Causes, Negative Effects of Child Abuse and Prevention - Research Paper Example

This cause can be because of social-economic factors, parental profile, the family environment or child related factors. Parental related causes: In parental profile there are such factors as stressful conditions, health and mental problems, alcoholism and drug addiction, parenthood at youthful age and finally lack of proper parenting skills. All this factors in one way or another contribute directly or indirectly to the abuse of children or increases the susceptibility of children being abused.

Family environment causes : Some of the factors within the family set up that increases the risk of children being abused include; constant marital conflicts and fights of the parents ,high burden of person responsibility and lack of support associated with single parenthood and failure of the parents to recognize and reward good behaviors but instead looking for negative behaviors in order to punish. Child related causes: Children in most cases do not contribute directly to being victims of mistreatment. . , lack of social support, dangerous and risk neighborhoods and lastly violent communities that support the use of physical force to punish children (stopchildabusenow.com.au, 2008) 2.

0 Effects of child abuse Child abuse and neglect results into physical, psychological, cognitive and behavioral consequences which are at times interrelated (Office on Child Abuse and Neglect (HHS), Washington, DC. e tal, 2003) Physical health problems: Health problems in children that are related to abuse include baby shaken syndrome that may result into brain damage, spinal cord injuries, impaired hearing, speech difficulties or even death. Trauma and psychological problems: Children undergoing mistreatment can suffer from complex trauma disorder which does affect the development of brain, interferes with capability of a child to integrate sensory, cognitive and emotional information and this eventually makes the child to overreact to subsequent stress situations.

Learning and developmental problems: Maltreatment of a child in early childhood does seriously affects the capacity development in infants particularly in area of speech and language. This in turn results in learning difficulties and poor performance and achievements academically. Mental problems: Mental problems particularly in adolescent is associated with abuse in childhood and the rates are generally higher in adolescent than in young children. In children and adolescents mental problems may include depression and anxiety disorders.

Behavioral problems: Children abused in childhood portray complex behavior problems in adolescent. These behaviors may include isolation, sadness, depressions, aggressiveness, hyper reaction and improper sexual behaviors (Larmot, 2011) 3.0. Prevention of child abuse Children abuse and neglect