1) Emotional Abuse
Emotional abuse is harder to recognize but is just as harmful to the child as other forms of abuse. Emotional abuse damages the child’s self-esteem and, in extreme cases, can cause developmental problems and speech disorders. A child suffers from emotional abuse when constantly ridiculed, rejected, blamed, or compared unfavorably with brothers, sisters, or other children.
Unrealistic expectations in academic or athletic achievement are a common cause of emotional abuse by parents or other adults. When a child can’t meet these expectations, he feels that he is never quite good enough. Emotional abuse is almost always present when other forms of abuse are identified.
Types of Emotional Abuse
- Rejecting
- Isolating
- Ignoring
- Corrupting
- Exploiting
- Terrorizing
Emotional Abuse Signs
Boys:
- Aggression
- Temper tantrums
- Fights with peers and siblings
- Bullying tactics
- Frustrates easily
- Disobedience
- Lying and cheating
- Destructive behaviors
- Impulsive behaviors
- Argumentative
- Loud
- Tease excessively
- Worry excessively
- Withdrawn
Girls:
- Withdrawn
- Passive
- Approval-seeking
- Compliant
- Frustrates easily
- Infinite patience
- Clinging to adults
- Overly dependent
- Stubborn
- Tease excessively
- Worry excessively
- Somatic complaints
Emotional Abuse Effects
Physical:
- Speech problems
- Lags in physical development
- Failure to thrive (especially in infants)
- Facial tics
- Eating disorders
- Substance abuse
- Self-harm - burning, cutting
- Attempts at or completed suicide
Behaviors:
- Low self-worth
- Irritability
- Overly reactive
- Sleep disorders
- Inability to trust others
- Depression
- Inappropriate behavior for age
- Withdrawal
- Profound sadness
- Habit disorders - sucking, biting, rocking
- Aggression
- Stealing
- Lying
- Self-harm
- Prostitution
- Engaging in risky behaviors
- Attempts at or completed suicide
Emotion:
- Inability to control emotions
- Questioning of religious beliefs
2) Physical Abuse
Physical abuse is the deliberate injury of a child by a person responsible for the child’s care. Physical abuse is often the result of unreasonable punishment, or punishment that is too harsh for the child. Sometimes, physical abuse is caused when caregivers react to stress. Drinking and drug abuse by caregivers are often contributing factors to physical abuse.
Physical abuse injuries can include bruises, broken bones, burns, and abrasions. Children experience minor injuries as a normal part of childhood, usually in places such as the shins, knees, and elbows. When the injuries are found in the soft-tissue areas on the abdomen or back, or don’t seem to be typical childhood injuries, it is possible that the child has been abused.
Abuse and Discipline
- A Comparison
Physical Abuse Signs
- Bruising
- Beating
- Burning
- Smothering and drowning
- Choking and hanging
- Poisoning
- Hair-pulling
- Pushed from heights
- Shaken Baby Syndrome (SBS)
- Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy (MSBP)
Physical Abuse Effects
- Does not trust
- Fearful of physical contact
- Startles easily, cowers, cringes
- Afraid when other children cry
- Aggressiveness or withdrawn
- Exaggerated politeness
- Profound sadness
- Difficulties in school
- Difficulty concentrating
- Lying
- Stealing
- Low self-worth
- Psychosomatic illnesses
3) Neglect
Child neglect is defined as when a caregiver fails to provide those basic human needs that are necessary for a child to grow into a healthy adult.
Poverty and child neglect are related, but poverty does not cause neglect. Although poverty does not cause neglect, poverty permeates neglecting families. What is the difference between poverty and neglect? Poverty is when the caregiver does not have the resources to provide the need. Neglect is when the caregiver has the resources, but chooses not to provide the need. Therefore, neglect is a choice to them.
Basic human needs
- Emotional needs
- Physical Needs
Child Neglect Signs
- In infants, failure to thrive
- Difficulty concentrating
- Difficulty learning
- Low self-esteem
- Withdrawal
- Depression
- Frequent absences from school
- Poor health
- Body odour
- Always dirty and severely unkempt
- Rotting teeth and chronic bad breath
- Sleepiness/always tired
- Child unusually small for his/her age
- Child is very thin and always hungry
- Child is rifling through garbage for food
- Child is stealing food and/or lunch money from others
Child Neglect Effects
The effects of child neglect are not limited to the children in the neglectful families. The effects last well into adulthood. Not just emotionally, but physically as well.
4) Sexual Abuse
Sexual abuse refers to all forms of sexual activities with on purpose to satisfy sexual desires of adults through pornography, pictures, sound recording, film, video recorders, fondling a child’s private part or making the child do the other way around, intercourse, incest, rape, sodomy, exhibitionism and sexual exploitation. The victims can happen to both gender and the abusers can be someone close or around the children.
Sexual Abuse Signs
Physical:
- Physical trauma such as redness, rashes, and/or bleeding to oral, genital and/or anal areas
- Bruises on breasts, buttocks, lower abdomen, thighs, genital and/or rectal areas
- Complaints of pain or itching in genital or anal areas
- Difficulty walking or sitting
- Unusual or offensive body odours
- Difficulty in bladder or bowel control
- Constipation
- Pain or discomfort on urination
- Blood in urine
- Abnormal dilation of vaginal or rectal openings
- Foreign bodies in vaginal, rectal or urethral openings
- Sexually transmitted diseases found vaginally, rectally or orally
- Yeast or bacterial infections
- Frequent sore throats; difficulty swallowing; choking
- Ear infections/problems
- Sudden weight gain or extreme weight loss
- Severe psychosomatic complaints such as stomachaches and headaches
Behaviors:
- Sexualized behavior that is inappropriate for the child's age
- Promiscuous behavior
Sexual Abuse Effects
Behaviors:
- Nightmares, phobias, and regressive behaviors such as thumb-sucking and bed-wetting
- Learning problems
- Clinging and smothering
- Insecurity, which put the child at risk for further abuse and exploitation
- Psychosomatic complaints such as stomachaches and headaches
- Precocious sexual activity--a young child knows more than they should about sexual activity; child may exhibit seductive behavior
- With young children, a preoccupation with sexual organs of self, parents and others--often this shows itself in language and art
- Aggression and bullying behaviors
- Refusal to change clothes in front of others
- Isolation
- Obsessively good behavior
- Obsessed with cleanliness
- Relationship problems
- Anti-social behavior
- Unwillingness to participate in social activities
- Running away
- Truancy / long absence from school
- Long absence from participation in extracurricular activities
- Dissociation - a child's existence is dependent on his/her ability to separate from the pain, which, in the most repulsive cases, may result in multiple personalities
-Risky behaviors such as fire starting, stealing and other delinquencies
- Animal cruelty
- Alcohol and drug abuse
- Dysfunctional relationships
- Avoiding confrontation
- Self-harm, including cutting and burning
- Paranoid behavior
- Preoccupation with sex
- Promiscuous behavior
- Compulsive and aggressive sexual behaviors
- Self-destructive sexual behavior and prostitution
- In adulthood, sexual dysfunction--avoidance of or phobic reactions to sexual intimacy
- Becomes the abuser
- Attempted and completed suicide
Handling techniques of abuse
Identified a number of techniques to help victims of child abuse as follows:
• Be calm and confident in children
• Believe in children
• State to the children that it was not their fault
• Speak to the children that sexual abuse incidents that happened to them does not need to be kept confidential because it can cause fear and discomfort
• Be supportive of children
• Give children an opportunity to express their feelings
• Be a good listener, do not force them to provide information about the abuse incident
• Protect them from further abuse
• Report to police
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