Writing this paper was difficult for me. Child abuse has never directly affected my life until a couple days ago. Since I have never been directly affected I have distanced myself and not felt the full extent of what it means to be abused. Someone very dear to me was sexually abused recently and I was going to write my paper on that but it is just too hard because it is so fresh in my mind. The incident didn't directly happen to me but happened to someone I consider family and it hurt a lot. So I am writing my paper on child abuse because sexual abuse is a form of child abuse. My paper is mainly on physical child abuse. Maybe sometime in the near future I will be able to write a reaction to this sexual abuse, but as I sit here and type this out, I have tears streaming down my face, so I realize.
Child abuse has been a major problem for many years. In the early 1970's, sixty thousand cases were estimated and in 1976, it increased to half a million cases and then in 1998 over three million cases were estimated. There are many ways to prevent these cases but parents still neglect, or fail to take care of a child of their children in many ways. Child abuse cases have obviously taken a drastic downward spiral since the 1970's, yet even today there are still so many cases. The question is, "How can child abuse be prevented?".
Child Abuse is the intentional acts that result in physical or emotional harm to children. The term child abuse covers a wide range of behavior, from actual physical assault by a parent or adult caretakers to neglect of a child's basic needs. The impact is often far reaching and solutions must be sought to put an end to what, for some families, is a never-ending cycle. To put an end to child abuse mandatory parenting skills classes should be required of every adult becoming a parent.
There are several types of child abuse and children experience more than one form.