If you are in a foster care you may come across emotional abuse and sometimes maybe sexual abuse. The reason why you may come across this type of abuse is for the fact that either other children and/or sometimes the workers may say comments that make you feel down have more of a low-self esteem, you may also come across sexual abuse because they maybe an older person who lives in the foster care and depending on your age they may antagonize and bribe them.
If you are in a residential home you may come across neglect. This maybe a type of abuse that will happen in a residential home because the people that live in the home with you may not feed you as often as they are and they may not do things such as help with work and clean your clothes.
In a residential school, a child/young person could come across neglect and physical abuse. If you are in a residential school e.g. boarding school, the teachers might feel as though they have the authority it hit a child because their parent is not there.
Predisposing factors
(Factors that Influence)
There are many reasons why someone may become an abuser; these could be for many reasons factors such as not having a role model. A theorist named Bandura said in 1969, “The learning of a child is developed through observation and imitation. Parents who have not had good role models to follow themselves may not be able to find strategies to manage children’s behavior positively.”
Social problems is another factor that occurs, this factor is things such as living in a poor house, living in poverty, unemployment. All of these things add to parent not being able to appropriately look after their children. Personality can affect the parental skills that they have for their child, if the parent themselves has a lack of role model or attachment. This can case the parent to not know how to handle certain situations with their child. If a parent has been abused this may have an affect on them when they are older with their children, they may have low-self esteem and feel as though they are not able to do many things. The parent may also feel depressed in their life ad may withdraw them self away from others. The type of abuse that will happen mainly with this type of situation will be emotional abuse.
In relation to the child/young person
Prematurity has some kind of affect on both the baby and parent; this is because if a baby is premature then the parent may find it hard to attach to the baby quickly for the fact that you are not able to hold a baby the way you want to when they are first born prematurely. This can also make the baby find it harder to adapt to the mother and father easier for the fact that it was a nurse that was looking after him/her so they adapted to the way that the nurse dealt with things.
Disability can be a stressful and demanding thing for many parents, if they have a child that is disabled in any way. For many parents they may feel as though they will not want the child/young person and this may cause even more pressure on them. To want to get rid of the child. For some parents they feel as though they do not have the stable ability to look after a disabled child, but for other parents they feel as though they can grow to love the child as if he/she was not disabled and they will deal with the idea.
Types of Abuse and Neglect
Physical Abuse
Physical abuse is when someone physically harms someone using force, whether it is pushing, shoving punching ect. When someone gets physically abused they become paranoid and thy do not feel safe in their environment.
Emotional Abuse
Emotional abuse is when someone is being name called by someone they love or highly trust. When someone is being emotionally abused they begin to have low-self esteem about themselves. When an individual is being abused they also start to feel confused in many situations and feel unstable about their life. They feel as though they are not worth anything and they are not needed.
Intellectual Abuse
Intellectual abuse is when a child is constantly being battled by their parent, by this I mean when a parent tells a child that they are not important to them. By a parent saying this the child will feel neglected and feel as though they are not loved.
Sexual Abuse
Sexual abuse is when a child is being forced into doing sexual activities that he/she does not want to do. For example if an adult was to tell a child/young person to touch them or have sexual intercourse with the, this is seen as sexual abuse. There are two main reasons why this is seen as sexual abuse, the first reason for the fact the child is being forced into doing something, second of all even if the child consented to it the child is too young to have intercourse in any way. Sexual abuse can include contact and non-contact with the person that is being abused.
If someone is being abused with contact this could be done by either vaginal or anal rape, incest and forcing a person to touch another in an unpleasant manner.
If someone is being abused with non-contact, this is when someone may be forced to watch pornography or adult entertainment of any kind. Making someone look at another’s baby inappropriately.
Physical Neglect
Physical neglect is when a parent does not care for the child/young person in a correct manner, meaning the parent might go to school with dirty clothes on, also the child may not be fed.
Emotional Neglect
Emotional neglect is when a parent continuously says things to the child/young person which makes them feel belittled.
Intellectual Neglect
Intellectual neglect is when the parent does not allow the child to have education to learn the correct morals and rights for the society that they are living in.
Bullying and Harassment
It is known that bullying and harassment are both forms of abuse in a way; this is because to be bullied you have to go through one of the types of abuses. The main being physical abuse.
The types of bullying that have pointed out are things such as:
• being pushed or pulled around
• being hit or attacked
• being forced to hand over your money or possessions
• being attacked, teased or called names because of your religion
• being attacked teased or called names because of your sexuality.
All of these are a type of bullying because it is physically and verbally abusing someone. When you do these things it hurts children/young people’s feelings making them feel low.
Indicators of Abuse
Physical Indicators
There are many ways in which you will be able to tell if a child/young person has been abused by an adult. The ways in which you will be able to understand this is that you only mainly get bruises on your inner arms, buttocks and thighs when you have been abused by a human. You will also be able to see bruises such as fingertip bruises on either your face or torso where someone has been holding you. If a child looks dirty you may be able to understand that a child has been neglected by an adult is, if they are extremely underweight and they are not able to put on weight. If a child has bite marks on their body then it is obvious that a child has been abused. Also if a child has burns, soars, black eyes or any fractures then these are other signs of abuse on a child/young person.
Behavior Indicators
An individual who has been abused may become extremely withdrawn from everyone else. Also the individual may feel less confident in his/her self and they may feel insecure. They may feel insecure within themselves because depending on the type of abuse that has happened; the individual might feel ashamed of their body and feel as though they have been used. This might just scare the individual for anyone to touch them and they become extremely jumpy. If a child/young person is always looking for food and is constantly hungry, then this is a sign of neglect.
Consequences of Abuse
Emotional
The effects of emotional abuse are:
• The child/young person feeling guilty about things that they have not done.
• They have low self-esteem about themselves.
• They do not feel comfortable about the way they look.
• They become scared easily.
• They find it hard to sleep because they become they become very confused.
• They find it hard to trust people, whether it is family and/or close friends.
Social
When someone has had social problems they tend to have effects which include:
• Finding it hard confidence in themselves.
• They also find it hard to trust others
• They tend to under-achieve when they are in school because they are in school because they do not concentrate.
Physical
When people have been physically abused they tend to have not so good people skills afterwards. The effect of being physically abused includes:
• Having fractures on their body
• Having burns and scalds on their body
• They tend to self-harm
• They have bruising on certain parts of the body.
Reference
1) L, Eleanor,. BTEC NATIONAL, Health and Social Care, Book 1, Nelson Thrones.
