Child Abuse
Subject Child Abuse
Saturday, September 08, 2012
The Effects Mental Abuse Have on Children
What is Mental Abuse? Mental abuse, which is also referred to as emotional or psychological abuse, is a behavior that exposes another person to psychological trauma such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), chronic depression, or nervousness (Allister 129). Such behaviors are usually perpetrated by people who are at a more powerful position than the victim, i.e. a teacher to a student, a manager to a rank-and-file employee, parent to a child, an older sibling to a younger one, etc. This power imbalance is usually due to age, work position, social or family hierarchy, economic status, etc (Cooper 7). While the scope of mental abuse is wide, there is still no consensus among experts on how to define mental abuse. Because of this, there are different existing definitions of mental abuse. However, the prevalent measures are made up of roughly 20 specific aggressive behaviors that fall under verbal aggression, jealous behaviors, and dominant behaviors (Smith, Heyman, and Snarr 783-4). According to the U.S. Department of Justice, mental abuse are inflicted through the use of threat of physical harm, fear by intimidation, forced isolation, and destruction of property. Some researchers argue that isolated cases of aggressive behavior cannot be considered mental abuse. This is unlike physical abuse where a single incident of physical harm constitute physical abuse. This means that mental abuse, to be considered such, should be a sustained pattern of aggressive behavior/s inflicted upon a victim repeatedly (Smith, Heyman, and Snarr 787).
Prevalence of the Problem According to reports, abused children consists of 48% males and 51% females. Victims are more likely to be children whose ages are from birth to 3 years old, and the rate is a bothering 17% of children in the U.S. Other reports state that around 50% of abused children were white, around 24% were black, around
Saturday, September 08, 2012
The Effects Mental Abuse Have on Children
What is Mental Abuse? Mental abuse, which is also referred to as emotional or psychological abuse, is a behavior that exposes another person to psychological trauma such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), chronic depression, or nervousness (Allister 129). Such behaviors are usually perpetrated by people who are at a more powerful position than the victim, i.e. a teacher to a student, a manager to a rank-and-file employee, parent to a child, an older sibling to a younger one, etc. This power imbalance is usually due to age, work position, social or family hierarchy, economic status, etc (Cooper 7). While the scope of mental abuse is wide, there is still no consensus among experts on how to define mental abuse. Because of this, there are different existing definitions of mental abuse. However, the prevalent measures are made up of roughly 20 specific aggressive behaviors that fall under verbal aggression, jealous behaviors, and dominant behaviors (Smith, Heyman, and Snarr 783-4). According to the U.S. Department of Justice, mental abuse are inflicted through the use of threat of physical harm, fear by intimidation, forced isolation, and destruction of property. Some researchers argue that isolated cases of aggressive behavior cannot be considered mental abuse. This is unlike physical abuse where a single incident of physical harm constitute physical abuse. This means that mental abuse, to be considered such, should be a sustained pattern of aggressive behavior/s inflicted upon a victim repeatedly (Smith, Heyman, and Snarr 787).
Prevalence of the Problem According to reports, abused children consists of 48% males and 51% females. Victims are more likely to be children whose ages are from birth to 3 years old, and the rate is a bothering 17% of children in the U.S. Other reports state that around 50% of abused children were white, around 24% were black, around
Cited: Cooper, Rodney J. "The Impact of Intra-Familial Child Abuse and Neglect on Preschool Children 's Play." (2000)