April is child abuse month and it is a good time to review what we know and don’t know about this horrible crime.
First of all if you ask just about any citizen on the street if they knew about a child being abused would they report it? Many would say yes but would they or are they just giving you the answer that you want to hear?
Personally I have been on forum where people have asked if they should or not – right there that is not an immediate yes when you fill in the a yes or no survey or poll. Many people do not report abuse.
Why do people not report abuse?
Claim they didn’t know it was happening
Afraid to lose friendships with the adults involved
Not sure if is their business to report such crimes
Not even sure what is abuse and what isn’t
Afraid to get somebody in trouble
A private survey on child abuse may yield more honest answers than polling someone face to face on the street. According to Childhelp USA, “surveys have shown that, although the majority of Americans polled believe that everyone should play a role in stopping child abuse, many people also admit to witnessing child abuse and doing nothing about it.”
What is child abuse?
There are many definitions of child abuse and there are definitions at the state and federal level:
Basically child abuse is anything that will in some way cause a child physical or mental harm. There are four separate categories for child abuse:
Physical abuse – hitting, choking, shaking, striking, burning, pinching anything to cause aggression or pain
Mental abuse – shaming and belittling the child and calling the child names etc.
Sexual abuse – intercourse, exposure of the genitals of child or adult, fondling, pornography, exposure to adult sexual activity, and violation of privacy
Neglect – failure to provide for a child’s needs, such as food, clothing, hygiene, failure to provide a nurturing environment, and failure to provide an education
What is the legal definition of parental child abuse in the USA?
The Federal Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA) (42 U.S.C.A. §5106g), as amended by the Keeping Children and Families Safe Act of 2003, defines child abuse and neglect as, at minimum: http://www.childwelfare.gov/can/defining/federal.cfm
- Any recent act or failure to act on the part of a parent or caretaker which results in death, serious physical or emotional harm, sexual abuse or exploitation; or
- An act or failure to act, which presents an imminent risk of serious harm.
Misconceptions about reporting child abuse
- The caller must reveal his or her identity – no it is done anonymously
- The abuser is entitled to know who made the report – again no!
- Every child will be removed from the home if an abuse report has been filed – again no, an investigation will be done to determine if abuse has occurred and then a decision will be made if the child needs to be removed from the home or not.
Thousands of kids are abused every day in the USA, and yet many that could be reported are not.
Kids and teens are neglected or abused by their families, teachers, counselors, friends; mostly people they know
About Childhelp, USA
- It is open every single day of the year.
- It is private and confidential; you do not have to be afraid to have your identity revealed.
- It services the United States and Canada
- It can answer your calls in 170 different languages
- It has already serviced 2 millions calls since 1982
- It provides crisis intervention counselors
Who makes these calls to Childhelp, USA?
The Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline, 1-800-4-A-CHILD, provides confidential, toll-free assistance to:
- Children who are at risk of being abused
- Distressed parents wanting help because they are losing control
- Concerned individuals reporting what they feel is inappropriate behaviour towards a child or teen
- Both adults and children wanting local phone numbers to report abuse
- Adults requesting parenting tips, definitions of child abuse, or names of recommended books regarding parenting, child development or adult survivor issues
- Adult child abuse survivors wanting a safe place to call or who feel suicidal
“The Hotline is also a valuable resource for those who are mandated by law to report suspected abuse, such as school personnel, medical and mental health professionals and police and fire investigators.”
How can Childhelp, USA help Parents on the edge?
- They can answer your questions
- They can help you with your child’s behavioural problems
- They can help you to identify child behaviors, which are normal and age appropriate
- They can help you figure out the trigger that causes your child to behave inappropriately
- They can help you with appropriate ways to deal with the behaviour without resorting to abuse
- They can also explain the ramifications of any choice you make regarding your child’s behaviour
- The counselors are nonjudgmental and can be a good resource for unloading your fears, stress and anxiety rather than releasing it on your child
- They can refer you to other groups and resources where needed
In addition, they can help any concerned individual to file an abuse report, or contact the authorities in their local area to report a victim of child abuse or the abuser.
They can even connect on a three-way line to help you while contacting the authorities by telephone.
Even if you do not have children take down the information for childhelp, USA you may be able to help another child or parent on the edge.
Sources:
http://www.childhelp.org/get_help
http://parentingteens.about.com/b/2004/04/21/april-is-child-abuse-awareness-month.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_abuse
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Comments: 56
An aside: Whoah! Way to go on the clickable link, Carol :)
Children's services actually warned the parent that they were coming to check her out. Of course when they got there, there were no signs of the apartment's other residents, the drugs and alcohol removed, etc. One day, a few weeks after everyone came back, one of the children from the other family called 911 when the adults in the apartment were all passed out, reporting that they were all "sleeping" and he couldn't wake them.
Police arrived and the other parent of the child I called about was called by them to take her home, but custody was not removed from the mother at that time. It was not until the child was severely beaten by another adult in the house that emergency protective custody was awarded to the father, and then he had to go to court to keep it.
He stayed in that house until adulthood. They had him on and off of psychiatric meds, depending on how much control the meds gave them over him. They blackmailed him into staying after he reached adulthood, by threatening to destroy his late father's military possessions, and then took most of the money he earned from any job he got while living there. Frequently, they "threw him out" but wouldn't give him his things, ensuring that he would come back. Only recently was he able get out, with the help of a co-worker at his latest job.
They fear they may be wrong. That they are jumping the gun. And, that maybe it won't happen again.
Or they are afraid of retaliation. They are some cases that they see abuse happening and wish to report it but, the abuser realizes this and threatens them in some way.
Or the abuser convinces them that it's not abuse at all. That they had a bad day. Or it was a one time incident that will never be repeated.
Or the person doesn't wish to get involved at all. Not wanting their lives disrupted by appearing in court or taking time off work.
Any excuse to be lazy or not take responsibility.
Children did not have any rights then. I am so glad they do now.
I have been the victim of false allegations by my ex husband. These allegations were ongoing over the course of several years. Each allegation was worse than the previous. Eventually he conned my oldest daughter into making allegations of sexual abuse against my current husband. I have seen how the system fails family and persecutes the innocent. My daughter and her father refused any medical examination so there was never any physical evidence. They were also allowed to refuse any counseling for her. We fought to clear my husband's name for four long years. During these years my remaining children were forced to go for counseling. I actually had to beg the counselors to continue seeing the children because Social Services was insisting they needed. The counselors stated my children did not need counseling and the only problems they could find were being caused by Social Services. Meanwhile the one daughter who caused the allegations never had to speak to a counselor. The system does not work and needs to be fixed.
When this daughter turned 18 she begged to come back home. She confessed to lying because she wanted to live with her dad. He never took her in but placed her in foster care instead. Had Social Services insisted that she go for counseling perhaps the lie would have been discovered earlier and she never would have experienced rejection from the one person who put her up to the allegation.
glitter-graphics.com
The situation can be incredibly complicated though, as some writers have indicted. I know at least one person who is, I'm sure, clinically insane, and who has a daughter. I haven't seen abuse, but I have seen lots of strange, unhealthy behavior, including preventing socializing with friends (good kids!) and constant lawsuits against our school district for phantom crimes and injustices. It can't be a great environment for the daughter (at high school age she is probably constantly mortified), but I doubt it can be improved on by the state. Some kids just have a hard life.
On the other hand, my (several) friends who committed suicide in their 20's had the easiest lives of anyone I knew as a kid, at least on the outside, but I was very close to them and don't think I missed much: their perfect childhoods simply could never be matched by the problems of adulthood, and their childhoods didn't prepare them for even trying to deal with those problems. Sometimes the lines are clear cut in what is appropriate or inappropriate in dealing with kids, sometimes they are not.
I don't think we know enough about behavior and development to make any decisions about most other people's family lives. This may mean all we can do in some cases is prepare post mortem documents, which is a shame.
I'm not too impressed with State services in my neck of the woods- we've had some pretty bad reports on families who have taken in foster kids, for example. I'm sure it is only a small percentage, and not representative, but if the State doesn't fund services to watch over things, they can go, and have gone, horribly wrong.
Of course, if a crime is going on in a household, there is no choice but to report it, as you say.