CHILD ABUSE AND NEGLECT

CHILD ABUSE AND NEGLECT: CAUSES AND ISSUES

Child abuse is a pervasive problem in our society. However, child abuse is difficult to identify due to the intricate components of definitions of child abuse and neglect. These vary among different sectors of the general public and among different professions concerned with the problem.

For example, physical abuse is defined as "non-accidental physical harm to the child inflicted by persons responsible for the child's care." For some purposes "serious" harm is utilized; for others, the "intentional, willful" nature is emphasized. For still others, "danger to the child," and not intent, is stressed.

The American Bar Association Juvenile Justice Standards Project defines child abuse as that which .. causes or creates a substantial risk of causing disfigurement, impairment of bodily functioning or other serious physical injury" (Kadushin and Martin, 1981, p. 6).

Regardless of the intent or the extent of physical harm, child abuse inflicts profound health, behavioral, emotional, social, and psychological scars on the abused.

The purpose of this report is to delineate the nature of child abuse and neglect and to discuss parental factors that are related to incidents of child abuse.

The thesis of this report is: child abuse has been a societal problem for many years. Yet, while analyzing this problem, we find that blame should not be placed directly on the abuser. There are individual parental factors, fami

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scovery of child abuse as a major problem occurred in the early 1960s. Dr. Brandt Steele, et al., notes that child abuse "is not confined to people with psychopathic personality or borderline socioeconomic status. It also occurs among people with good educational and stable financial and social backgrounds" (Cohn and Daro, 1987, p. 433). The etiology of child abuse and neglect is complicated. Cook and Bowles (1980, p. 3) citing another author, point out that "abuse is an orderly outcome of a network of cultural and community forces that, in turn, affect the development of family interaction patterns leading to abusive incidents." There is agreement that abuse is only one symptom of a set of underlying forces that include: interpersonal aggressiveness, dissimilar behavior (Cook and Bowles, 1980), parental frustration (Rosenthal, 1987), parental dysfunction (Helfer, 1987), abuse as children (Oates, 1984), parental stress, learned abusive models, cultural tolerance for physical punishment, inappropriate expectations of a child, and lack of social support, to name a few causes (Cook and Bowles, 1980). Browne and Saqi (1987, p. 78) outlines a "tentative model of the causes of child abuse and neglect" that reflects situational

Category: Psychology - C