All You Need To Know About Recognizing and Preventing Child Abuse

It is very important that individuals understand all of the signs of child abuse and neglect.

Understanding Abuse

When an adult subjects a child to emotional abuse, violence, or physical injury, the adult is taking part in child abuse. Child abuse may include inflicting harm on a child, threatening to inflict harm on a child, or threatening something or someone that the child loves. There are a variety of different forms of abuse, including physical abuse, emotional abuse, sexual abuse, and neglect.

Each of these types of abuse may be equally traumatic for a child and have long term effects that will cause the child to have severe psychological, emotional and physical development problems. A child will display a variety of different physical and emotional indicators of abuse, depending on which type of abuse he/she is suffering from.

Facts about Abuse

Becoming familiar with the facts about child abuse is extremely important to understanding how to prevent child abuse. Many people believe that child abuse is not a frequent occurrence in the United States. However, child abuse is much more common than most people expect. There are many children within the United States who are subjected to child abuse every year. Many of these children end up being killed.

Misconceptions

There are many different misconceptions related to child abuse. Many people have preconceived notions about why child abuse takes place, who is abused, as well as who carries out the abuse.

Warning Signs

When child abuse is taking place, it will most likely be accompanied by many warning signs that the child will display. If an individual becomes familiar with these warning signs, it will allow an individual to deduce and recognize that a child may be suffering from abuse. Each of the various types of abuse are accompanied by specific characteristics and indicators.

For example, physical abuse may leave a child with a wide range of physical injuries and wounds that are common with this form of abuse. There are many different types of injuries that are distinctive of physical abuse.

Emotional abuse may not leave the visible scars that physical abuse does. However, there are still specific signs that will appear if a child is suffering from emotional abuse. Emotional abuse will cause long term damage to a child's emotional and psychological development. A child who suffers from this type of abuse may develop a variety of psychological disorders, as well as depression and extremely low self-esteem.

Children who suffer from sexual abuse may display some physical markers, as well as emotional indicators of abuse. It is important to become familiar with the warning signs of abuse so one may be able to prevent a child from receiving further abuse.