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Child abuse is the mistreatment of a child under the age of 18 by a parent, caretaker, someone living in their home or someone who works with or around children. The mistreatment must cause injury or put the child at risk of physical injury. Neglect happens when a parent or responsible caretaker fails to provide adequate supervision, food, clothing, shelter or other basics for a child.
Throughout our lives there are adults who try to guide us and teach us about safety and taking good care of ourselves. Some of these adults will be parents, grandparents, teachers, older brothers or sisters, daycare workers, neighbors. There are many kinds of safety such as the things we have heard since we were very little:
- "Don't play with matches"
- "Put on your seatbelt
- "Brush your teeth after eating"
- "Look both ways before you cross the street"
Another area of safety and taking good care of ourselves has to do with how other people treat us. There may be times in our lives when another person treats us in a way that makes us uncomfortable or that is confusing to us.
The word abuse is defined as when someone treats another person in a wrong or improper manner. Some people think that abuse has to be physical such as hitting, beating, kicking, punching, and shoving. This is called physical abuse. When physical violence is used against another person this is considered abuse. Children who are treated this way by adults can feel very powerless to help themselves. Sometimes a family will try to cover up this problem because the adults don't want teachers or other people to know that they are treating their children this way. They want to cover it up because they know they will be in big trouble. Abuse of children is against the law in Pennsylvania. And the children sometimes cover it up because they are scared what will happen if someone knows. They may be scared to be taken from their parents or getting that parent in trouble. But the problem will not stop if they don't tell anyone and it can even get worse.
Many people think of this kind of physical abuse when they think of abuse. But abuse can be in the use of words too. If a person is cursing at you and calling you names, this is considered abuse. This is because words do hurt and hurtful words can stay with us sometimes longer than a bruise. If you think of a time when someone hurt you with words, then you will understand this idea. It seems that children can get into a very bad habit of using words to laugh at others and put other people down. People who do this are using power to try to make others feel small and maybe make themselves feel important or powerful. Sometimes adults talk this way to each other and treat children this way as well. But remember that using words to harm other people is abusive behavior and can really hurt another person. If someone is talking to you in a hurtful way, you should tell an adult who you trust to help you figure out what can be done to stop this.
A last type of abuse is about a subject that causes people to feel uncomfortable to discuss. This type of abuse is called sexual abuse and it includes unwanted sexual attention. Hopefully parents and teachers are able to talk to children and teenagers about this topic in more detail. As you are growing up, you are concerned with playing with friends, watching T.V., sports, dance lessons, drawing, eating your favorite foods, learning in school, your goldfish, and things like this. These are the kinds of things kids are supposed to be interested in and spending their time doing. Sometimes someone older may want to involve you in behaviors that are for older people. Many times people think that sexual abuse has to do with touching another persons private areas in a way that the child or adult does not want and this is one kind of sexual abuse. But sexual abuse is many different things and even includes if an adult or older person shows you sexual magazines or shows you sexual movies. Or sexual abuse can begin when a person talks about your body in a sexual away and makes comments about your body parts. Sometimes a person does this to test you to see if you will accept the behavior or tell someone right away.
Sexual behaviors can be touching that you do not want or that should not be happening because the other person is an older person OR it can be words or showing information of a sexual nature that is not appropriate for you. When an adult does this to a child, the child may feel very uncomfortable and yet curious. This is normal and the adult knows that the child may feel curious. The adult also knows that they child may not tell anyone and this is how abuse continues. The way abuse can stop is if the child tells someone. So like verbal abuse and physical abuse, if you or someone you know is being sexually abused or you even think this might be happening, it is really good to tell someone you trust so that they can help you stop this problem.
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