child abuse
...es of child abuse. Alcohol and many other drugs are making it easier for users to lose control of impulses, thereby engaging in physical, sexual, or emotional abuse. Children have become one of the homeless populations, and officials say many belong to addicted parents who are forced onto the streets after spending their money on drugs. Overloaded foster care organization is faced with children that have been neglected, physically and sexually abused. Most of the victimized children are from drug using parents. Parents or children themselves who have been victimized may use alcohol to help them express anger, sedatives to mask the emotional pain, or any other drugs for self-medication and escape from misery. The National Committee for the Prevention of Child Abuse estimated that forty percent of the deaths were from parents who had an alcohol or drug problem. Substance abuse impairs thinking and judgment, lessens inhibitions, and often acts as a barrier in preventing parents from coming onto control with problems. The poorest group of people in the United States today is children. Thirteen million children, fall below the government’s official poverty line. Child poverty in 1990 has increased by six percent than in 1969. Most of these poor children live in households with a single parent. According to 1989 Census reports (1990), 45.8% were white children, 68.3% were African-American and 70.1% were Hispanic children living with a single mother. Most of these children were also the victims of increasing reports of child abuse and neglect. Reports today are still being debated whether or not the increase of child abuse is abuse itself or the public are more aware of these problems and are willing to report it more. Perpetrators of child abuse are usually parents or relatives. These relatives come from poor families where they themselves were abused as children. As a result, they do not have first-hand knowledge of how to cope with the stress of raising children with very little money and little support. Spouse abuse is increasingly being identified in families who abuse and neglect their children, and has great emotional impact on the children. Mothers and children are often fearful of disclosing abuse in the presence of the abuser for fear of retaliation. Confronting an abuser with allegations and statements from family members will increase the risk of harm. It is important to recognize that battering is not only about violent assault but also involves a host of actions in which the batterer establishes increasing levels of power and control over the victim. It must be understood that in many, if not most, circumstances battered women do not feel that they can "just leave." Understanding the true level of danger is an essential part of intervention. Access to weapons, substance abuse, mental illness, threats of homicide or suicide, and the patterns and the severity of the abuse itself are all key considerations. Many studies of child abuse suggest that isolation is a major factor. When families have difficulties from unemployment or other social problem, they may respond to their problem in a number of ways. The families respond by withdrawing from friends and neighbors, are the most likely to be abusive. Other studies have shown that abusive families tend to be more isolated than other families. They tend to have fewer friends, less contact with neighbors, and less access to welfare system or social service system. Isolation seems to be both a cause and effect of abusive patterns. Many child abusers were also survivors of child abuse themselves. If they were physically, emotionally, or sexually abused as children they may grow up to repeat the abuse as adults. They believe that it is normal to beat a child or to engage in sexual abusive behavior. For many parents who were abused as children, their reason for abusing their own children is that they need to prove that their parents were right. Many children find it easier to pretend that they are responsible for the abuse, or that their parents are acting out of love, than to admit that their parents are acting in a bad behavior. When those children grow up, they still do not want to admit that their parents acted badly. So they act just like their parents, because they reason to themselves, their parents were acting out of love. The ability of a parent to provide adequate care for a child depends partly on his or her emotional maturity, coping skills, mental capacity and parenting skills. Child development researchers found that regardless of level of stress or the availability of emotional support for parenting, was the most predictor of maltreatment. Mothers who no longer neglected or abused their child six years later were more outgoing, more mature and more realistic in problem solving to mothers who still abused and neglected their children. Clinical depression has also been associated with mothers who neglect. Studies of depressed women by psychiatric researchers have consistently found that depressed mothers are more likely than nondepressed mothers to be hostile, rejecting, and to be neglectful especially to feeding and supervision. Mothers that have persistent lack of self-esteem and social skills are also found to be abusive. Low self esteem and social skills resulted in equally incompetent, unsuccessful male partners. Stable relationship with a husband or boyfriend was found to be a factor distinguishing mothers who discontinued maltreating their children from those who continued to abuse. In 1975 sociologist, Straus and Gelles (1986) conducted the National Family Violence Survey to determine the incidence of child abuse in the United States. In 1985, they conducted a second survey to update their results. The results found that child abuse had declined by 47% with a nuclear family with at least one child between the ages of three and seventeen. There were thirty-six cases of child abuse per thousand in 1975 and only nineteen cases per thousand in 1985. Straus and Gelles (1986) explained two possible ways, child abuse actually decreased over the ten years, or families were more unwilling to admit to child abuse in 1985 than 1975. The 1975 survey were from one-hour long in-person interviews with parents in 1,146 households. The 1985 survey were from thirty-five minute telephone interviews with parents in 1,428 households. Eighty-five percent of the 1985 surveys were completed, were only sixty-five percent of the surveys were completed in 1975. Abuse might have been higher because some families refused to participate. The National Incidence Study of Child Abuse and Neglect (1996) was released in September 1996. The study found that child abuse and neglect had nearly doubled between 1986 and 1993, going from 1.4 million to 2.8 million cases per year. Which serious injuries that were involved had almost quadruples from 143,000 cases to 570,000 cases. According to researcher Besharov (1990) , the ...