Psychology behind Violence
Introduction
Child abuse can be described as the situation where a parent or the person taking care of the child acts or fails to act, causes serious harm to a child even death, injuries and emotional harm eventually leading to the entire harm in the child. There are several forms of child violence and abuse including physical abuse, sexual maltreatment, neglect, emotional abuse and even exploitation. All these factors ensure the life of a child is not only affected biologically but psychologically and emotionally as well. Most people have reported have gone through child abuse during their childhood and thus there are many signs of child abuse which people should be on the lookout. More than 20% of adults have reported having undergone sexual abuse during their childhood years. This shows that many children undergo abuse either from parents or other people and fail to report. Many children are neglected physically, emotionally and end up lacking educational and medical support. All these abuses interfere with the growth and development of children and thus they are affected not only psychologically but socially and biologically as well. Therefore this paper will focus on child violence mainly focusing on the biological, psychological and social theories of child abuse.
Biological Theories of Child Abuse
Researchers have found out that child abuse interferes with the brains of not only those affected but other people in the following generations. Research has found out that when children are rejected by their mothers at very early ages, their brains produces little amounts of a useful chemical known as serotonin which passes on impulses into the brain (Starr & Wolfe, 1991). Low levels of this chemical indicates depression in people since their childhood years were stressful and full of anxiety. In addition research shows that abused females who in turn ended up becoming abuse parents had little amounts of serotonin compared to those abused females who did not become abusive parents. Biology indicates that some abused females become abusive parents while some are not abusive though the research has not given the reasons of such occurrences (Pandey, 2007). In addition some researchers suggest that giving abused children drugs rich in serotonin will prevent them from becoming abusive parents in future since their serotonin levels will be high. Research has shown that child abuse has an effect on the brain development and thus many abused children often become abusers since they have watched the behavior of their parents. Adults who were exposed to stress nod depression at tender ages are seen to release stress hormones known as cortisol more than normal as they respond to the disturbing situations (Pandey, 2007). Cortisol is harmful since it can lead to death of useful brain cells that are involved in emotion and memory regulation and control respectively. With time increase in cortisol is harmful to a person’s body since it will eventually cause depression and impair the endocrine (Pandey, 2007). Research indicates that children who face abuse at tender ages eventually get severe depression at their adult ages because of the effect of the cortisol.
Child maltreatment has been researched to alter or interfere with the immune system. High levels of stress in childhood interfere with the behavior of the macrophages which are the cells that respond to any infection thus preventing occurrence of a possible infection (Pandey, 2007). Stress ensures that these cells are interfered with and thus respond excessively which leads to a possible infection. This clearly shows that child abuse affects the normal lives of the victims and causes severe depression at adult ages. Children who were abused grow and develop with much stress thus their health is usually at a risk and are exposed to a number of illnesses such as the heart diseases and severe depression (Pandey, 2007). Thus abused children need to be given medical care in order to prevent occurrence of diseases later in their adulthood ages. More than a million children in America are abused annually and neglected and it is estimated that the number is on the rise instead of declining showing that abused children eventually becomes abusive parents. In addition the different types and forms of child maltreatment increase the chances of mental diseases and sexual dysfunction. The children are exposed to early stresses since their brains are stressed much which can affect their mental uprightness thus the abuse is a threat to development and growth of children in a healthy manner (Pandey, 2007). Females who were victims of child maltreatment are at a risk of giving birth to kids with the autism disorder compared to females who were not abused at tender ages. Thus child abuse affects the child biologically by causing diseases and interferes with the brain development as well as the general growth and development a normal child is supposed to get.
Psychological Theories of Child Abuse
Psychological theories show the psychological part of the abuse whereby most of the abused children end up becoming abusive parents later on. Attachment theory is one of the theories which affect children psychologically since children who are abused are deprived off their maternal attachment (Briere, 1992). Most of the children who are separated from their mothers during those early years end up developing psychological and sociological disorders which interfere with their growth. Thus children need to be attachment to their mothers for purposes of psychological and physical protection and security. When children are denied this and instead abused, they develop problems which affect them later on in life where they become abusive parents and thus the process is spread from one generation to the next generations. Poor attachments of children and their mothers are seen as causes of child abuse since mothers neglect their children at early stages where the children need them the most (Scannapieco & Connell-Carrick, 2005). Children who are abused at their early ages often develop stress and eventually get to the state of depression since they were not attached and loved by their mothers. This theory explains the importance of child mother attachment since children who are loved at their early stages develop normally without any stress and depression and thus remain healthy unlike those children who are abused. Physical abuse does not affect the psychological theory much compared to sexual abuse and emotional abuse. Children who are emotionally and sexually abused suffer more psychologically compared to those who were physically abused.
Learning theory is another example of psychological theory since it shows that children who grew up observing violent behavior from parents and were abused in the process often learn that behavior and end up practicing the behavior (Scannapieco & Connell-Carrick, 2005). Children who were abused end up becoming abusers since they learnt those violent behaviors through observing their parents thus practice it later on in life. This theory however has some limitations since it fails to explain why some parents become abusive while they did not suffer child abuse. It is important to note that children develop as they observe other peoples’ behavior thus observing negative behavior interferes with their psychology and they end up copying those behaviors even though they are wrong. Most parents who suffered abuse when they were children fail to give and show love to their children since they were denied that too (Jenny, 2011). They do not know how to show love since they were not showed that love and instead they were neglected and abused by those people who supposed to take good care of them. Such parents lack the character traits of showering their children with love. It is expected that children need to be well taken care of since they need to grow and develop well psychologically and physically in good health. However, abused children lack this care and end up reciprocating the abuse to their children. Mothers play a major role in ensuring their children develop well without neglecting them and where the child lacks the motherly love, problems arise and in most cases the problems interfere with the psychologically growth and development of the children (Jenny, 2011). Therefore these theories show the importance of ensuring children are well taken care of especially in their childhood years.
Social Theories of Child Abuse
Social learning theory is one of the theory supporting child abuse and explains that the behavior of children if affected by the surrounding people or the community. Most abused children learn the characteristics of abuse from those who abused them (Jenny, 2011). In addition most children observe the abusers and learn from them and later practice that in future. Most of the abused children learn the abusive behaviors from the abusers and end up becoming abusive adults in the society. Thus violence or abuse from thus theory is transmitted from one person to the next and indeed passed on to other generations. Research indicates that most of the abused children end up committing social crimes compared to those who were not abused in their childhood years (Sturt, 2006). Most of the children who were abused are involved in crimes since they were not taught how to follow the right way and were often neglected. It is important to learn that this theory ensures that child abuse cases are reduced in order to prevent occurrence of possible crimes in our current society. Children need to be showered with love by parents and the community people and therefore learn life traits and skills from the surrounding people instead of being neglected and learning antisocial behaviors (Sturt, 2006). This theory shows that most children who were not supported during their childhood years end up learning negative behaviors from other people and other children. Such children develop and grow in a negative manner since they do not know what is expected of them by the society because they were not taught important life lessons by the caretakers or mothers.
The family system theory is another example of a theory that focuses on the social composition of a child. Families have the key roles in ensuring their children develop and grow in the upright manner and that they are showed with love (Sturt, 2006). Children learn behaviors from families first then the outside world. This shows that families which abuse their children play a major role in depriving off the maternal love from the parents and thus children denied that end up being bad people in the society. Study shows that crimes which are mainly caused by child abuse are increasing annually since child abuse cases are on the rise in many states (Sturt, 2006). The theory shows that children who were abused will commit crimes twice as much compared to those children who were not abused. Children who were abused are likely to engage in illicit activities compared to those children who were not abused thus showing the impact of abuse on children is way negative. The numbers of runaway youths is increasing with 50% mounting to those children who were physically abused. Prostitution is increasing in the society annually but research has showed that 60% of those who practice prostitution were sexually abused during their childhood days (Horton & Cruise, 2001). This is a big number indicating that the more children are abused sexually the more the levels of prostitution since most of the prostitutes were sexually abused at early ages. Most of the inmates were found out to have been abused during their childhood days with over 60% having confirmed they were subjected to child abuse (Sturt, 2006).
Most of the abused children suffer various consequences since they cannot relate with other people socially since they have been subjected to stress throughout their lives (Horton & Cruise, 2001). Such children choose to subject themselves in crimes since they were not installed with the right behaviors since they had to no one to take good care of them. Such children end up becoming violent thus engaging themselves in antisocial behaviors such as crimes. Research shows that most of the drug abusers are those people who were subjected to child abuse. Most of the drug and alcohol abusers were in one or another abused as children thus find comfort in drugs and other crimes (Horton & Cruise, 2001). This shows that children need to be loved if the crime rate is expected to reduce since those children who have been abused are violent and end up engaging in crimes. Parents need to love their children and teach them important and useful behaviors in their lives instead of subjecting them to abuse and allowing them to become criminals who end up in jails.
Conclusion
From the above discussion, we can drive conclusions that child maltreatment is wrong since it affects overall the composition of a child ranging from psychological to physical growth and development. Most children are left with scars which might not appear physically since they are affected emotionally. Abused children need to get help at earlier ages instead of growing up with the scars that will end up interfering with their lives. People should be ready to learn the most common signs of child abuse for them to help the abused children. Most of the abused children end up becoming abusive people in future thus the trend or cylix is passed on from one generation to the next. Child abuse should be stopped since it has various bad consequences not only on the health of the child but emotional development as well. Most of those who were subjected to child abuse end up becoming criminals and bad people in the community.
References
Starr, R., & Wolfe, D. A. (1991). The Effects of child abuse and neglect: Issues and research. London: Guilford.
Briere, J. (1992). Child abuse trauma: Theory and treatment of the lasting effects. Newbury Park, Calif: Sage Publications.
Pandey, S. (2007). Psychological consequences of child abuse. New Delhi: Concept Pub. Co.
Scannapieco, M., & Connell-Carrick, K. (2005). Understanding child maltreatment: An ecological and developmental perspective. New York: Oxford University Press.
Jenny, C. (2011). Child abuse and neglect: Diagnosis, treatment, and evidence. St. Louis, Mo: Saunders/Elsevier
Horton, C. B., & Cruise, T. K. (2001). Child abuse and neglect: The school's response. New York, NY [u.a.: Guilford Press.
Sturt, S. M. (2006). Child abuse: New research. New York: Nova Science Publishers.
