shelter, clothing, healthcare, hygiene and healthy living conditions are not fulfilled. It also occurs when a child is not protected from any harm. Emotional neglect occurs when the need of a child to feel loved, wanted, accepted, and safe lack. When a parent or caregiver reject or are not available for the child, it leads to emotional neglect. Supervisory neglect occurs when a child is left unattended in the care of other children, in dangerous places with harmful people. Child negligence could lead to malnutrition and lack of stable growth and developments patterns. It could easily lead to the child being harmed, it exposes the child to child sexual abuse and even death.
Child sexual abuse occurs when a child is used by an adolescence or an adult for sexual reasons. According to Wekerle, Wolfe, Cohen, Bromberg & Murray (2019), it is when a child is not able to approve due to their age or their level of development. Child sexual abuses cases are reported from the infants to the adolescents. It mainly include touching a child’s private parts, intercourse, intimacy, rape, sodomy, exploiting through prostitution, and producing pornographic materials. Due to the internet and technology, there is sexual exploitation through images and sexual attention in the internet. Child sexual abuse can lead to psychological trauma, depression, post- traumatic stress disorder, anxiety and can also lead to physical injury to the child.
The parent child interactions have a very big impact on the healthy development of the child. Breiner, Ford, & Gadsden (2016) state that parents should be equipped with knowledge of the practices that promote children’s health and safety. The parenting methods that affect the child’s outcomes positively in terms of them being physically, emotionally, socially, and behavioral healthy include, the behavior a parents responds with when the child is seeking attention. The parent should be sensitive to the child and comfort them. They should interact with the child and spend time together for example reading books.
According to Breiner, Ford, & Gadsden (2016), to aid children’s health and safety, parents should ensure that the child gets prenatal care, breast-feeds, gets vaccinated, get sufficient nutrition and make sure they monitor them as well as their developments. Parents should avoid using harsh ways of instilling discipline. Programs such as home visits for the children with various disabilities, helping out parents with funds, nutrition assistance, healthcare and housing for parents who are not well able have been established. Their help to ensure both the parent’s and the child’s physical health and safety.
In order to prevent child abuse and neglect, prevention programs which involve the parent are very effective. According to Cirik, Ciftcioglu & Efe (2017), they acquire a lot of information like how important it is for parents to provide quality care and education to the child early enough. Parental skills should be developed to ensure healthy child development. Empowering parents on finding solutions that are reasonable for them helps them to make changes that are long lasting and understand the developmental stages for their children. Behavioral programs for parents help to reduce exposure for children to abuse and neglect. The preventive programs help to raise awareness to families, teachers and the community as a whole regarding child abuse and neglect.
According to Rudolph, Gembeck, Shanley, & Hawkins (2018), for child sexual abuse, prevention has depended on education that is focused on children on how to avoid, identify and reveal sexual abuse. There are programs focused on parents with the same objective of them being educated on how to they should teach their children about the risks of child sexual abuse and the preventive measures and behaviors. The major challenge with this approaches is that as a parent it is not easy to know if your child has the capacity to understand, identify or even use the preventive measures. This happens because sometimes the child might take the abuser to be loving or showing compassion. They may not be willing to report an abuse of someone they tend to like. They may not be able to psychologically reject the manipulations of the abuser or even challenge their authority. The child may be told that the touch is normal and that they are being prepared for adulthood and it is a way of being loved. In such a scenario, it is hard for a child to use the protective measures and even report the abuser.
Economic disadvantages and poverty for families and children are highly associated with child neglect according to Lindo & Schaller (2014). Economic factors such as family income, the employment of a parent, economic conditions and their well-being. Income can directly cause a child to be neglected due to the financial constraints of a parent to provide the child with enough care. Lack of income leads to a parent or caregiver not to provide for the child’s basic, emotional, physical, healthcare and education needs.
Economic shock affects the mental health and also has an impact on the rate of child neglect. Poverty could be a cause of mental health leading to child neglect. Single parenting and substance abuse are mostly connected to the social economic status which is a known contributing factor for child neglect. According to Lindo & Schaller (2014), very many children are reported annually in the child care services for neglect in the United States. There are many more unreported cases of child neglect. Child neglect is costly to the society as well due to the special education programs, the increased cases on the justice systems, costs for child welfare services and healthcare.
In the United States, child neglect is the most dangerous form of child maltreatment compared to physical and sexual abuse. It is a significant problem that is affecting children from America. Hornor (2014) states that the major economic concern that is connected to child negligence is lack of financial resources which affects all the aspects if care. Getting financial help from a family member could lead to neglect since research shows that the people who end up receiving help are experiencing critical economic stress.
Pediatric nurse practitioners are likely to come across children that have been neglected medically in their practice. Hornor (2014) explains that it is important for the nurse practitioner to intervene as soon as they encounter such a case. They should evaluate the potential reasons for a parent or care giver not to give a child the necessary medical attention. Despite the financial constraints or barriers, if the child was exposed to any harm as a result of being neglected, a report of medical neglect is justified. If there was no harm on the child, a plan is established to intervene and overcome the barriers. Sufficient supervision of a child is important to protect their health and well-being. This reduces supervisory neglect harm of a child which is a serious concern and even causes death. For nutritional neglect, parents and caregivers are linked with suitable resources such as finances to address the nutritional insufficiency.
Home visit programs have been known to engage families and have helped to reduce parental and life stress that could lead to child neglect rather develop social support and parental capability. Parents and caregivers should join parenting programs that have been developed to assist the people who are not well able or are dealing with the lack of financial resources. This programs enlighten them and help them to socially interact and share different experiences. According to Petersen (2014), the intervention programs are developed to provide information on parenting practices to the parents who experience challenges in taking care of their children on how to nurture their behaviors. There are community service programs where parents are supported through legal services and regulative values that promote reciprocation by creating safe environments for children and their families. Communities and public agencies keep demanding and supporting the targeted prevention measures and provide support services for families facing certain challenges. Evidence based programs that help to prevent child neglect are supported at the community level to take care of the needs of different populations.
Conclusion
Child physical, sexual abuse and neglect remains to be a critical issues up to date. Lack of knowledge for the caregivers and the parents has led to an increase in child maltreatment. It is the result of lack of adequate supervision and follow up on a child and spending enough time with them. It is important for parents to acquire the necessary information on the parenting skills on the different development stages of the child. This helps them to bond and understand each other better in terms of the developmental changes. Child neglect is mostly experienced by families that lack financial resources or are living in poverty. Intervention programs have assisted parents and caregivers in providing information and support.
References
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