Child Maltreatment Analysis

Child maltreatment is committed on a child less than eighteen years of age by another person, usually someone in a custodial role, (Child Abuse and Neglect Prevention, 2016) by using physical abuse, sexual abuse, and emotional abuse, or by neglecting neglecting a child (Understanding Child Maltreatment, n.d.). It is committed for reasons including children failing to meet the expectations an authoritative figure has placed on them like not remaining as “quiet and compliant” as they “should,” because the abusing adult once suffered from abuse and finds it to be an acceptable form of discipline (Feldman, p. 212), because the family is under a lot of stress. For example, families that use drugs and alcohol, are poor, sickly, or have a history of violence often maltreat their children (Understanding Child Maltreatment, n.d.). Child maltreatment is often conducted in the home in Western societies and is fairly common because households are isolated, private, and away form the intervention of others (Feldman, p. 212).
Maltreatment changes the brains of victims by way of reducing the size of both the hippocampus and amygdala, and the emotional and memory regulatory system, the limbic system, is changed “due to (its) over excitation” (Feldman, p. 213).
Immediate consequences of maltreatment include immediate death if mortally hurt and head trauma.
Head trauma can cause long-term consequences including cerebral palsy or blindness. Other long-term consequences consist of improper brain development, which can cause learning disabilities, addiction to alcohol, drugs, and/or cigarettes, the inability to properly regulate emotions, a lack of language skills, psychiatric disorders like eating disorders, depression, and anxiety, and “certain chronic diseases as adults, including heart disease, cancer, chronic lung disease, liver disease, obesity, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and high levels of C-reactive protein” (Child Abuse and Neglect,
2016).
Early childhood home visitation, where employees visit the children’s home for educational and supportive purposes, parent education programs, where child-raising skills are cultivated in parents through education, child sexual abuse prevention programs, where schools educate children on what is or is not sexually acceptable, abusive head trauma, where interventions aimed at preventing head trauma, and media-based interventions, where public awareness is facilitated by the help of campaigns, are all examples of programs and efforts to address child abuse Of these, home visiting, parent education, abusive head trauma prevention, and multi-component programs are the most promising prevention programs (Child Maltreatment Prevention, 2009). I think more prevention is needed in our society. I think requiring students to take a course on Deviance and Aggression like I am taking right now in college should be implemented in high schools as it really sheds light on how intergenerational aggression and abuse can occur.