Literature Review
Child abuse and parental neglect are the two problems that bother the American society as well as other people around the whole world.
Gloud, Clarke, Heim, Harvey, Majer, and Nemeroff (2012) introduce the two main dimensions, types of child abuse effects: one of them is based on the neurocognitive aspect like the problems with “visual memory, executive functioning, and spatial working memory” (p. 503), and another aspect touches upon the emotional problems and stresses that may bother children through the whole lifespan.
Their studies aim at providing a practical perspective of how the problem of child abuse should be regarded and solved.
Though it is possible to address special stress-management professionals (Lemoncelli, 2012), it is hard to be sure that the consequences like anger or social misunderstanding can be totally removed, and additional investigations are required to explain how child abuse effects may be understood by a society.
As a rule, the effects of child abuse are the problems that can be solved by the encouragement of cognitive self-regulation explained by Iwaniec (2006).
Still, treatments from child abuse may vary considerably because people are eager to offer helpful ideas and unique approaches as soon as parental neglect was recognised as a traumatic event that has to be analysed and prevented like it was done by Cloitre, Cohen, and Koenen (2011).
In addition, Fang, Brown, Florence, and Mercy (2012) identify the economic burden of the problem as more $30000 is spent on each child’s health care costs by means of the analysis of certain financial operations.
Taking into consideration the fact that more than 600000 American children are defined as maltreatment victims annually (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2014), the actual sums are hard to imagine.
Adults should understand that they steal from themselves when they demonstrate poor treatment to their children and make them suffer. It seems to be better to follow some preventive ideas and suggestions and regard their importance as they help to decrease the number of disabled children in a society (Stalker & McArthur, 2012).
The effects of child abuse are numerous and touch upon different spheres of life. Some researchers find it more effective to focus on one particular aspect and prove its urgency. For example, Moylan, Herrenkohl, Sousa, Tajima, Herrenkohl, and Russo (2010) use the behavioural changes as the main problems that have to be solved.
Child abuse and family violence change children’s nature considerably, worsen the way of how children may understand the world, and poorly define the future cooperation with the outside world.
The other experts try to compare several consequences at the same time and explain how psychological, societal, physical, and behavioural issues predetermine a future member of a society (Child Welfare Information Gateway, 2013).
Child abuse is the problem that plays an important role in a society. Even if people think that they are far from such troubles, and child abuse never becomes their own concern, it is necessary to remember that they cannot prevent themselves against communicating, working, or interacting with people, who suffer from child abuse once.
This is why people have to know more about the effects of child abuse, possible hints on how to treat people with such problems, ideas on how to help them or ways how to neglect the case of abuse in the past.
Antisocial behaviour is one of the outcomes of child abuse and parental neglect that may be disclosed in a variety of forms (Sousa, Herrenkohl, Moylan, Tajima, Klika, Herrenkohl, & Russo, 2011).
In comparison to other studies and investigations mentioned above, their research underlines the importance of social approaches and the role of society in general on children and their relations with parents. Children may be dependent on their parents or have a desire to leave them within a short period of time.
Some children can have such possibilities to change something in their lives and improve the outcomes of the abuse they suffer from, and some children do not know that something can be changed.
The results of hypnoses, as one of the possible means of treatment, prove that trauma’s types may vary, and each effect should be thoroughly analysed and considered from a professional point of view (Degun-Mather, 2006).
In fact, people cannot prevent child abuse to its full extent as this problem has a long history and is identified by a unique penetrating process that cannot be neglected (Corby, Shemmings, & Wilkins, 2012). The researchers show how the historical perspective helps to comprehend the essence of a current problem.
The attention to history explain that some children could not even guess that they became the victims of child abuse and considered to believe that their parents’ maltreatment as something ordinary that could not be changed.
Though the reasons of parental neglect may vary, the effects of child abuse are all of the same nature – all of them destroy a personality or, at least, provoke unpleasant changes. As soon as a person is changed because of being abused (physically, sexually, emotionally, or psychologically) at home, the world undergoes certain changes as well.
Reference List
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2014). Child Maltreatment: Consequences. Web.
Child Welfare Information Gateway. (2013). Long-term consequences of child abuse and neglect. Web.
Cloitre, M., Cohen, L.R., & Koenen, K.C. (2011). Treating survivors of childhood abuse: Psychotherapy for the interrupted life. New York, NY: Guilford Press.
Corby, B., Shemmings, D., & Wilkins, D. (2012). Child abuse: An evidence base for confident practice. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Education.
Degun-Mather, M. (2006). Hypnosis, dissociation and survivors of child abuse: Understanding and treatment. West Sussex, England: John Wiley & Sons.
Fang, X., Brown, D.S., Florence, C.S., & Mercy, J.A. (2012). The economic burden of child maltreatment in the United States and implications for prevention. Child Abuse & Neglect, 36(2), 156-165.
Gloud, F., Clarke, J., Heim, C., Harvey, P.D., Majer, M., & Nemeroff, C.B. (2012). The effects of child abuse and neglect on cognitive functioning in adulthood. Journal of Psychiatric Research, 46(4), 500-506.
Iwaniec, D. (2006). The emotionally abused and neglected child: Identification, assessment and intervention. West Sussex, England: John Wiley & Sons.
Lemoncelli, J.J. (2012). Healing from childhood abuse: Understanding the effects, taking control to recover. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO.
Moylan, C.A., Herrenkohl, T.I., Sousa, C., Tajima, E.A., Herrenkohl, R.C., & Russo, M.J. (2010). The effects of child abuse and exposure to domestic violence on adolescent internalising and externalising behaviour problems. Journal of Family Violence, 25(1), 53-63.
Sousa, C., Herrenkohl, T.I., Moylan, C.A., Tajima, E.A., Klika, J.B., Herrenkohl, R.C., & Russo,. M.J. (2011). Longitudinal study on the effects of child abuse and children’s exposure to domestic violence, parent-child attachments, and antisocial behaviour in adolescence. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 26(1), 111-136.
Stalker, K & McArthur, K. (2012). Child abuse, child protection and disabled children: A review of recent research. Child Abuse Review, 21(1), 24-40.