Care: Child Abuse and Abused Children Essay example

Submitted By Chloe33
Words: 1430
Pages: 6

In this assignment i am going to be underlining the signs and symptoms of abuse which will be described across five different categories, these are as followed: Physical Abuse, Sexual Abuse, Emotional Abuse, Neglect and lastly Self-Harm. I will be describing the factors that would lead to the suspicion of a child who is being maltreatment or abused. Because adults are so much stronger and bigger than children, an abused child can be severely injured or killed by accident. Physical abuse of a child can lead to severe brain damage, disfigurement, blindness, crippling, and death. Abused individuals may carry emotional scars for a lifetime. Children can be permanently removed from the parents' custody if the parents are abusive enough. However, this experience can also cause the child psychological problems. The child may feel rejected, or the placement may not lead to a strong, long-term attachment to the new caregivers.
Physical Abuse
Physical abuse on a child can lead to fractures or other injuries that indicate that the child is in danger or is being physically hurt. The physical signs of child abuse used to be called Battered Child Syndrome. The syndrome referred to many fractures that occurred at different times in children too young to have received them from an accident. Since this, the name of Battered Child Syndrome has been changed. Because adults are so much stronger and bigger than children, an abused child can be severely injured or killed by accident. Physical abuse of a child can lead to severe brain damage, disfigurement, blindness, crippling, and death. Abused individuals may carry emotional scars for a lifetime. Children can be permanently removed from the parents' custody if the parents are abusive enough. However, this experience can also cause the child psychological problems. The child may feel rejected, or the placement may not lead to a strong, long-term attachment to the new caregivers.
The cause of Physical abuse tends to occur at moments of great stress. Many people who commit physical abuse were abused themselves as children, but not in every case. As a result, they often do not realize that abuse is not appropriate discipline. Often people who commit physical abuse also have poor impulse control. This prevents them from thinking about what happens as a result of their actions. So for instance the child thinks its normal behavior because they have grown up thinking that, when the child grows it won’t know if they are being physically abused or not because their views on being abused is different to other peoples yet they think it’s okay. Parents with ADHA will be looked upon more by the Social Services because this might also be a case which the parent is abusing the child when they get angry or frustrated. The rate of child abuse is fairly high and the most common form of physical abuse is neglect but i will go onto explaining that in the next part.
There are major risk factors for children being abused and these include: * Alcoholism * Domestic violence * Drug abuse * Being a single parent * Lack of education * Poverty
However, it is important to note that cases of child abuse are found in every racial or ethnic background and social class. It is impossible to tell abusers from non-abusers by looking at their appearance or background. This would also be classes as labeling if people were to go round just looking at parents and saying “she abuses her child because her child has a bump on his head”.
An adult may bring an injured child to an emergency room with a strange explanation of the cause of the injury. The child's injury may not be recent, children are brought to A&E with unexplained injuries but this cannot always be 100% that the vhild is being abuse by the parents, it takes more work and trained Nurses and Social workers to work out if the child has been abused or if he or she is being abused.
These symptoms include: * Black eyes * Broken bones