Another critical issue is the financial well-being of the parents and their families. To assist parents in fulfilling these needs, physicians, nurses and school psychologists need to have ready access to various types of resources and collaborate with social workers, home health agencies, financial counselors, treatment centers. Through this collaboration, professionals can then support parents in raising their children properly without resorting to abusive behavior as a result of life stressors (1581).
Because of the life stressors that can contribute to the likelihood of child abuse, professionals such as physicians have the opportunity to prevent child abuse by attending to the family and social histories of their patients. Physicians should determine whether the families are affected by a lack of social supports, social isolation and the presence of a physically disabled child that increases the likelihood of stress and abuse. They can also utilize anticipatory guidance tools such as the hotline for the parents who need help with basic parenting challenges and questionnaires to learn about parental practices that may lead to child abuse (Theodore and Runyan 176).
Apart from addressing the fundamental needs of parents and their parents, professionals also need to provide parenting education, especially for parents who are deemed to be at-risk for abusing their children. Researchers have confirmed that parents who abuse their children often lack the knowledge and skills of raising their children, often due to their exposure to poor parenting models such as their abusive parents (Cowen 73). Parenting programs such as the Bavolek Nurturing Program (BNP) help parents to: a) reduce their imposition of unrealistic expectations on their children by understanding their development; b) communicate with their children in a nurturing way that is sensitive to their needs; c) adopt alternative ways of disciplining their children ...