For once, I remembered this before the month was over. (Oh, just checked, and realized I wrote about it last year, too. But it's a subject that could be written about far more often, so I'll do it again.
Here is a page with statistics about child abuse. There are also links at the bottom with a lot of other information.
Child abuse is altogether too common. Even if the statistics on abuse are inflated, the odds are, you know someone who has been abused (ok, if you know me, you do know someone who was abused as a child). And odds are, you know someone who has occasionally or routinely behaved abusively towards their children.
Abuse isn't always obvious. Families where the parents are abusive don't necessarily look any different on the outside. Abused kids don't always show signs of it. Abusive families can go to the zoo or the amusement park. The parents can treat their children well, particularly when someone is observing them.
Abusive parents might not even recognize that their behaviors are abusive. My guess is that more than 90% of abusive parents had no intention of abusing their children before it happened. There are a lot of reasons they might have wound up being abusive, but I think it's pretty rare for someone to say, "Hm, let me have a child in order to make their life a living hell."
And, speaking from my own experience, I'd also say that parents who are sometimes abusive also genuinely do love their children, and want the best for them. At the same time, whether they are over-stressed, or lack appropriate skills, or were abused themselves and are unable to recognize that what they are doing isn't okay... there are parents who do abuse their children.
I guess my point is, be aware that this happens. Try not to think of abuse as something that is rare, because sadly, it isn't. Try to recognize that even someone you like, even someone who seems like a really excellent parent, can also be abusive some of the time.
And let's try to do what we can to end the cycle of violence. It's not something anyone should have to experience.
Thursday, April 10, 2008
April is Child Abuse Prevention Month
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
The hard part about surveys is that they assume that those taking the survey understand what constitutes abuse. I can't tell you how many times I have had victims say to me they were not molested or abused as a child only then to go on and tell me stomething that happened to them that clearly qualifies as abuse.
Agreed. And the statistics the page is quoting come from children's protective services, and they have both a tendency to inflate the numbers (ie, for neglect, because they assume poverty=neglect) and underestimate the numbers (ie, for physical and sexual abuse, because they assume there are going to be obvious signs; and also because they are less likely to look at middle and upper class families).
And even though I never had the luxury of believing there wasn't some abuse in my family, I was able to block out and minimize a great deal of it.
I'm hoping I can figure out a way of turning some of the anger I'm feeling right now into something a little more proactive.
April reminds us that we can all do better at spotting and reporting child abuse. All too often, people notice possible signs of abuse, but then don't know how to talk to the child about it. It is, after all, a very difficult and sensitive talk to have with a child. Luckily there's a new online role-playing course that lets you practice a multiple-choice conversation with a possible child abuse victim. You see her expression change with each response you choose, and you get expert feedback (from a former Minnesota police detective, who wrote the course). It's aimed at teachers (CEU credits) but there's also a free version that anyone can learn from. Hopefully it'll help us all get better at detecting and reporting child abuse -- and maybe even save a child's life.
Post a Comment