Abusing Children or Destroying the Society - Research Paper Example

? Abusing Children or Destroying the Society? A Psychoanalytical Exploration: How Abuse Affects a Child’s Social Development Abusing Children or Destroying the Society? A Psychoanalytical Exploration: How Abuse Affects a Child’s Social Development Introduction Child-abuse exists in most cultures and countries of the world. Researchers claims that unreported invisible child-abuse occurs even in developed countries, the UK, the United States, Canada and most other European countries along with reported evidences. In a study conducted in 2009, Ofsted reports that on an average, in a week, three children die as a result of abuse against children (Ofsted, 2009). In addition to this rate of child-abuse in the UK, approximately 16 per cent of the total Children-population faces some types of abuse and negligence during their infancy and childhood (May-Chahal and Cawson, 2005). Researchers further claim that this rate of child-abuse is alarmingly high in underdeveloped and developing counties of the third world. The impacts and consequences of child-abuse are far more tremendous than one can imagine its severity. A child that has been abused in its childhood suffers the consequences throughout his entire lifespan. Researchers note that children who have been victimized in their childhood turn into replicators who reflect those abusive behaviors in their adulthood more violently. Among the nonaggressive symptoms which grow in a child in response to maltreatment and abuse during childhood, a range of negative personality traits such as demeaned personality, lack confidence, meekness, etc are the most remarkable ones. Referring to the negative impacts of child-abuse, Dr. Kirsten Asmussen, a professor of Psychiatry at King’s College London, says, “a history of maltreatment is related to negative impacts throughout the lifespan, as victimised children are more vulnerable to repeated abuse and are more likely to experience poor physical and mental health in adulthood” (3). The question which arises here is how child-abuse or maltreatment affects a child’s social development. The answer of this question partly depends on the theory of socialization which foretells that a child’s social development is grossly affected and influenced by its interactive relationship with the violent agents of socialization. Secondarily, we have to depend on the psychodynamic theories in order to know how the abuse and maltreatment shapes a child’s psychology. Background of this Study These adulthood replications of the aggressive behaviors of the children, along with the nonaggressive impacts of abuse, necessarily foretell greater devastating impacts on the society. Whereas the nonaggressive consequences turn a grownup child into an inert, ineffective and good-for-nothing burden of the society, the consequences which are aggressive in nature turns it into an adult demon, who subconsciously the society what it once received during his or her childhood. Child abuse negatively affects a child’s social development because if the child is raised in an unfriendly hostile environment without love, care and attention that children deserve that child will have poor social skills and because of they will be liked be their peers. In some oriental cultures, it is thought that the level severe punishment is a catalyst of child’s social disciplines. But a “child may view”, as Karen M. Carlson, a professor of Minnesota University says, “punishment as an endorsement of aggression and force, and learn only that a large person has power over a smaller one” (2). Such punishment can evoke the arousal of “counter-aggression”, “feelings of resentment”, and “deep humiliation”. Some a severely punished child may an unsympathetic attitudes toward others’ pain. In a study, Schmitt and Kempe, authors in the book, “Nelson Textbook of Pediatrics” say that children are not the only victims of abuse; rather in the long run, the society itself becomes victimized by them: If the child who has been physically abused is returned to his parents without intervention, 5% are killed and 35% are seriously reinjured. Moreover, the untreated families tend to produce children who grow up to be juvenile delinquents and murders, as well as the batterers of the next generation." (111) Abuse negatively affects a child’s social development because the child becomes detached from society. Though these are the most terrifying facts of child-abuse, there are hopes too. Evidences say that deep theoretical knowledge and insight in the constructs of child-abuse can help the peoples and authorities related to child-abuse intervention program to reduce this problem. Since child abuse/maltreatment negatively affects a child’s social development, a need to establish realistic solutions and preventive measures to eradicate the problem. Theoretical Perspectives on Child-abuses: A Psychoanalytical Focus There are various theoretical perspectives which can impart significant insights into the antagonistic relationship between the abused-child and the society. Though various theorists have defined this relationship from different perspectives, the psychoanalytical perspective of child-abuse appears to the most convenient and the most effective in explaining the impacts and consequences of child-abuse on the society. A psychoanalytical perspective necessarily depends on the socio-psychological model theory of development of a child to explain child-abuse and its impacts on him or her. Once it had been thought that child-abuse is the “direct product of parental psychopathology” (Nerberger and Nerberger 445). But researchers’ further exploration in this field has prompted the emergence newer determinants behind the occurrence of child-abuse in human society. From a unitary psychodynamic perspective, as Carolyn Moore Newberger and Eli H. Newberger, professors at Pediatrics and Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School note, “parental psychological characteristics are considered the primary determinants of child abuse” (445). But psychodynamic theorists attempt to look deeper into the psychological nature of the impacts on children. This perspective necessarily keeps a child’s perception and response to any types of behaviors what it receives from the surroundings which it remains attached to during his entire childhood period. Such approach to the child-abuse facilitate the discovery of newer determinants, both visible and invisible, such as the settings, environment, husband-wife relationship, parent-child relationship, close-relatives-child , etc whose are supposed to contribute to the social development of a child. A Psychoanalytical Approach: How Abuse Affects Child’s Social Development According to the psychodynamic theorists, a child’s personality as well as other developments starts from the very beginning of its birth. But it passes the most crucial stages during its childhood. Therefore, childhood experience of abuse and maltreatment grossly hamper the psychological development as well as social development of a child. In fact, Sigmund Freud’s theory of psychodynamic personality development is extensively used to explain. According to Freud, the three components of personality, such as ID, Ego and Superego, are the most important traits of a child’s development as a social being. A child receives the ID by birth. Explaining the role of the ID in a child’s personality, in an article, Daniel K. Lapsley, and Paul C. Stey, professors at University of Notre Dame says, “ID is the oldest and most primitive psychic agency, representing the biological foundations of personality…It is the reservoir of basic instinctual drives, particularly sexual (libidinal) drives, which motivate the organism to seek pleasure” (1). Apart from the ID, the other two, Ego and Superego, can be considered as, more or less, two social constructs of a child personality. The Ego is essentially the “modification of the id that emerges as a result of the direct influence of the external world…the “executive” of the personality in the sense that it regulates libidinal drive energies so that satisfaction accords with the demands of reality” (Laplesy and Stey 1). In normal environment, the ego part of a child’s personality is facilitated by its spontaneous interaction with its parents and others in the social surroundings. In return, the child becomes rational by internalizing the rules, norms and regulations of the society. In any case, if the balanced relationship among these components is ruptured, the development of a man’s social personality becomes malformed. When a child is abused, these two social constructs (or components) of the child’s personality is grossly affected. The child becomes either timid, which means that the ego fails to rely on his or her ability to face a particular situation, or aggressive. This aggressiveness of the abused child means that its ego has developed a principle that provokes the child to rely on his physical strength instead of relying on the rules. An abused child’s Superego is hampered in such a way that either it cannot grow any ideal or it grows a negative ideals such lifelong hatred against any particular persons such as parents, bullying teachers, etc or any system such church for strict rules, school for the fear of punishment, etc. Subsequently, the results of the malformed ID, Ego and Superego are tremendous. In his or her adulthood, an abused child will suffer from meekness, lack of confidence and lack of personality, courage, etc, the rationality principle of the Ego can function soundly enough to accept the outside world as it is. For example, a sexually abused girl very possibly will hate having sex throughout her entire life. Again, a boy, who has chastised and rebuked by his teachers in his school, will supposedly grow a lifelong hatred against school, education and learning. In fact, these symptoms become amplified in his social personality. Even various reports show that the abused children carry the risk of becoming juvenile delinquents. In a study, Eli Newberger says that in 8 New York counties, approximately 30% of 4,465 children and siblings, reported to be abused by either their parents or others in the 1950s, were found to be involved in juvenile crimes, delinquencies and misconduct. She further reports, “In 3 counties, 44% of the girls and 35% of the boys reported to a court as delinquent or ungovernable and had been previously reported as abused or neglected” (pars. 5). Abused Child’s Social Development: A Sociological Explanation The impacts of child-abuse on a child’s social development can be explained by the theories of socialization. In order to explain how abuse affects a child’s social development, social scientists depend on Freud’s psychodynamic theory of personality to some extent. Though social scientists adopt Freud’s psychoanalytical approach to a child’s social development, they keep Freud’s theory confined to the primary discussion of a child’s psychological development. But in a broader social context, they categorize and focus on a child’s psychological attachment and interactions to its surroundings. According to the theory of socialization, children’s social development is facilitated by various social agents in its surroundings. A child’s sociological imagination, a sociological term for social development, becomes shaped by its continual interactions with the social agents. Lisa McIntyre, a professor of Sociology at Washington State University, notes that the term, ‘sociological imagination’ refers to a child’s “cognitive ability to imagine or see himself through others’ eye” (158). It is a process which involves a person’s ability to imagine his physical and personality-features such as his shape, size, figure, behavior, etc in terms of others’ reaction. It is the first of Cooley’s three-element theory of anticipatory socialization. McIntyre further says that George Herbert Mead believed this ability of a child’s ‘I’ to imagine the ‘me’ among others (159). Child abuse negatively affects a child’s social development because if the child is raised in an unfriendly hostile environment without love, care and attention that children deserve that child will have poor social skills and because of they will be liked be their peers. While a child grows, it becomes more imitative and responsive to its parent’s behavioral pattern. Martha Morrison Dore, a professor at “Columbia University School of Social Work” says that in a responsive environment, a child learns to perceive and internalize a pattern of social relationships with his or her peers, through continuous interactions with them (5). In this Dore further says that “In toddlerhood, a child begins to explore his environment in earnest and, through this process, to develop cognitive understanding of spacial relationships, time sequences, and other building blocks for future learning” (5). When a child is abused by the agents of socializations, the development of a confident personality becomes damaged seriously. One of the most important functions of the agents of socialization is to facilitate a child’s social development by mentoring him subconsciously and also by providing him with sufficient emotional backups such as love, sympathy, empathy, etc. They, directly or indirectly, shape the development of a child’s ‘me’ (McIntyre 158-159). In fact, everything in a child’s surroundings can be the agents of socialization, if it plays a role in shaping a person’s ‘self’ (I or me). In this regard, any person, group of persons, community, institutions, organization, objects, environment, etc with which a person is related are his social agents. Such definition of social agent entails that a child can be victimized and abused by both persons and institutional. Child abuse negatively affects a child’s social development because the child becomes detached from society. If a child is forcedly detached from the normal environment, its ability to undergo anticipatory socialization does not grow. Consequently, the child becomes shy, introvert and meek. This sociological explanation of the consequences of abuse and maltreatment on a child’s social development further entails that abused children’s inability to undergo anticipatory socialization will affect his skill and performance in education as well as workplaces. ‘Anticipatory socialization’ a sociological term, refers to the whole process of sociological imagination and the related actions of a person. According to Mead, Anticipatory socialization is the imagination of a person’s “I” about his “me”, as McIntyre says, “The Me is what you see when you put yourself into the shoes of another and look back at yourself…the ‘I’ is the part of you that is uniquely you” (158). In fact, it is a self-conscious and self-motivated socialization of a child in comparison to his subconscious socialization in his earlier years of life. When a person chooses to adapt himself with a particular group or community of interest, he attempts to see himself through the “looking-glass self”. Subsequently, he imagines others’ reaction to him and endeavors to shape himself in a particular way in terms of others. Then the feelings of pride or shame come. But if this person is abused in his childhood, his self-image in the ‘looking-glass-self’ becomes demeaned. So, he spontaneously cannot learn and adapt with community and organization values and behaviors. Inalienability of Family and Children’s Wellbeing from each other Since a child is, primarily, attached to its parents, parental behaviors and attitudes greatly affect a child’s social development. Therefore, social scientists believe that the parental abuse of children bears the severest consequences on children. Children’s well-being and parental behaviors are inalienable from each other. Epistemologically children’s well being is considered as the overall psychological and social development of a child such as its psychological growth, social growth, socialization, moralization, etc. In an article on child development, Richard M. Lerner, the director of “Eliot Pearson Department of Child Development” says that family is the smallest but the most influential producer of developmental outcomes of the children. Also from the child development perspective, a family can be considered as a unitary environmental entity that contains all of the components of a child’s social development (34). Various studies, conducted in this field, show that a child’s personality development is grossly influenced first by its spontaneous interactions with its surrounding in a family. In this regard, Marian F. Zeitlin and her coauthors say, “The family is seen as a dynamic context in which the child is both transformer and transformed” (23). Consequently, ‘parenting’ is supposed to exert –both direct and indirect- influence on a child’s social personality. In their book, focusing on the factors and vectors of parents’ behavioral influence on the child-rearing and the development of a child, Marian et al points out two factors, husband-wife relationship and parent-child relationship, which are the most influencing. In order to expound the impacts of child-abuse on the social development, Marian et al quotes Jay Belsky, chairman of “Institute for the Study of Children, Families and Social Issues” at Birkbeck University of London, as following: “Specifically, marital relations, social networks, and jobs influence individual personality and general psychological well-being of parents and, thereby, parental functioning and, in turn, child development” (84). Belsky further notes that parental personality, intensity of conjugal relationship and psychological wellbeing are the most dominant of the determinants of child development. When the conjugal relationship of these three determinants is in a stressful condition, parental functioning becomes grossly deviated from its expected role, the development of a child gets hampered and confused (Marian et al 45-49). If this one remains intact, the absence of any of the other two -parental personality and psychological well-being- is not that negative. In this regard, Lerner says, “Optimal parenting still occurs even when the personal psychological resources of parents are the only determinant remaining in positive mode” (16). Here, only a healthy relationship between husband and a wife can provide the scope for optimal parenting. Rebuttal: Child Abuse or Discipline? For some parents and institutional authorities, mostly in underdeveloped and developing countries, discipline means nothing but hitting, scolding and beating. Though scholars anonymously agree that severe physical punishment is harmful for a child’s social development, they often opine variedly regarding the acceptable level of scolding, forcing to starve, spanking, rebuking, chastising. Parents often refuse to view these forms of punishments as child-abuse, arguing that unruly children respond quickly to these types of disciplinary punishments. They argue that discipline is the “process of teaching a child the difference between acceptable and unacceptable behavior” (Carlson 1). Since the severe physical punishment are supposed to produce negative consequences on a child’s social development, as mentioned above, scholars have unanimously agreed that “The goal of good discipline is to help a child change impulsive, random behavior into controlled, purposeful behavior, and discipline should be reinforced with teaching, firmness, and reminders” (Carlson 1). If viewed from a psychoanalytical perspective, the level of punitive discipline should be accepted to the extent what can grow the sense of accountability regarding their behaviors without producing much harmful impacts on the child’s psychology. Sociologists believe that the disciplinary socialization of a child is supposed to include both rewards in the form of love, sympathy, etc and punishments from the primary agents of socialization such as parents, family members, close relatives, etc. Therefore, parents must remember that the consequences of their disciplinary steps should not surpass their emotional backups provided to their children. Dore suggests that positive and supportive discipline are more effective than punitive discipline. She says that parents should provide warmth support and interactive guidance to their children through an “exploratory process as well as to set appropriate behavioral limits which the child can begin to internalize” (5). The positive discipline, a holistic approach to a child’s social development, is better than the good discipline which involves temporal and contextual disciplinary steps. Positive discipline involves a long term strategy to develop a child’s senses of duty, responsibility, self-discipline, self-confidence, competence, self-respect, etc through a mutually respectful parent-child relationship (Durrant 4). Dore notes that positive parenting is indispensably related to supportive parenting which includes: “parental warmth toward the child, use of inductive disciplinary techniques, interest and involvement in facilitating the child’s peer relationships, and proactive teaching of social skills to the child” (5). Conclusion Child-abuse is a serious problem in human society. It exists in almost all cultures and countries of the world. But modern thinkers have been able to focus on the causes and effects of this problem from different perspectives and angles. A psychoanalytical perspective of the effects of child-abuse on the child’s social development reveals that an abused child’s social personality development becomes seriously hampered by his or her experiences of maltreatment. As a result, the child is supposed to suffer from a lifelong personality disorders which seriously affect their competency and performance in education as well as their workplace. Child-abuse further may contribute to the child’s possibility of being a juvenile delinquent or a criminal during their adulthood. These perspectives provide parents with the scopes to look into it, while being facilitated with newer perceptions. Such perceptions can assist them to amend their behavioral responses to their children for the sake of a better future. Works Cited Asmussen, Kirsten. Key facts about child maltreatment. The Institute of Psychiatry King’s College London. April 2010. 21 November, 2013. Available at Carlson, Karen M. What’s the Difference Between Discipline and Punishment? Center for Early Education and Development, University of Minnesota. 2009. 21 November, 2013. Available at http://www.cehd.umn.edu/CEED/publications/questionsaboutkids/disciplineenglish.pdf Belsky, Jay. “The Determinants of Parenting: A Process Model." Child Development. 55: 83-96. 1984. 21 November, 2013. Available at Dore, Martha Morrison. Impact and Relationship of Substance Abuse and Child Maltreatment: Risk and Resiliency. Columbia University School of Social Work. 1998. 21 November, 2013. Available at http://www.cehd.umn.edu/ssw/cascw/attributes/PDF/publications/SubstanceAbuse_Maltreatment.pdf Durrant, Joan E. “Positive Discipline: What it is and how to do it”, Save the Children Sweden Southeast Asia and the Pacific, 2007. 21 November, 2013. Available at http://www.crin.org/docs/PositiveDisciplineManual_Final.pdf Lapsley, Daniel K. and Paul C. Stey. Id, Ego, and Superego. Encyclopedia of Human Behavior, 2nd Ed Elsevier. 2011. 21 November, 2013. Available at http://www3.nd.edu/~dlapsle1/Lab/Articles%20&%20Chapters_files/Entry%20for%20Encyclopedia%20of%20Human%20Behavior%28finalized4%20Formatted%29.pdf Lerner, Richard M. Developmental psychology: Historical and philosophical perspectives. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. 1983 Marian et al. Strengthening the Family - Implications for International Development. Tokyo: United Nations University Press, 1995. 21 November, 2013. Available at http://archive.unu.edu/unupress/unupbooks/uu13se/uu13se00.htm#Contents May-Chahal, C. and Cawson, P. (2005) Measuring child maltreatment in the United Kingdom: A study of the prevalence of child abuse and neglect. Child Abuse and Neglect 29: 969–984. Mcintyre, Lisa. The Practical Skeptic. 152-168. 2011. 21 November, 2013. Available at http://issuu.com/leanne.s/docs/practical_skeptic_2010_core_concepts Newberger, Eli. “Child Abuse: The Current Theory Base and Future Research Needs”. Journal of the American Academy of Child Psychiatry, 22, 3:262-268, 1983. 21 November, 2013. Available at http://www.elinewberger.com/articles/archive/childabuse-research/currenttheory.html Newberger, Carolyn Moore and Eli H. Newberger. Prevention of Child Abuse: Theory, Myth, Practice. Journal of Preventive Psychiatry. Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., Publishers. Volume 1, Number 4,1982 21 November, 2013. Available at http://www.carolynnewberger.com/pdf/Prevention%20of%20Child%20Abuse.pdf OFSTED (2009) The annual report of Her Majesty's chief inspector of education children's services and skills 2008/09. London, The Stationery Office (TSO). Schmitt, Baker., and Kemfe, Carol. Neglect and abuse of children, In: Nelson Textbook of Pediatrics, 1975. Ed. 10, ed. V. Vaughn & R. McKay. Philadelphia: W. B. Saunders. Read More