Physical and Psychological abuse on a child cause devasting and even fatal consequences - Essay Example

Abusers often raise abusers so it seldom stops in one generation. The goal would be to figure out what allows some abused children to grow up not being an abuser and use that to help others. Much more attention needs to be spent on child abuse. It needs the same attention as other public health issues, such as smoking and obesity. Only then can we find a cure for the problem that causes such pain for many. Children who have been abused may suffer long term effects. Those effects may be different for different children but the victimization creates symptoms ranging from self-doubt to self-loathing In some cases the effects of being a victim never go away while some with the correct support may turn this self-doubt or self-loathing into that of survival.

Many studies have been done in an effort to predict what might be the effects for each child as they grow older This paper will discuss what child abuse actually is, how prevalent it is and what the long term effects are recent studies will be used to support information presented. Studies show that children who have been abused suffer long term affects, such as self doubt and self loathing as modes of survival. Child maltreatment or abuse is defined by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) as the abuse of power that might harm the childs health, survival, dignity, or development.

This is the basis for their definition of violence against children which broadens the scope from just violence to include social and environmental harm (Widom, et. al., 2008). This definition involves most kinds of violence against children as most of them are power issues. Putting a child in a position of having no power strongly affects tat childs self esteem causing him to b less assertive against the perpetrator. Philip Hyden (1999) describes the symptoms of abuse that might be seen in the emergency room.

There are many possible approaches to reporting child abuse but unfortunately