The Kids just make these things up to get back at their parents ...

.... really. Honest. That's it. Make them up.

Besides, what this got to do with spanking?

0:-]

See if YOU can figure it out, Doan, Greg.


http://www.odu.edu/ao/instadv/quest/childabuse.html




Child Abuse and Neglect: The Need for Courage
By Karen Polonko

True stories.
In India, a 3-year-old is exposed to hazardous substances while working
in an unventilated room in a small village factory. Her fingers are
wrapped so that the blood from her cuts will not interfere with her
work. At the same moment, in Thailand, a child, age 8, is sold into
sexual slavery. Forced to have sex with an average of 15 customers a
day, she is likely to be infected with HIV within six months.

Closer to home, a 4-year-old boy labors in the grape fields in upstate
New York alongside other migrant workers. He suffers chronic respiratory
infections; his hands are in constant pain.

Meanwhile, in the Midwest, a desperate girl tells her mother that her
father is molesting her. The father says that she is making this up to
get even with him for something else. After the mom (who was sexually
abused as a child herself) leaves, the father ties his daughter to a
tree and partially buries her cat next to her. He then runs the lawn
mower over the animal, as the child screams that she will be good and
take everything back if he will let her cat live.

Elsewhere, a little boy, age 4, has his hands amputated after they were
tied tightly behind his back as punishment for using his father’s paint.
His father, an alcoholic, fell asleep and forgot to untie his son. When
they finally return from the hospital, the son asks his father if he is
really good, can he have his hands back. Later that day, the father
kills himself.

These are the stories that we do not want to hear. We want to believe
that all children are safe. We argue that these cases are the rare
exception. It is too painful to believe otherwise.

Prevalence.
Unfortunately, child maltreatment is not rare. According to the latest
UNICEF reports, literally hundreds of millions of children throughout
the world are victims of abuse, neglect and exploitation. At the
extremes, children are killed, abandoned, sold or given in “debt”
bondage. Close to 6 million children work under conditions of virtual
slavery. Every year, millions of girls are trafficked, exploited in the
sex industry and/or genitally mutilated. Millions more at home and
abroad are beaten, emotionally abused, molested and/or neglected by
their parents.

In the United States alone, more than 3 million children are reported to
official agencies for severe maltreatment in any given year. Surveys
indicate that this figure grossly underestimates the true extent of the
problem as more than one-third of adults in the United States report
having experienced physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse and/or
neglect as a child.

Definitions.
Like our need to believe that child maltreatment is rare, many people
believe that only the most egregious forms of maltreatment could harm a
child. The rest just “toughens them up,” “keeps them under control” and
is “for their own good.” Unfortunately, the reality is that both extreme
and less severe levels of maltreatment can harm children in profound ways.

Reflecting the myths, child abuse and neglect are typically
distinguished from other levels of child maltreatment by severity and
evidence of intentionally inflicted, observable injury or impairment,
under the mistaken assumption that only such extremes indicate that a
child has been harmed. So, for example, in a study that Old Dominion
University colleague Lucien Lombardo, professor of sociology, and I
conducted, titled “A Comparative Analysis of Human Rights’ and United
States’ Law on Corporal Punishment: Implications for Understanding Human
Rights and Colonial Models of Child-Adult Relationships,” we found that
most U.S. statutes relating to corporal punishment are concerned with
explicitly safeguarding the rights of parents to use violence against
children. The exceptions are specified as excessive violence or
“physical abuse” – i.e., violence that intentionally caused substantial
injury such as the child’s death, disfigurement, or brain or spinal cord
damage.

Similarly, other forms of child maltreatment are defined in terms of
granting parents permission to inflict maximal harm on children, finding
abuse only in the extremes that result in demonstrable injury. Child
emotional abuse is an extreme or habitual pattern of hostile and
aggressive parenting that results in mental or emotional injury.
Emotional neglect is extreme lack of emotional responsiveness and
involvement that causes mental or developmental harm. Child sexual abuse
is extreme oral, genital or anal contact (or defined legally in terms of
age difference, minor status and/or relationship to perpetrator). Child
neglect is restricted to the extremes of parental lack of involvement
and supervision, and failure to meet the child’s needs, which place the
child’s life in serious danger.

Consequences.
Given the above, it is surprising that many people do not believe that
child maltreatment has profoundly negative consequences that go beyond
the specific childhood injury to impact the rest of the child’s life.
Instead, people often mistakenly attribute the long-term consequences of
child abuse to irrelevant factors. However, the reality is that the
consequences of child maltreatment are enormous, not only for the
survivor, but also for society.

Some consequences of maltreatment differ according to the child’s
vulnerability. For instance, infants and toddlers are at greatest risk
of fatal abuse, with a blow to the baby’s head as the most common cause
of death. Some consequences for the child are greater for one type of
maltreatment than another. For example, child neglect is most strongly
associated with the child having a lower IQ and lower educational
achievement; child physical abuse with the child engaging in violent
crime as a teen and adult; and child emotional abuse with subsequent
psychopathology. However, all forms of maltreatment are associated with
adverse effects for children and the adults they become. As discussed in
my paper “Causes and Consequences of Child Abuse: Shedding More Light on
the Cycle of Violence and Neglect,” prior research points to the following:

Child physical and emotional abuse and neglect all increase the
likelihood that the child will subsequently:
• Be cognitively impaired (including having a lower IQ and
cognitive development; lower grades and educational achievement);
• Have impaired moral reasoning (including having less empathy,
less compliance and less developed conscience);
• Engage in violence and crime (including higher rates of juvenile
delinquency, teen and adult violent and nonviolent crime);
• Be violent in relationships (including being more likely to
assault their siblings and other children as a child, and later to abuse
their own children, spouse and elderly parents).
In addition, all types of child maltreatment – physical and
emotional abuse and neglect and sexual abuse – increase the likelihood
that the child will subsequently:
• Have mental health problems (including higher rates of
depression, anxiety, dissociation, etc.);
• Become a substance abuser of both legal and illegal substances as
a teenager and adult;
• Become pregnant as a teenager and engage in risky sexual behavior
(including earlier first intercourse, exposure to sexually transmitted
diseases and greater number of partners).

Aside from the obvious, part of the reason these effects are so profound
is that much child maltreatment occurs before age 6, during “critical
windows” of development. Being neglected early in life, for example, is
linked to the underdevelopment of those parts of the brain responsible
for cognitive development and empathy. Being the target of or witnessing
physical violence early in life is more likely to result in the
overdevelopment of parts of the brain that ultimately affect
impulsivity, reactivity, anxiety and aggression. As research by Bruce D.
Perry, M.D., Ph.D., senior fellow of the Child Trauma Academy, shows,
both abuse and neglect physiologically predispose a child to a series of
neurobiological problems and violent behavior. These physiological
changes are compounded by the modeling effect of seriously inadequate
parenting; the adoption of a belief system about self, others and the
world as malevolent; and the defense mechanisms abused children must
develop to cope with their terror, despair and hopelessness. For
example, the child blames himself for the abuse or denies that the
parent is maltreating him.

Causes.
The general belief is that parents who maltreat their children are rare,
pathological and certainly not like us. The reality is that most parents
engage in culturally permissible or low levels of child abuse and
neglect. Inflicting these permissible levels of maltreatment not only
harms children, but also often escalates to the more severe forms of
maltreatment.

Many of the parents who abuse and neglect their children were themselves
maltreated as children. They are the little ones we failed to protect a
generation ago. Also, many of the harmful consequences that resulted
from their abuse and neglect, such as mental health problems, substance
abuse and teen pregnancy, caused them to maltreat their children, laying
the foundation for a cycle of abuse and neglect across generations. As
reviewed in “Causes and Consequences of Child Abuse,” research indicates
the following.

First, parents who abuse or neglect their children are more likely to:
• Have been maltreated as a child;
• Have mental health problems, including parent depression;
• Have a violent marriage;
• Be a substance abuser;
• Be a teenage mother;
• Have lower levels of education and income.
Second, parents who abuse or neglect their children are also more
likely to:
• Have serious parenting deficits (e.g., have unrealistic
expectations for their children);
• Use harsh and aggressive parenting with their children (i.e., low
levels of emotional abuse);
• Have low levels of parental involvement and supervision, and give
their children very little positive attention and affection (i.e., low
levels of physical and emotional neglect);
• Frequently use corporal punishment on their children (i.e., low
levels of physical abuse);
• Have few cognitively stimulating materials in the home for their
children (i.e., low levels of neglect).

The first group of factors provides insights into the cycle of abuse and
neglect. Being maltreated as a child models parenting behaviors and
leads to the adoption of beliefs and defenses that increase the
survivor’s chances of harming his own children. In addition, being
maltreated as a child increases the likelihood that one will suffer
other outcomes such as lower IQ and educational attainment, more mental
health problems, substance abuse and teen pregnancy – each of which, in
turn, independently increases the risk of maltreating one’s own child.

The second set of factors shows that parents who severely maltreat their
children are more likely than other parents to more frequently subject
their children to low levels of abuse and neglect. In other words, when
parents engage in “culturally acceptable” levels of harsh parenting,
corporal punishment, verbal aggression, and minimal involvement and
supervision, they are significantly more likely to proceed to more
severe abuse and neglect of their children. Thus, in contrast to what is
typically assumed, low levels of maltreatment are dangerous for
children. Moreover, at least in the area of physical violence, more
frequent corporal punishment has the same adverse consequences as
physical abuse, from lower IQ to more violent behavior and mental
problems, except to lesser degrees. (This includes a finding from a
master’s-level study in Old Dominion’s Department of Sociology and
Criminal Justice that the more frequently a girl is subjected to
corporal punishment when young, the more likely she is to become
pregnant as a teenager.)

As discussed in “Causes and Consequences of Child Abuse,” these findings
help us to understand another important reason why children of teenage
mothers and socioeconomically disadvantaged parents are more likely to
be abused and neglected. These parents are also significantly more
likely to use “low levels of abuse and neglect,” such as more hostile
and aggressive parenting, more frequent corporal punishment, and less
responsiveness and involvement. They also are less likely to get care
and more likely to use both legal and illegal drugs while pregnant,
which is related to premature birth and neurological and cognitive
problems in the baby. In turn, substance-abusing mothers are also more
likely to be young and impoverished. All of this is related to having
been abused and neglected themselves as children.

Intervention.
Some people believe that intervention on behalf of maltreated children
is so effective that even adequate parents now have to worry about
outside interference. The reality is that intervention and prevention
programs have not been effective in reducing the prevalence of child
abuse and neglect.

As many researchers and practitioners acknowledge, few resources are
committed; agencies have little power to intervene; and treatment is
often low cost, short term and focused on keeping the family together,
rather than ensuring that the child is safe from abuse and neglect. We
refuse to acknowledge that both child abuse and neglect, as well as low
levels of child maltreatment, have serious consequences for the child
and society. Instead, we blame child maltreatment and its consequences
(for example, delinquency and drug abuse), on people and conditions that
fit preconceived stereotypes and political agendas, such as a common
belief that maternal employment causes delinquency, even though there is
no evidence to support this. In this country, we continue to spend
hundreds of millions of dollars on programs like Abstinence Only or Just
Say No that just don’t work because they don’t address the underlying
problems.

The need to unite.
Discussions of child maltreatment are often polarized around issues of
religion, class, race, ethnicity and culture, both within and across
countries. Often, parents may believe that group status justifies how
they treat their children. However, the reality that emerges from a
multicultural look at child abuse and neglect is that while children of
certain groups may experience different types of abuse, children of all
religions, income levels, races, ethnic groups and countries suffer from
maltreatment.

A review of research on rates in the United States indicates that
incidences of child sexual abuse and emotional abuse do not differ
significantly for African American, Caucasian and Hispanic girls. On the
other hand, African American children have higher rates of physical
abuse and neglect than Caucasians, although a significant portion of
this difference is due to variations in education, income and poverty –
i.e., factors that increase the child’s risk of maltreatment. However,
with rare exception, research shows that children of all races and
ethnic groups suffer adverse consequences when abused or neglected.

Lighting the way to concerted action on behalf of children, African
American leaders like Dr. Alvin Poussaint and the Rev. Jesse Jackson
have joined other leaders in the fight to end not only severe child
abuse, but also lower levels of abuse and neglect, including corporal
punishment.

Internationally, we are urged to look for ways that we have
inadvertently supported child maltreatment, such as buying products made
by young children, refusing to confront travel agencies that covertly
advertise sex tours to Thailand for young virgins, and simply remaining
silent.

Standing in the way of preventing child maltreatment is the power
differential between parents and children. Parents are for the most part
lawfully free to engage in child abuse and neglect, short of serious
injury, as part of their parental prerogative. As discussed in several
papers that I have written with Professor Lombardo, including “Cycles of
Trauma and Cycles of Nurturing: The UN Convention on the Rights of the
Child and the Path from Childhood to Adulthood” and “The Enlightened
Witness: Reasserting Humanity in the Face of Violence at the Beginning
of the 21st Century,” the key is to extend to children the rights of
human beings.

As many scholars have stressed, the most logical way for the United
States to begin this process of reducing child maltreatment is to join
every other country (except for Somalia) in the United Nations that has
adopted the UN Convention on the Rights of Children. This will take
courage, for in granting children human rights, we must challenge not
only the beliefs and laws which support the power parents have to hit,
harm, ignore and exploit their children, but also the beliefs, defenses
and behaviors that parents developed to survive their own childhood
maltreatment. As Dr. Perry concludes in his paper “Incubated in Terror:
Neurodevelopmental Factors in the ‘Cycle of Violence’”: “In order to
solve the problems of violence, we need to transform our culture. We
need to change our child rearing practices, we need to change the
malignant and destructive view that children are the property of their
biological parents. … Children belong to the community, they are
entrusted to parents.”

As researchers and practitioners emphasize, we, as a society, must do
everything in our power to prevent and treat child maltreatment, not
only because of the suffering of the victims, or even because of the
benefits that society stands to gain, but because it is the right thing
to do. It is an ethical imperative. It is our moral responsibility.

For more information about child abuse and how you can help prevent it,
visit UNICEF at www.unicef.org; Child Trauma Institute at
www.childtrauma.com; In Support of Children, an ODU student organization
devoted to ending child abuse, at
http://groups.hamptonroads.com/SupportChildren; the Post Institute for
Family Centered Therapy at www.postinstitute.com; and Child Abuse
Prevention Network at http://child-abuse.com. Dr. Perry’s paper,
“Incubated in Terror: Neurodevelopmental Factors in the ‘Cycle of
Violence,’” is available at
www.childtrauma.org/CTAMATERIALS/incubated.asp. An excellent sourcebook,
The APSAC Handbook on Child Maltreatment, written in 2002, can be found
at www.APSAC.org.

Karen Polonko is a professor in the Department of Sociology and Criminal
Justice.

Quest Fall 2005 • Volume 8 Issue 2








--
"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what
to have for lunch. Liberty is a well armed lamb
contesting the vote." - Benjamin Franklin (or someone else)

This "cycle of violence" reference at the end has been disproven by
GAO.
APSAC is an industry association for child protection workers.
Who are you peddling for Kane? UNESCO?

Didn't you say you are a conservative?

Which CPS agency handles Bangladesh?


0:- wrote:
... really. Honest. That's it. Make them up.

Besides, what this got to do with spanking?

0:-]

See if YOU can figure it out, Doan, Greg.


http://www.odu.edu/ao/instadv/quest/childabuse.html




Child Abuse and Neglect: The Need for Courage
By Karen Polonko

True stories.
In India, a 3-year-old is exposed to hazardous substances while working
in an unventilated room in a small village factory. Her fingers are
wrapped so that the blood from her cuts will not interfere with her
work. At the same moment, in Thailand, a child, age 8, is sold into
sexual slavery. Forced to have sex with an average of 15 customers a
day, she is likely to be infected with HIV within six months.

Closer to home, a 4-year-old boy labors in the grape fields in upstate
New York alongside other migrant workers. He suffers chronic respiratory
infections; his hands are in constant pain.

Meanwhile, in the Midwest, a desperate girl tells her mother that her
father is molesting her. The father says that she is making this up to
get even with him for something else. After the mom (who was sexually
abused as a child herself) leaves, the father ties his daughter to a
tree and partially buries her cat next to her. He then runs the lawn
mower over the animal, as the child screams that she will be good and
take everything back if he will let her cat live.

Elsewhere, a little boy, age 4, has his hands amputated after they were
tied tightly behind his back as punishment for using his father's paint.
His father, an alcoholic, fell asleep and forgot to untie his son. When
they finally return from the hospital, the son asks his father if he is
really good, can he have his hands back. Later that day, the father
kills himself.

These are the stories that we do not want to hear. We want to believe
that all children are safe. We argue that these cases are the rare
exception. It is too painful to believe otherwise.

Prevalence.
Unfortunately, child maltreatment is not rare. According to the latest
UNICEF reports, literally hundreds of millions of children throughout
the world are victims of abuse, neglect and exploitation. At the
extremes, children are killed, abandoned, sold or given in "debt"
bondage. Close to 6 million children work under conditions of virtual
slavery. Every year, millions of girls are trafficked, exploited in the
sex industry and/or genitally mutilated. Millions more at home and
abroad are beaten, emotionally abused, molested and/or neglected by
their parents.

In the United States alone, more than 3 million children are reported to
official agencies for severe maltreatment in any given year. Surveys
indicate that this figure grossly underestimates the true extent of the
problem as more than one-third of adults in the United States report
having experienced physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse and/or
neglect as a child.

Definitions.
Like our need to believe that child maltreatment is rare, many people
believe that only the most egregious forms of maltreatment could harm a
child. The rest just "toughens them up," "keeps them under control" and
is "for their own good." Unfortunately, the reality is that both extreme
and less severe levels of maltreatment can harm children in profound ways.

Reflecting the myths, child abuse and neglect are typically
distinguished from other levels of child maltreatment by severity and
evidence of intentionally inflicted, observable injury or impairment,
under the mistaken assumption that only such extremes indicate that a
child has been harmed. So, for example, in a study that Old Dominion
University colleague Lucien Lombardo, professor of sociology, and I
conducted, titled "A Comparative Analysis of Human Rights' and United
States' Law on Corporal Punishment: Implications for Understanding Human
Rights and Colonial Models of Child-Adult Relationships," we found that
most U.S. statutes relating to corporal punishment are concerned with
explicitly safeguarding the rights of parents to use violence against
children. The exceptions are specified as excessive violence or
"physical abuse" - i.e., violence that intentionally caused substantial
injury such as the child's death, disfigurement, or brain or spinal cord
damage.

Similarly, other forms of child maltreatment are defined in terms of
granting parents permission to inflict maximal harm on children, finding
abuse only in the extremes that result in demonstrable injury. Child
emotional abuse is an extreme or habitual pattern of hostile and
aggressive parenting that results in mental or emotional injury.
Emotional neglect is extreme lack of emotional responsiveness and
involvement that causes mental or developmental harm. Child sexual abuse
is extreme oral, genital or anal contact (or defined legally in terms of
age difference, minor status and/or relationship to perpetrator). Child
neglect is restricted to the extremes of parental lack of involvement
and supervision, and failure to meet the child's needs, which place the
child's life in serious danger.

Consequences.
Given the above, it is surprising that many people do not believe that
child maltreatment has profoundly negative consequences that go beyond
the specific childhood injury to impact the rest of the child's life.
Instead, people often mistakenly attribute the long-term consequences of
child abuse to irrelevant factors. However, the reality is that the
consequences of child maltreatment are enormous, not only for the
survivor, but also for society.

Some consequences of maltreatment differ according to the child's
vulnerability. For instance, infants and toddlers are at greatest risk
of fatal abuse, with a blow to the baby's head as the most common cause
of death. Some consequences for the child are greater for one type of
maltreatment than another. For example, child neglect is most strongly
associated with the child having a lower IQ and lower educational
achievement; child physical abuse with the child engaging in violent
crime as a teen and adult; and child emotional abuse with subsequent
psychopathology. However, all forms of maltreatment are associated with
adverse effects for children and the adults they become. As discussed in
my paper "Causes and Consequences of Child Abuse: Shedding More Light on
the Cycle of Violence and Neglect," prior research points to the following:

Child physical and emotional abuse and neglect all increase the
likelihood that the child will subsequently:
· Be cognitively impaired (including having a lower IQ and
cognitive development; lower grades and educational achievement);
· Have impaired moral reasoning (including having less empathy,
less compliance and less developed conscience);
· Engage in violence and crime (including higher rates of juvenile
delinquency, teen and adult violent and nonviolent crime);
· Be violent in relationships (including being more likely to
assault their siblings and other children as a child, and later to abuse
their own children, spouse and elderly parents).
In addition, all types of child maltreatment - physical and
emotional abuse and neglect and sexual abuse - increase the likelihood
that the child will subsequently:
· Have mental health problems (including higher rates of
depression, anxiety, dissociation, etc.);
· Become a substance abuser of both legal and illegal substances as
a teenager and adult;
· Become pregnant as a teenager and engage in risky sexual behavior
(including earlier first intercourse, exposure to sexually transmitted
diseases and greater number of partners).

Aside from the obvious, part of the reason these effects are so profound
is that much child maltreatment occurs before age 6, during "critical
windows" of development. Being neglected early in life, for example, is
linked to the underdevelopment of those parts of the brain responsible
for cognitive development and empathy. Being the target of or witnessing
physical violence early in life is more likely to result in the
overdevelopment of parts of the brain that ultimately affect
impulsivity, reactivity, anxiety and aggression. As research by Bruce D.
Perry, M.D., Ph.D., senior fellow of the Child Trauma Academy, shows,
both abuse and neglect physiologically predispose a child to a series of
neurobiological problems and violent behavior. These physiological
changes are compounded by the modeling effect of seriously inadequate
parenting; the adoption of a belief system about self, others and the
world as malevolent; and the defense mechanisms abused children must
develop to cope with their terror, despair and hopelessness. For
example, the child blames himself for the abuse or denies that the
parent is maltreating him.

Causes.
The general belief is that parents who maltreat their children are rare,
pathological and certainly not like us. The reality is that most parents
engage in culturally permissible or low levels of child abuse and
neglect. Inflicting these permissible levels of maltreatment not only
harms children, but also often escalates to the more severe forms of
maltreatment.

Many of the parents who abuse and neglect their children were themselves
maltreated as children. They are the little ones we failed to protect a
generation ago. Also, many of the harmful consequences that resulted
from their abuse and neglect, such as mental health problems, substance
abuse and teen pregnancy, caused them to maltreat their children, laying
the foundation for a cycle of abuse and neglect across generations. As
reviewed in "Causes and Consequences of Child Abuse," research indicates
the following.

First, parents who abuse or neglect their children are more likely to:
· Have been maltreated as a child;
· Have mental health problems, including parent depression;
· Have a violent marriage;
· Be a substance abuser;
· Be a teenage mother;
· Have lower levels of education and income.
Second, parents who abuse or neglect their children are also more
likely to:
· Have serious parenting deficits (e.g., have unrealistic
expectations for their children);
· Use harsh and aggressive parenting with their children (i.e., low
levels of emotional abuse);
· Have low levels of parental involvement and supervision, and give
their children very little positive attention and affection (i.e., low
levels of physical and emotional neglect);
· Frequently use corporal punishment on their children (i.e., low
levels of physical abuse);
· Have few cognitively stimulating materials in the home for their
children (i.e., low levels of neglect).

The first group of factors provides insights into the cycle of abuse and
neglect. Being maltreated as a child models parenting behaviors and
leads to the adoption of beliefs and defenses that increase the
survivor's chances of harming his own children. In addition, being
maltreated as a child increases the likelihood that one will suffer
other outcomes such as lower IQ and educational attainment, more mental
health problems, substance abuse and teen pregnancy - each of which, in
turn, independently increases the risk of maltreating one's own child.

The second set of factors shows that parents who severely maltreat their
children are more likely than other parents to more frequently subject
their children to low levels of abuse and neglect. In other words, when
parents engage in "culturally acceptable" levels of harsh parenting,
corporal punishment, verbal aggression, and minimal involvement and
supervision, they are significantly more likely to proceed to more
severe abuse and neglect of their children. Thus, in contrast to what is
typically assumed, low levels of maltreatment are dangerous for
children. Moreover, at least in the area of physical violence, more
frequent corporal punishment has the same adverse consequences as
physical abuse, from lower IQ to more violent behavior and mental
problems, except to lesser degrees. (This includes a finding from a
master's-level study in Old Dominion's Department of Sociology and
Criminal Justice that the more frequently a girl is subjected to
corporal punishment when young, the more likely she is to become
pregnant as a teenager.)

As discussed in "Causes and Consequences of Child Abuse," these findings
help us to understand another important reason why children of teenage
mothers and socioeconomically disadvantaged parents are more likely to
be abused and neglected. These parents are also significantly more
likely to use "low levels of abuse and neglect," such as more hostile
and aggressive parenting, more frequent corporal punishment, and less
responsiveness and involvement. They also are less likely to get care
and more likely to use both legal and illegal drugs while pregnant,
which is related to premature birth and neurological and cognitive
problems in the baby. In turn, substance-abusing mothers are also more
likely to be young and impoverished. All of this is related to having
been abused and neglected themselves as children.

Intervention.
Some people believe that intervention on behalf of maltreated children
is so effective that even adequate parents now have to worry about
outside interference. The reality is that intervention and prevention
programs have not been effective in reducing the prevalence of child
abuse and neglect.

As many researchers and practitioners acknowledge, few resources are
committed; agencies have little power to intervene; and treatment is
often low cost, short term and focused on keeping the family together,
rather than ensuring that the child is safe from abuse and neglect. We
refuse to acknowledge that both child abuse and neglect, as well as low
levels of child maltreatment, have serious consequences for the child
and society. Instead, we blame child maltreatment and its consequences
(for example, delinquency and drug abuse), on people and conditions that
fit preconceived stereotypes and political agendas, such as a common
belief that maternal employment causes delinquency, even though there is
no evidence to support this. In this country, we continue to spend
hundreds of millions of dollars on programs like Abstinence Only or Just
Say No that just don't work because they don't address the underlying
problems.

The need to unite.
Discussions of child maltreatment are often polarized around issues of
religion, class, race, ethnicity and culture, both within and across
countries. Often, parents may believe that group status justifies how
they treat their children. However, the reality that emerges from a
multicultural look at child abuse and neglect is that while children of
certain groups may experience different types of abuse, children of all
religions, income levels, races, ethnic groups and countries suffer from
maltreatment.

A review of research on rates in the United States indicates that
incidences of child sexual abuse and emotional abuse do not differ
significantly for African American, Caucasian and Hispanic girls. On the
other hand, African American children have higher rates of physical
abuse and neglect than Caucasians, although a significant portion of
this difference is due to variations in education, income and poverty -
i.e., factors that increase the child's risk of maltreatment. However,
with rare exception, research shows that children of all races and
ethnic groups suffer adverse consequences when abused or neglected.

Lighting the way to concerted action on behalf of children, African
American leaders like Dr. Alvin Poussaint and the Rev. Jesse Jackson
have joined other leaders in the fight to end not only severe child
abuse, but also lower levels of abuse and neglect, including corporal
punishment.

Internationally, we are urged to look for ways that we have
inadvertently supported child maltreatment, such as buying products made
by young children, refusing to confront travel agencies that covertly
advertise sex tours to Thailand for young virgins, and simply remaining
silent.

Standing in the way of preventing child maltreatment is the power
differential between parents and children. Parents are for the most part
lawfully free to engage in child abuse and neglect, short of serious
injury, as part of their parental prerogative. As discussed in several
papers that I have written with Professor Lombardo, including "Cycles of
Trauma and Cycles of Nurturing: The UN Convention on the Rights of the
Child and the Path from Childhood to Adulthood" and "The Enlightened
Witness: Reasserting Humanity in the Face of Violence at the Beginning
of the 21st Century," the key is to extend to children the rights of
human beings.

As many scholars have stressed, the most logical way for the United
States to begin this process of reducing child maltreatment is to join
every other country (except for Somalia) in the United Nations that has
adopted the UN Convention on the Rights of Children. This will take
courage, for in granting children human rights, we must challenge not
only the beliefs and laws which support the power parents have to hit,
harm, ignore and exploit their children, but also the beliefs, defenses
and behaviors that parents developed to survive their own childhood
maltreatment. As Dr. Perry concludes in his paper "Incubated in Terror:
Neurodevelopmental Factors in the 'Cycle of Violence'": "In order to
solve the problems of violence, we need to transform our culture. We
need to change our child rearing practices, we need to change the
malignant and destructive view that children are the property of their
biological parents. ... Children belong to the community, they are
entrusted to parents."

As researchers and practitioners emphasize, we, as a society, must do
everything in our power to prevent and treat child maltreatment, not
only because of the suffering of the victims, or even because of the
benefits that society stands to gain, but because it is the right thing
to do. It is an ethical imperative. It is our moral responsibility.

For more information about child abuse and how you can help prevent it,
visit UNICEF at www.unicef.org; Child Trauma Institute at
www.childtrauma.com; In Support of Children, an ODU student organization
devoted to ending child abuse, at
http://groups.hamptonroads.com/SupportChildren; the Post Institute for
Family Centered Therapy at www.postinstitute.com; and Child Abuse
Prevention Network at http://child-abuse.com. Dr. Perry's paper,
"Incubated in Terror: Neurodevelopmental Factors in the 'Cycle of
Violence,'" is available at
www.childtrauma.org/CTAMATERIALS/incubated.asp. An excellent sourcebook,
The APSAC Handbook on Child Maltreatment, written in 2002, can be found
at www.APSAC.org.

Karen Polonko is a professor in the Department of Sociology and Criminal
Justice.

Quest Fall 2005 · Volume 8 Issue 2








--
"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what
to have for lunch. Liberty is a well armed lamb
contesting the vote." - Benjamin Franklin (or someone else)

Greegor wrote:

This "cycle of violence" reference at the end has been disproven by
GAO.

The "cycle of violence" has not been disproven. And since you are so
sure that it has been, why not post references to well-done longitudinal
studies that prove your claim? Do you not have them? Do you not
understand them? Actually, you must understand them, for in a previous
post you made reference to having a hypothesis for further research.

APSAC is an industry association for child protection workers.

You can say this as many times as you want, Greegor. Perhaps you should
start repeating over and over again that the world is flat, that smoking
is a healthy habit, and that blood pressure and cholesterol have no
relationship to a healthy heart. If you say it enough, I'm sure the
public and the scientific community will accept your opinion!

LaVonne

Who are you peddling for Kane? UNESCO?

Didn't you say you are a conservative?

Which CPS agency handles Bangladesh?


0:- wrote:

... really. Honest. That's it. Make them up.

Besides, what this got to do with spanking?

0:-]

See if YOU can figure it out, Doan, Greg.


http://www.odu.edu/ao/instadv/quest/childabuse.html




Child Abuse and Neglect: The Need for Courage
By Karen Polonko

True stories.
In India, a 3-year-old is exposed to hazardous substances while working
in an unventilated room in a small village factory. Her fingers are
wrapped so that the blood from her cuts will not interfere with her
work. At the same moment, in Thailand, a child, age 8, is sold into
sexual slavery. Forced to have sex with an average of 15 customers a
day, she is likely to be infected with HIV within six months.

Closer to home, a 4-year-old boy labors in the grape fields in upstate
New York alongside other migrant workers. He suffers chronic respiratory
infections; his hands are in constant pain.

Meanwhile, in the Midwest, a desperate girl tells her mother that her
father is molesting her. The father says that she is making this up to
get even with him for something else. After the mom (who was sexually
abused as a child herself) leaves, the father ties his daughter to a
tree and partially buries her cat next to her. He then runs the lawn
mower over the animal, as the child screams that she will be good and
take everything back if he will let her cat live.

Elsewhere, a little boy, age 4, has his hands amputated after they were
tied tightly behind his back as punishment for using his father's paint.
His father, an alcoholic, fell asleep and forgot to untie his son. When
they finally return from the hospital, the son asks his father if he is
really good, can he have his hands back. Later that day, the father
kills himself.

These are the stories that we do not want to hear. We want to believe
that all children are safe. We argue that these cases are the rare
exception. It is too painful to believe otherwise.

Prevalence.
Unfortunately, child maltreatment is not rare. According to the latest
UNICEF reports, literally hundreds of millions of children throughout
the world are victims of abuse, neglect and exploitation. At the
extremes, children are killed, abandoned, sold or given in "debt"
bondage. Close to 6 million children work under conditions of virtual
slavery. Every year, millions of girls are trafficked, exploited in the
sex industry and/or genitally mutilated. Millions more at home and
abroad are beaten, emotionally abused, molested and/or neglected by
their parents.

In the United States alone, more than 3 million children are reported to
official agencies for severe maltreatment in any given year. Surveys
indicate that this figure grossly underestimates the true extent of the
problem as more than one-third of adults in the United States report
having experienced physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse and/or
neglect as a child.

Definitions.
Like our need to believe that child maltreatment is rare, many people
believe that only the most egregious forms of maltreatment could harm a
child. The rest just "toughens them up," "keeps them under control" and
is "for their own good." Unfortunately, the reality is that both extreme
and less severe levels of maltreatment can harm children in profound ways.

Reflecting the myths, child abuse and neglect are typically
distinguished from other levels of child maltreatment by severity and
evidence of intentionally inflicted, observable injury or impairment,
under the mistaken assumption that only such extremes indicate that a
child has been harmed. So, for example, in a study that Old Dominion
University colleague Lucien Lombardo, professor of sociology, and I
conducted, titled "A Comparative Analysis of Human Rights' and United
States' Law on Corporal Punishment: Implications for Understanding Human
Rights and Colonial Models of Child-Adult Relationships," we found that
most U.S. statutes relating to corporal punishment are concerned with
explicitly safeguarding the rights of parents to use violence against
children. The exceptions are specified as excessive violence or
"physical abuse" - i.e., violence that intentionally caused substantial
injury such as the child's death, disfigurement, or brain or spinal cord
damage.

Similarly, other forms of child maltreatment are defined in terms of
granting parents permission to inflict maximal harm on children, finding
abuse only in the extremes that result in demonstrable injury. Child
emotional abuse is an extreme or habitual pattern of hostile and
aggressive parenting that results in mental or emotional injury.
Emotional neglect is extreme lack of emotional responsiveness and
involvement that causes mental or developmental harm. Child sexual abuse
is extreme oral, genital or anal contact (or defined legally in terms of
age difference, minor status and/or relationship to perpetrator). Child
neglect is restricted to the extremes of parental lack of involvement
and supervision, and failure to meet the child's needs, which place the
child's life in serious danger.

Consequences.
Given the above, it is surprising that many people do not believe that
child maltreatment has profoundly negative consequences that go beyond
the specific childhood injury to impact the rest of the child's life.
Instead, people often mistakenly attribute the long-term consequences of
child abuse to irrelevant factors. However, the reality is that the
consequences of child maltreatment are enormous, not only for the
survivor, but also for society.

Some consequences of maltreatment differ according to the child's
vulnerability. For instance, infants and toddlers are at greatest risk
of fatal abuse, with a blow to the baby's head as the most common cause
of death. Some consequences for the child are greater for one type of
maltreatment than another. For example, child neglect is most strongly
associated with the child having a lower IQ and lower educational
achievement; child physical abuse with the child engaging in violent
crime as a teen and adult; and child emotional abuse with subsequent
psychopathology. However, all forms of maltreatment are associated with
adverse effects for children and the adults they become. As discussed in
my paper "Causes and Consequences of Child Abuse: Shedding More Light on
the Cycle of Violence and Neglect," prior research points to the following:

Child physical and emotional abuse and neglect all increase the
likelihood that the child will subsequently:
· Be cognitively impaired (including having a lower IQ and
cognitive development; lower grades and educational achievement);
· Have impaired moral reasoning (including having less empathy,
less compliance and less developed conscience);
· Engage in violence and crime (including higher rates of juvenile
delinquency, teen and adult violent and nonviolent crime);
· Be violent in relationships (including being more likely to
assault their siblings and other children as a child, and later to abuse
their own children, spouse and elderly parents).
In addition, all types of child maltreatment - physical and
emotional abuse and neglect and sexual abuse - increase the likelihood
that the child will subsequently:
· Have mental health problems (including higher rates of
depression, anxiety, dissociation, etc.);
· Become a substance abuser of both legal and illegal substances as
a teenager and adult;
· Become pregnant as a teenager and engage in risky sexual behavior
(including earlier first intercourse, exposure to sexually transmitted
diseases and greater number of partners).

Aside from the obvious, part of the reason these effects are so profound
is that much child maltreatment occurs before age 6, during "critical
windows" of development. Being neglected early in life, for example, is
linked to the underdevelopment of those parts of the brain responsible
for cognitive development and empathy. Being the target of or witnessing
physical violence early in life is more likely to result in the
overdevelopment of parts of the brain that ultimately affect
impulsivity, reactivity, anxiety and aggression. As research by Bruce D.
Perry, M.D., Ph.D., senior fellow of the Child Trauma Academy, shows,
both abuse and neglect physiologically predispose a child to a series of
neurobiological problems and violent behavior. These physiological
changes are compounded by the modeling effect of seriously inadequate
parenting; the adoption of a belief system about self, others and the
world as malevolent; and the defense mechanisms abused children must
develop to cope with their terror, despair and hopelessness. For
example, the child blames himself for the abuse or denies that the
parent is maltreating him.

Causes.
The general belief is that parents who maltreat their children are rare,
pathological and certainly not like us. The reality is that most parents
engage in culturally permissible or low levels of child abuse and
neglect. Inflicting these permissible levels of maltreatment not only
harms children, but also often escalates to the more severe forms of
maltreatment.

Many of the parents who abuse and neglect their children were themselves
maltreated as children. They are the little ones we failed to protect a
generation ago. Also, many of the harmful consequences that resulted
from their abuse and neglect, such as mental health problems, substance
abuse and teen pregnancy, caused them to maltreat their children, laying
the foundation for a cycle of abuse and neglect across generations. As
reviewed in "Causes and Consequences of Child Abuse," research indicates
the following.

First, parents who abuse or neglect their children are more likely to:
· Have been maltreated as a child;
· Have mental health problems, including parent depression;
· Have a violent marriage;
· Be a substance abuser;
· Be a teenage mother;
· Have lower levels of education and income.
Second, parents who abuse or neglect their children are also more
likely to:
· Have serious parenting deficits (e.g., have unrealistic
expectations for their children);
· Use harsh and aggressive parenting with their children (i.e., low
levels of emotional abuse);
· Have low levels of parental involvement and supervision, and give
their children very little positive attention and affection (i.e., low
levels of physical and emotional neglect);
· Frequently use corporal punishment on their children (i.e., low
levels of physical abuse);
· Have few cognitively stimulating materials in the home for their
children (i.e., low levels of neglect).

The first group of factors provides insights into the cycle of abuse and
neglect. Being maltreated as a child models parenting behaviors and
leads to the adoption of beliefs and defenses that increase the
survivor's chances of harming his own children. In addition, being
maltreated as a child increases the likelihood that one will suffer
other outcomes such as lower IQ and educational attainment, more mental
health problems, substance abuse and teen pregnancy - each of which, in
turn, independently increases the risk of maltreating one's own child.

The second set of factors shows that parents who severely maltreat their
children are more likely than other parents to more frequently subject
their children to low levels of abuse and neglect. In other words, when
parents engage in "culturally acceptable" levels of harsh parenting,
corporal punishment, verbal aggression, and minimal involvement and
supervision, they are significantly more likely to proceed to more
severe abuse and neglect of their children. Thus, in contrast to what is
typically assumed, low levels of maltreatment are dangerous for
children. Moreover, at least in the area of physical violence, more
frequent corporal punishment has the same adverse consequences as
physical abuse, from lower IQ to more violent behavior and mental
problems, except to lesser degrees. (This includes a finding from a
master's-level study in Old Dominion's Department of Sociology and
Criminal Justice that the more frequently a girl is subjected to
corporal punishment when young, the more likely she is to become
pregnant as a teenager.)

As discussed in "Causes and Consequences of Child Abuse," these findings
help us to understand another important reason why children of teenage
mothers and socioeconomically disadvantaged parents are more likely to
be abused and neglected. These parents are also significantly more
likely to use "low levels of abuse and neglect," such as more hostile
and aggressive parenting, more frequent corporal punishment, and less
responsiveness and involvement. They also are less likely to get care
and more likely to use both legal and illegal drugs while pregnant,
which is related to premature birth and neurological and cognitive
problems in the baby. In turn, substance-abusing mothers are also more
likely to be young and impoverished. All of this is related to having
been abused and neglected themselves as children.

Intervention.
Some people believe that intervention on behalf of maltreated children
is so effective that even adequate parents now have to worry about
outside interference. The reality is that intervention and prevention
programs have not been effective in reducing the prevalence of child
abuse and neglect.

As many researchers and practitioners acknowledge, few resources are
committed; agencies have little power to intervene; and treatment is
often low cost, short term and focused on keeping the family together,
rather than ensuring that the child is safe from abuse and neglect. We
refuse to acknowledge that both child abuse and neglect, as well as low
levels of child maltreatment, have serious consequences for the child
and society. Instead, we blame child maltreatment and its consequences
(for example, delinquency and drug abuse), on people and conditions that
fit preconceived stereotypes and political agendas, such as a common
belief that maternal employment causes delinquency, even though there is
no evidence to support this. In this country, we continue to spend
hundreds of millions of dollars on programs like Abstinence Only or Just
Say No that just don't work because they don't address the underlying
problems.

The need to unite.
Discussions of child maltreatment are often polarized around issues of
religion, class, race, ethnicity and culture, both within and across
countries. Often, parents may believe that group status justifies how
they treat their children. However, the reality that emerges from a
multicultural look at child abuse and neglect is that while children of
certain groups may experience different types of abuse, children of all
religions, income levels, races, ethnic groups and countries suffer from
maltreatment.

A review of research on rates in the United States indicates that
incidences of child sexual abuse and emotional abuse do not differ
significantly for African American, Caucasian and Hispanic girls. On the
other hand, African American children have higher rates of physical
abuse and neglect than Caucasians, although a significant portion of
this difference is due to variations in education, income and poverty -
i.e., factors that increase the child's risk of maltreatment. However,
with rare exception, research shows that children of all races and
ethnic groups suffer adverse consequences when abused or neglected.

Lighting the way to concerted action on behalf of children, African
American leaders like Dr. Alvin Poussaint and the Rev. Jesse Jackson
have joined other leaders in the fight to end not only severe child
abuse, but also lower levels of abuse and neglect, including corporal
punishment.

Internationally, we are urged to look for ways that we have
inadvertently supported child maltreatment, such as buying products made
by young children, refusing to confront travel agencies that covertly
advertise sex tours to Thailand for young virgins, and simply remaining
silent.

Standing in the way of preventing child maltreatment is the power
differential between parents and children. Parents are for the most part
lawfully free to engage in child abuse and neglect, short of serious
injury, as part of their parental prerogative. As discussed in several
papers that I have written with Professor Lombardo, including "Cycles of
Trauma and Cycles of Nurturing: The UN Convention on the Rights of the
Child and the Path from Childhood to Adulthood" and "The Enlightened
Witness: Reasserting Humanity in the Face of Violence at the Beginning
of the 21st Century," the key is to extend to children the rights of
human beings.

As many scholars have stressed, the most logical way for the United
States to begin this process of reducing child maltreatment is to join
every other country (except for Somalia) in the United Nations that has
adopted the UN Convention on the Rights of Children. This will take
courage, for in granting children human rights, we must challenge not
only the beliefs and laws which support the power parents have to hit,
harm, ignore and exploit their children, but also the beliefs, defenses
and behaviors that parents developed to survive their own childhood
maltreatment. As Dr. Perry concludes in his paper "Incubated in Terror:
Neurodevelopmental Factors in the 'Cycle of Violence'": "In order to
solve the problems of violence, we need to transform our culture. We
need to change our child rearing practices, we need to change the
malignant and destructive view that children are the property of their
biological parents. ... Children belong to the community, they are
entrusted to parents."

As researchers and practitioners emphasize, we, as a society, must do
everything in our power to prevent and treat child maltreatment, not
only because of the suffering of the victims, or even because of the
benefits that society stands to gain, but because it is the right thing
to do. It is an ethical imperative. It is our moral responsibility.

For more information about child abuse and how you can help prevent it,
visit UNICEF at www.unicef.org; Child Trauma Institute at
www.childtrauma.com; In Support of Children, an ODU student organization
devoted to ending child abuse, at
http://groups.hamptonroads.com/SupportChildren; the Post Institute for
Family Centered Therapy at www.postinstitute.com; and Child Abuse
Prevention Network at http://child-abuse.com. Dr. Perry's paper,
"Incubated in Terror: Neurodevelopmental Factors in the 'Cycle of
Violence,'" is available at
www.childtrauma.org/CTAMATERIALS/incubated.asp. An excellent sourcebook,
The APSAC Handbook on Child Maltreatment, written in 2002, can be found
at www.APSAC.org.

Karen Polonko is a professor in the Department of Sociology and Criminal
Justice.

Quest Fall 2005 · Volume 8 Issue 2








--
"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what
to have for lunch. Liberty is a well armed lamb
contesting the vote." - Benjamin Franklin (or someone else)

Greegor wrote:
This "cycle of violence" reference at the end has been disproven by
GAO.

Having witnessed the fact it exists I don't accept that claim. While not
all people that were abused, go on to abuse, those people that DO abuse
have almost universally a history of being abused.

You misunderstand the claims, Greg.

APSAC is an industry association for child protection workers.

What would you expect them to talk about, their favorite recipes for
onion soup?

Who are you peddling for Kane? UNESCO?

Insinuation again, Greg?

I don't ride a bicycle or sell anything for anyone but myself. And it's
not even in any field related to children or families.

Didn't you say you are a conservative?

Yes, lower case 'c.'

Which CPS agency handles Bangladesh?

None that I know of.

If one is discussing and issue they must confine themselves to a set of
boundaries you have decided they must?

How is child abuse worldwide not a fit subject for an organization
concerned with child abuse?

Why don't you read it again and think up some more inane commentary?

Too scared?

0:-



0:- wrote:
... really. Honest. That's it. Make them up.

Besides, what this got to do with spanking?

0:-]

See if YOU can figure it out, Doan, Greg.


http://www.odu.edu/ao/instadv/quest/childabuse.html




Child Abuse and Neglect: The Need for Courage
By Karen Polonko

True stories.
In India, a 3-year-old is exposed to hazardous substances while working
in an unventilated room in a small village factory. Her fingers are
wrapped so that the blood from her cuts will not interfere with her
work. At the same moment, in Thailand, a child, age 8, is sold into
sexual slavery. Forced to have sex with an average of 15 customers a
day, she is likely to be infected with HIV within six months.

Closer to home, a 4-year-old boy labors in the grape fields in upstate
New York alongside other migrant workers. He suffers chronic respiratory
infections; his hands are in constant pain.

Meanwhile, in the Midwest, a desperate girl tells her mother that her
father is molesting her. The father says that she is making this up to
get even with him for something else. After the mom (who was sexually
abused as a child herself) leaves, the father ties his daughter to a
tree and partially buries her cat next to her. He then runs the lawn
mower over the animal, as the child screams that she will be good and
take everything back if he will let her cat live.

Elsewhere, a little boy, age 4, has his hands amputated after they were
tied tightly behind his back as punishment for using his father's paint.
His father, an alcoholic, fell asleep and forgot to untie his son. When
they finally return from the hospital, the son asks his father if he is
really good, can he have his hands back. Later that day, the father
kills himself.

These are the stories that we do not want to hear. We want to believe
that all children are safe. We argue that these cases are the rare
exception. It is too painful to believe otherwise.

Prevalence.
Unfortunately, child maltreatment is not rare. According to the latest
UNICEF reports, literally hundreds of millions of children throughout
the world are victims of abuse, neglect and exploitation. At the
extremes, children are killed, abandoned, sold or given in "debt"
bondage. Close to 6 million children work under conditions of virtual
slavery. Every year, millions of girls are trafficked, exploited in the
sex industry and/or genitally mutilated. Millions more at home and
abroad are beaten, emotionally abused, molested and/or neglected by
their parents.

In the United States alone, more than 3 million children are reported to
official agencies for severe maltreatment in any given year. Surveys
indicate that this figure grossly underestimates the true extent of the
problem as more than one-third of adults in the United States report
having experienced physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse and/or
neglect as a child.

Definitions.
Like our need to believe that child maltreatment is rare, many people
believe that only the most egregious forms of maltreatment could harm a
child. The rest just "toughens them up," "keeps them under control" and
is "for their own good." Unfortunately, the reality is that both extreme
and less severe levels of maltreatment can harm children in profound ways.

Reflecting the myths, child abuse and neglect are typically
distinguished from other levels of child maltreatment by severity and
evidence of intentionally inflicted, observable injury or impairment,
under the mistaken assumption that only such extremes indicate that a
child has been harmed. So, for example, in a study that Old Dominion
University colleague Lucien Lombardo, professor of sociology, and I
conducted, titled "A Comparative Analysis of Human Rights' and United
States' Law on Corporal Punishment: Implications for Understanding Human
Rights and Colonial Models of Child-Adult Relationships," we found that
most U.S. statutes relating to corporal punishment are concerned with
explicitly safeguarding the rights of parents to use violence against
children. The exceptions are specified as excessive violence or
"physical abuse" - i.e., violence that intentionally caused substantial
injury such as the child's death, disfigurement, or brain or spinal cord
damage.

Similarly, other forms of child maltreatment are defined in terms of
granting parents permission to inflict maximal harm on children, finding
abuse only in the extremes that result in demonstrable injury. Child
emotional abuse is an extreme or habitual pattern of hostile and
aggressive parenting that results in mental or emotional injury.
Emotional neglect is extreme lack of emotional responsiveness and
involvement that causes mental or developmental harm. Child sexual abuse
is extreme oral, genital or anal contact (or defined legally in terms of
age difference, minor status and/or relationship to perpetrator). Child
neglect is restricted to the extremes of parental lack of involvement
and supervision, and failure to meet the child's needs, which place the
child's life in serious danger.

Consequences.
Given the above, it is surprising that many people do not believe that
child maltreatment has profoundly negative consequences that go beyond
the specific childhood injury to impact the rest of the child's life.
Instead, people often mistakenly attribute the long-term consequences of
child abuse to irrelevant factors. However, the reality is that the
consequences of child maltreatment are enormous, not only for the
survivor, but also for society.

Some consequences of maltreatment differ according to the child's
vulnerability. For instance, infants and toddlers are at greatest risk
of fatal abuse, with a blow to the baby's head as the most common cause
of death. Some consequences for the child are greater for one type of
maltreatment than another. For example, child neglect is most strongly
associated with the child having a lower IQ and lower educational
achievement; child physical abuse with the child engaging in violent
crime as a teen and adult; and child emotional abuse with subsequent
psychopathology. However, all forms of maltreatment are associated with
adverse effects for children and the adults they become. As discussed in
my paper "Causes and Consequences of Child Abuse: Shedding More Light on
the Cycle of Violence and Neglect," prior research points to the following:

Child physical and emotional abuse and neglect all increase the
likelihood that the child will subsequently:
· Be cognitively impaired (including having a lower IQ and
cognitive development; lower grades and educational achievement);
· Have impaired moral reasoning (including having less empathy,
less compliance and less developed conscience);
· Engage in violence and crime (including higher rates of juvenile
delinquency, teen and adult violent and nonviolent crime);
· Be violent in relationships (including being more likely to
assault their siblings and other children as a child, and later to abuse
their own children, spouse and elderly parents).
In addition, all types of child maltreatment - physical and
emotional abuse and neglect and sexual abuse - increase the likelihood
that the child will subsequently:
· Have mental health problems (including higher rates of
depression, anxiety, dissociation, etc.);
· Become a substance abuser of both legal and illegal substances as
a teenager and adult;
· Become pregnant as a teenager and engage in risky sexual behavior
(including earlier first intercourse, exposure to sexually transmitted
diseases and greater number of partners).

Aside from the obvious, part of the reason these effects are so profound
is that much child maltreatment occurs before age 6, during "critical
windows" of development. Being neglected early in life, for example, is
linked to the underdevelopment of those parts of the brain responsible
for cognitive development and empathy. Being the target of or witnessing
physical violence early in life is more likely to result in the
overdevelopment of parts of the brain that ultimately affect
impulsivity, reactivity, anxiety and aggression. As research by Bruce D.
Perry, M.D., Ph.D., senior fellow of the Child Trauma Academy, shows,
both abuse and neglect physiologically predispose a child to a series of
neurobiological problems and violent behavior. These physiological
changes are compounded by the modeling effect of seriously inadequate
parenting; the adoption of a belief system about self, others and the
world as malevolent; and the defense mechanisms abused children must
develop to cope with their terror, despair and hopelessness. For
example, the child blames himself for the abuse or denies that the
parent is maltreating him.

Causes.
The general belief is that parents who maltreat their children are rare,
pathological and certainly not like us. The reality is that most parents
engage in culturally permissible or low levels of child abuse and
neglect. Inflicting these permissible levels of maltreatment not only
harms children, but also often escalates to the more severe forms of
maltreatment.

Many of the parents who abuse and neglect their children were themselves
maltreated as children. They are the little ones we failed to protect a
generation ago. Also, many of the harmful consequences that resulted
from their abuse and neglect, such as mental health problems, substance
abuse and teen pregnancy, caused them to maltreat their children, laying
the foundation for a cycle of abuse and neglect across generations. As
reviewed in "Causes and Consequences of Child Abuse," research indicates
the following.

First, parents who abuse or neglect their children are more likely to:
· Have been maltreated as a child;
· Have mental health problems, including parent depression;
· Have a violent marriage;
· Be a substance abuser;
· Be a teenage mother;
· Have lower levels of education and income.
Second, parents who abuse or neglect their children are also more
likely to:
· Have serious parenting deficits (e.g., have unrealistic
expectations for their children);
· Use harsh and aggressive parenting with their children (i.e., low
levels of emotional abuse);
· Have low levels of parental involvement and supervision, and give
their children very little positive attention and affection (i.e., low
levels of physical and emotional neglect);
· Frequently use corporal punishment on their children (i.e., low
levels of physical abuse);
· Have few cognitively stimulating materials in the home for their
children (i.e., low levels of neglect).

The first group of factors provides insights into the cycle of abuse and
neglect. Being maltreated as a child models parenting behaviors and
leads to the adoption of beliefs and defenses that increase the
survivor's chances of harming his own children. In addition, being
maltreated as a child increases the likelihood that one will suffer
other outcomes such as lower IQ and educational attainment, more mental
health problems, substance abuse and teen pregnancy - each of which, in
turn, independently increases the risk of maltreating one's own child.

The second set of factors shows that parents who severely maltreat their
children are more likely than other parents to more frequently subject
their children to low levels of abuse and neglect. In other words, when
parents engage in "culturally acceptable" levels of harsh parenting,
corporal punishment, verbal aggression, and minimal involvement and
supervision, they are significantly more likely to proceed to more
severe abuse and neglect of their children. Thus, in contrast to what is
typically assumed, low levels of maltreatment are dangerous for
children. Moreover, at least in the area of physical violence, more
frequent corporal punishment has the same adverse consequences as
physical abuse, from lower IQ to more violent behavior and mental
problems, except to lesser degrees. (This includes a finding from a
master's-level study in Old Dominion's Department of Sociology and
Criminal Justice that the more frequently a girl is subjected to
corporal punishment when young, the more likely she is to become
pregnant as a teenager.)

As discussed in "Causes and Consequences of Child Abuse," these findings
help us to understand another important reason why children of teenage
mothers and socioeconomically disadvantaged parents are more likely to
be abused and neglected. These parents are also significantly more
likely to use "low levels of abuse and neglect," such as more hostile
and aggressive parenting, more frequent corporal punishment, and less
responsiveness and involvement. They also are less likely to get care
and more likely to use both legal and illegal drugs while pregnant,
which is related to premature birth and neurological and cognitive
problems in the baby. In turn, substance-abusing mothers are also more
likely to be young and impoverished. All of this is related to having
been abused and neglected themselves as children.

Intervention.
Some people believe that intervention on behalf of maltreated children
is so effective that even adequate parents now have to worry about
outside interference. The reality is that intervention and prevention
programs have not been effective in reducing the prevalence of child
abuse and neglect.

As many researchers and practitioners acknowledge, few resources are
committed; agencies have little power to intervene; and treatment is
often low cost, short term and focused on keeping the family together,
rather than ensuring that the child is safe from abuse and neglect. We
refuse to acknowledge that both child abuse and neglect, as well as low
levels of child maltreatment, have serious consequences for the child
and society. Instead, we blame child maltreatment and its consequences
(for example, delinquency and drug abuse), on people and conditions that
fit preconceived stereotypes and political agendas, such as a common
belief that maternal employment causes delinquency, even though there is
no evidence to support this. In this country, we continue to spend
hundreds of millions of dollars on programs like Abstinence Only or Just
Say No that just don't work because they don't address the underlying
problems.

The need to unite.
Discussions of child maltreatment are often polarized around issues of
religion, class, race, ethnicity and culture, both within and across
countries. Often, parents may believe that group status justifies how
they treat their children. However, the reality that emerges from a
multicultural look at child abuse and neglect is that while children of
certain groups may experience different types of abuse, children of all
religions, income levels, races, ethnic groups and countries suffer from
maltreatment.

A review of research on rates in the United States indicates that
incidences of child sexual abuse and emotional abuse do not differ
significantly for African American, Caucasian and Hispanic girls. On the
other hand, African American children have higher rates of physical
abuse and neglect than Caucasians, although a significant portion of
this difference is due to variations in education, income and poverty -
i.e., factors that increase the child's risk of maltreatment. However,
with rare exception, research shows that children of all races and
ethnic groups suffer adverse consequences when abused or neglected.

Lighting the way to concerted action on behalf of children, African
American leaders like Dr. Alvin Poussaint and the Rev. Jesse Jackson
have joined other leaders in the fight to end not only severe child
abuse, but also lower levels of abuse and neglect, including corporal
punishment.

Internationally, we are urged to look for ways that we have
inadvertently supported child maltreatment, such as buying products made
by young children, refusing to confront travel agencies that covertly
advertise sex tours to Thailand for young virgins, and simply remaining
silent.

Standing in the way of preventing child maltreatment is the power
differential between parents and children. Parents are for the most part
lawfully free to engage in child abuse and neglect, short of serious
injury, as part of their parental prerogative. As discussed in several
papers that I have written with Professor Lombardo, including "Cycles of
Trauma and Cycles of Nurturing: The UN Convention on the Rights of the
Child and the Path from Childhood to Adulthood" and "The Enlightened
Witness: Reasserting Humanity in the Face of Violence at the Beginning
of the 21st Century," the key is to extend to children the rights of
human beings.

As many scholars have stressed, the most logical way for the United
States to begin this process of reducing child maltreatment is to join
every other country (except for Somalia) in the United Nations that has
adopted the UN Convention on the Rights of Children. This will take
courage, for in granting children human rights, we must challenge not
only the beliefs and laws which support the power parents have to hit,
harm, ignore and exploit their children, but also the beliefs, defenses
and behaviors that parents developed to survive their own childhood
maltreatment. As Dr. Perry concludes in his paper "Incubated in Terror:
Neurodevelopmental Factors in the 'Cycle of Violence'": "In order to
solve the problems of violence, we need to transform our culture. We
need to change our child rearing practices, we need to change the
malignant and destructive view that children are the property of their
biological parents. ... Children belong to the community, they are
entrusted to parents."

As researchers and practitioners emphasize, we, as a society, must do
everything in our power to prevent and treat child maltreatment, not
only because of the suffering of the victims, or even because of the
benefits that society stands to gain, but because it is the right thing
to do. It is an ethical imperative. It is our moral responsibility.

For more information about child abuse and how you can help prevent it,
visit UNICEF at www.unicef.org; Child Trauma Institute at
www.childtrauma.com; In Support of Children, an ODU student organization
devoted to ending child abuse, at
http://groups.hamptonroads.com/SupportChildren; the Post Institute for
Family Centered Therapy at www.postinstitute.com; and Child Abuse
Prevention Network at http://child-abuse.com. Dr. Perry's paper,
"Incubated in Terror: Neurodevelopmental Factors in the 'Cycle of
Violence,'" is available at
www.childtrauma.org/CTAMATERIALS/incubated.asp. An excellent sourcebook,
The APSAC Handbook on Child Maltreatment, written in 2002, can be found
at www.APSAC.org.

Karen Polonko is a professor in the Department of Sociology and Criminal
Justice.

Quest Fall 2005 · Volume 8 Issue 2








--
"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what
to have for lunch. Liberty is a well armed lamb
contesting the vote." - Benjamin Franklin (or someone else)



--
"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what
to have for lunch. Liberty is a well armed lamb
contesting the vote." - Benjamin Franklin (or someone else)

I guess you must have missed this notice:

"All content of this site is copyright Old Dominion University unless
otherwise noted."

Do you know that you are violating copyright law, STUPID?

Doan

On Sat, 29 Jul 2006, 0:- wrote:

... really. Honest. That's it. Make them up.

Besides, what this got to do with spanking?

0:-]

See if YOU can figure it out, Doan, Greg.


http://www.odu.edu/ao/instadv/quest/childabuse.html




Child Abuse and Neglect: The Need for Courage
By Karen Polonko

True stories.
In India, a 3-year-old is exposed to hazardous substances while working
in an unventilated room in a small village factory. Her fingers are
wrapped so that the blood from her cuts will not interfere with her
work. At the same moment, in Thailand, a child, age 8, is sold into
sexual slavery. Forced to have sex with an average of 15 customers a
day, she is likely to be infected with HIV within six months.

Closer to home, a 4-year-old boy labors in the grape fields in upstate
New York alongside other migrant workers. He suffers chronic respiratory
infections; his hands are in constant pain.

Meanwhile, in the Midwest, a desperate girl tells her mother that her
father is molesting her. The father says that she is making this up to
get even with him for something else. After the mom (who was sexually
abused as a child herself) leaves, the father ties his daughter to a
tree and partially buries her cat next to her. He then runs the lawn
mower over the animal, as the child screams that she will be good and
take everything back if he will let her cat live.

Elsewhere, a little boy, age 4, has his hands amputated after they were
tied tightly behind his back as punishment for using his father’s paint.
His father, an alcoholic, fell asleep and forgot to untie his son. When
they finally return from the hospital, the son asks his father if he is
really good, can he have his hands back. Later that day, the father
kills himself.

These are the stories that we do not want to hear. We want to believe
that all children are safe. We argue that these cases are the rare
exception. It is too painful to believe otherwise.

Prevalence.
Unfortunately, child maltreatment is not rare. According to the latest
UNICEF reports, literally hundreds of millions of children throughout
the world are victims of abuse, neglect and exploitation. At the
extremes, children are killed, abandoned, sold or given in “debt”
bondage. Close to 6 million children work under conditions of virtual
slavery. Every year, millions of girls are trafficked, exploited in the
sex industry and/or genitally mutilated. Millions more at home and
abroad are beaten, emotionally abused, molested and/or neglected by
their parents.

In the United States alone, more than 3 million children are reported to
official agencies for severe maltreatment in any given year. Surveys
indicate that this figure grossly underestimates the true extent of the
problem as more than one-third of adults in the United States report
having experienced physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse and/or
neglect as a child.

Definitions.
Like our need to believe that child maltreatment is rare, many people
believe that only the most egregious forms of maltreatment could harm a
child. The rest just “toughens them up,” “keeps them under control” and
is “for their own good.” Unfortunately, the reality is that both extreme
and less severe levels of maltreatment can harm children in profound ways.

Reflecting the myths, child abuse and neglect are typically
distinguished from other levels of child maltreatment by severity and
evidence of intentionally inflicted, observable injury or impairment,
under the mistaken assumption that only such extremes indicate that a
child has been harmed. So, for example, in a study that Old Dominion
University colleague Lucien Lombardo, professor of sociology, and I
conducted, titled “A Comparative Analysis of Human Rights’ and United
States’ Law on Corporal Punishment: Implications for Understanding Human
Rights and Colonial Models of Child-Adult Relationships,” we found that
most U.S. statutes relating to corporal punishment are concerned with
explicitly safeguarding the rights of parents to use violence against
children. The exceptions are specified as excessive violence or
“physical abuse” – i.e., violence that intentionally caused substantial
injury such as the child’s death, disfigurement, or brain or spinal cord
damage.

Similarly, other forms of child maltreatment are defined in terms of
granting parents permission to inflict maximal harm on children, finding
abuse only in the extremes that result in demonstrable injury. Child
emotional abuse is an extreme or habitual pattern of hostile and
aggressive parenting that results in mental or emotional injury.
Emotional neglect is extreme lack of emotional responsiveness and
involvement that causes mental or developmental harm. Child sexual abuse
is extreme oral, genital or anal contact (or defined legally in terms of
age difference, minor status and/or relationship to perpetrator). Child
neglect is restricted to the extremes of parental lack of involvement
and supervision, and failure to meet the child’s needs, which place the
child’s life in serious danger.

Consequences.
Given the above, it is surprising that many people do not believe that
child maltreatment has profoundly negative consequences that go beyond
the specific childhood injury to impact the rest of the child’s life.
Instead, people often mistakenly attribute the long-term consequences of
child abuse to irrelevant factors. However, the reality is that the
consequences of child maltreatment are enormous, not only for the
survivor, but also for society.

Some consequences of maltreatment differ according to the child’s
vulnerability. For instance, infants and toddlers are at greatest risk
of fatal abuse, with a blow to the baby’s head as the most common cause
of death. Some consequences for the child are greater for one type of
maltreatment than another. For example, child neglect is most strongly
associated with the child having a lower IQ and lower educational
achievement; child physical abuse with the child engaging in violent
crime as a teen and adult; and child emotional abuse with subsequent
psychopathology. However, all forms of maltreatment are associated with
adverse effects for children and the adults they become. As discussed in
my paper “Causes and Consequences of Child Abuse: Shedding More Light on
the Cycle of Violence and Neglect,” prior research points to the following:

Child physical and emotional abuse and neglect all increase the
likelihood that the child will subsequently:
• Be cognitively impaired (including having a lower IQ and
cognitive development; lower grades and educational achievement);
• Have impaired moral reasoning (including having less empathy,
less compliance and less developed conscience);
• Engage in violence and crime (including higher rates of juvenile
delinquency, teen and adult violent and nonviolent crime);
• Be violent in relationships (including being more likely to
assault their siblings and other children as a child, and later to abuse
their own children, spouse and elderly parents).
In addition, all types of child maltreatment – physical and
emotional abuse and neglect and sexual abuse – increase the likelihood
that the child will subsequently:
• Have mental health problems (including higher rates of
depression, anxiety, dissociation, etc.);
• Become a substance abuser of both legal and illegal substances as
a teenager and adult;
• Become pregnant as a teenager and engage in risky sexual behavior
(including earlier first intercourse, exposure to sexually transmitted
diseases and greater number of partners).

Aside from the obvious, part of the reason these effects are so profound
is that much child maltreatment occurs before age 6, during “critical
windows” of development. Being neglected early in life, for example, is
linked to the underdevelopment of those parts of the brain responsible
for cognitive development and empathy. Being the target of or witnessing
physical violence early in life is more likely to result in the
overdevelopment of parts of the brain that ultimately affect
impulsivity, reactivity, anxiety and aggression. As research by Bruce D.
Perry, M.D., Ph.D., senior fellow of the Child Trauma Academy, shows,
both abuse and neglect physiologically predispose a child to a series of
neurobiological problems and violent behavior. These physiological
changes are compounded by the modeling effect of seriously inadequate
parenting; the adoption of a belief system about self, others and the
world as malevolent; and the defense mechanisms abused children must
develop to cope with their terror, despair and hopelessness. For
example, the child blames himself for the abuse or denies that the
parent is maltreating him.

Causes.
The general belief is that parents who maltreat their children are rare,
pathological and certainly not like us. The reality is that most parents
engage in culturally permissible or low levels of child abuse and
neglect. Inflicting these permissible levels of maltreatment not only
harms children, but also often escalates to the more severe forms of
maltreatment.

Many of the parents who abuse and neglect their children were themselves
maltreated as children. They are the little ones we failed to protect a
generation ago. Also, many of the harmful consequences that resulted
from their abuse and neglect, such as mental health problems, substance
abuse and teen pregnancy, caused them to maltreat their children, laying
the foundation for a cycle of abuse and neglect across generations. As
reviewed in “Causes and Consequences of Child Abuse,” research indicates
the following.

First, parents who abuse or neglect their children are more likely to:
• Have been maltreated as a child;
• Have mental health problems, including parent depression;
• Have a violent marriage;
• Be a substance abuser;
• Be a teenage mother;
• Have lower levels of education and income.
Second, parents who abuse or neglect their children are also more
likely to:
• Have serious parenting deficits (e.g., have unrealistic
expectations for their children);
• Use harsh and aggressive parenting with their children (i.e., low
levels of emotional abuse);
• Have low levels of parental involvement and supervision, and give
their children very little positive attention and affection (i.e., low
levels of physical and emotional neglect);
• Frequently use corporal punishment on their children (i.e., low
levels of physical abuse);
• Have few cognitively stimulating materials in the home for their
children (i.e., low levels of neglect).

The first group of factors provides insights into the cycle of abuse and
neglect. Being maltreated as a child models parenting behaviors and
leads to the adoption of beliefs and defenses that increase the
survivor’s chances of harming his own children. In addition, being
maltreated as a child increases the likelihood that one will suffer
other outcomes such as lower IQ and educational attainment, more mental
health problems, substance abuse and teen pregnancy – each of which, in
turn, independently increases the risk of maltreating one’s own child.

The second set of factors shows that parents who severely maltreat their
children are more likely than other parents to more frequently subject
their children to low levels of abuse and neglect. In other words, when
parents engage in “culturally acceptable” levels of harsh parenting,
corporal punishment, verbal aggression, and minimal involvement and
supervision, they are significantly more likely to proceed to more
severe abuse and neglect of their children. Thus, in contrast to what is
typically assumed, low levels of maltreatment are dangerous for
children. Moreover, at least in the area of physical violence, more
frequent corporal punishment has the same adverse consequences as
physical abuse, from lower IQ to more violent behavior and mental
problems, except to lesser degrees. (This includes a finding from a
master’s-level study in Old Dominion’s Department of Sociology and
Criminal Justice that the more frequently a girl is subjected to
corporal punishment when young, the more likely she is to become
pregnant as a teenager.)

As discussed in “Causes and Consequences of Child Abuse,” these findings
help us to understand another important reason why children of teenage
mothers and socioeconomically disadvantaged parents are more likely to
be abused and neglected. These parents are also significantly more
likely to use “low levels of abuse and neglect,” such as more hostile
and aggressive parenting, more frequent corporal punishment, and less
responsiveness and involvement. They also are less likely to get care
and more likely to use both legal and illegal drugs while pregnant,
which is related to premature birth and neurological and cognitive
problems in the baby. In turn, substance-abusing mothers are also more
likely to be young and impoverished. All of this is related to having
been abused and neglected themselves as children.

Intervention.
Some people believe that intervention on behalf of maltreated children
is so effective that even adequate parents now have to worry about
outside interference. The reality is that intervention and prevention
programs have not been effective in reducing the prevalence of child
abuse and neglect.

As many researchers and practitioners acknowledge, few resources are
committed; agencies have little power to intervene; and treatment is
often low cost, short term and focused on keeping the family together,
rather than ensuring that the child is safe from abuse and neglect. We
refuse to acknowledge that both child abuse and neglect, as well as low
levels of child maltreatment, have serious consequences for the child
and society. Instead, we blame child maltreatment and its consequences
(for example, delinquency and drug abuse), on people and conditions that
fit preconceived stereotypes and political agendas, such as a common
belief that maternal employment causes delinquency, even though there is
no evidence to support this. In this country, we continue to spend
hundreds of millions of dollars on programs like Abstinence Only or Just
Say No that just don’t work because they don’t address the underlying
problems.

The need to unite.
Discussions of child maltreatment are often polarized around issues of
religion, class, race, ethnicity and culture, both within and across
countries. Often, parents may believe that group status justifies how
they treat their children. However, the reality that emerges from a
multicultural look at child abuse and neglect is that while children of
certain groups may experience different types of abuse, children of all
religions, income levels, races, ethnic groups and countries suffer from
maltreatment.

A review of research on rates in the United States indicates that
incidences of child sexual abuse and emotional abuse do not differ
significantly for African American, Caucasian and Hispanic girls. On the
other hand, African American children have higher rates of physical
abuse and neglect than Caucasians, although a significant portion of
this difference is due to variations in education, income and poverty –
i.e., factors that increase the child’s risk of maltreatment. However,
with rare exception, research shows that children of all races and
ethnic groups suffer adverse consequences when abused or neglected.

Lighting the way to concerted action on behalf of children, African
American leaders like Dr. Alvin Poussaint and the Rev. Jesse Jackson
have joined other leaders in the fight to end not only severe child
abuse, but also lower levels of abuse and neglect, including corporal
punishment.

Internationally, we are urged to look for ways that we have
inadvertently supported child maltreatment, such as buying products made
by young children, refusing to confront travel agencies that covertly
advertise sex tours to Thailand for young virgins, and simply remaining
silent.

Standing in the way of preventing child maltreatment is the power
differential between parents and children. Parents are for the most part
lawfully free to engage in child abuse and neglect, short of serious
injury, as part of their parental prerogative. As discussed in several
papers that I have written with Professor Lombardo, including “Cycles of
Trauma and Cycles of Nurturing: The UN Convention on the Rights of the
Child and the Path from Childhood to Adulthood” and “The Enlightened
Witness: Reasserting Humanity in the Face of Violence at the Beginning
of the 21st Century,” the key is to extend to children the rights of
human beings.

As many scholars have stressed, the most logical way for the United
States to begin this process of reducing child maltreatment is to join
every other country (except for Somalia) in the United Nations that has
adopted the UN Convention on the Rights of Children. This will take
courage, for in granting children human rights, we must challenge not
only the beliefs and laws which support the power parents have to hit,
harm, ignore and exploit their children, but also the beliefs, defenses
and behaviors that parents developed to survive their own childhood
maltreatment. As Dr. Perry concludes in his paper “Incubated in Terror:
Neurodevelopmental Factors in the ‘Cycle of Violence’”: “In order to
solve the problems of violence, we need to transform our culture. We
need to change our child rearing practices, we need to change the
malignant and destructive view that children are the property of their
biological parents. … Children belong to the community, they are
entrusted to parents.”

As researchers and practitioners emphasize, we, as a society, must do
everything in our power to prevent and treat child maltreatment, not
only because of the suffering of the victims, or even because of the
benefits that society stands to gain, but because it is the right thing
to do. It is an ethical imperative. It is our moral responsibility.

For more information about child abuse and how you can help prevent it,
visit UNICEF at www.unicef.org; Child Trauma Institute at
www.childtrauma.com; In Support of Children, an ODU student organization
devoted to ending child abuse, at
http://groups.hamptonroads.com/SupportChildren; the Post Institute for
Family Centered Therapy at www.postinstitute.com; and Child Abuse
Prevention Network at http://child-abuse.com. Dr. Perry’s paper,
“Incubated in Terror: Neurodevelopmental Factors in the ‘Cycle of
Violence,’” is available at
www.childtrauma.org/CTAMATERIALS/incubated.asp. An excellent sourcebook,
The APSAC Handbook on Child Maltreatment, written in 2002, can be found
at www.APSAC.org.

Karen Polonko is a professor in the Department of Sociology and Criminal
Justice.

Quest Fall 2005 • Volume 8 Issue 2








--
"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what
to have for lunch. Liberty is a well armed lamb
contesting the vote." - Benjamin Franklin (or someone else)

Doan wrote:
I guess you must have missed this notice:

"All content of this site is copyright Old Dominion University unless
otherwise noted."

Do you know that you are violating copyright law, STUPID?

Nope. Fair use.

I changed nothing, did not mislead as to meaning of content.

Did not pretend it was my OWN work.

Your buddy from Tx apparently did all those things.

Want to try again?

Read up on fair use.


Doan

On Sat, 29 Jul 2006, 0:- wrote:

... really. Honest. That's it. Make them up.

Besides, what this got to do with spanking?

0:-]

See if YOU can figure it out, Doan, Greg.


http://www.odu.edu/ao/instadv/quest/childabuse.html




Child Abuse and Neglect: The Need for Courage
By Karen Polonko

True stories.
In India, a 3-year-old is exposed to hazardous substances while working
in an unventilated room in a small village factory. Her fingers are
wrapped so that the blood from her cuts will not interfere with her
work. At the same moment, in Thailand, a child, age 8, is sold into
sexual slavery. Forced to have sex with an average of 15 customers a
day, she is likely to be infected with HIV within six months.

Closer to home, a 4-year-old boy labors in the grape fields in upstate
New York alongside other migrant workers. He suffers chronic respiratory
infections; his hands are in constant pain.

Meanwhile, in the Midwest, a desperate girl tells her mother that her
father is molesting her. The father says that she is making this up to
get even with him for something else. After the mom (who was sexually
abused as a child herself) leaves, the father ties his daughter to a
tree and partially buries her cat next to her. He then runs the lawn
mower over the animal, as the child screams that she will be good and
take everything back if he will let her cat live.

Elsewhere, a little boy, age 4, has his hands amputated after they were
tied tightly behind his back as punishment for using his father?s paint.
His father, an alcoholic, fell asleep and forgot to untie his son. When
they finally return from the hospital, the son asks his father if he is
really good, can he have his hands back. Later that day, the father
kills himself.

These are the stories that we do not want to hear. We want to believe
that all children are safe. We argue that these cases are the rare
exception. It is too painful to believe otherwise.

Prevalence.
Unfortunately, child maltreatment is not rare. According to the latest
UNICEF reports, literally hundreds of millions of children throughout
the world are victims of abuse, neglect and exploitation. At the
extremes, children are killed, abandoned, sold or given in ?debt?
bondage. Close to 6 million children work under conditions of virtual
slavery. Every year, millions of girls are trafficked, exploited in the
sex industry and/or genitally mutilated. Millions more at home and
abroad are beaten, emotionally abused, molested and/or neglected by
their parents.

In the United States alone, more than 3 million children are reported to
official agencies for severe maltreatment in any given year. Surveys
indicate that this figure grossly underestimates the true extent of the
problem as more than one-third of adults in the United States report
having experienced physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse and/or
neglect as a child.

Definitions.
Like our need to believe that child maltreatment is rare, many people
believe that only the most egregious forms of maltreatment could harm a
child. The rest just ?toughens them up,? ?keeps them under control? and
is ?for their own good.? Unfortunately, the reality is that both extreme
and less severe levels of maltreatment can harm children in profound ways.

Reflecting the myths, child abuse and neglect are typically
distinguished from other levels of child maltreatment by severity and
evidence of intentionally inflicted, observable injury or impairment,
under the mistaken assumption that only such extremes indicate that a
child has been harmed. So, for example, in a study that Old Dominion
University colleague Lucien Lombardo, professor of sociology, and I
conducted, titled ?A Comparative Analysis of Human Rights? and United
States? Law on Corporal Punishment: Implications for Understanding Human
Rights and Colonial Models of Child-Adult Relationships,? we found that
most U.S. statutes relating to corporal punishment are concerned with
explicitly safeguarding the rights of parents to use violence against
children. The exceptions are specified as excessive violence or
?physical abuse? ? i.e., violence that intentionally caused substantial
injury such as the child?s death, disfigurement, or brain or spinal cord
damage.

Similarly, other forms of child maltreatment are defined in terms of
granting parents permission to inflict maximal harm on children, finding
abuse only in the extremes that result in demonstrable injury. Child
emotional abuse is an extreme or habitual pattern of hostile and
aggressive parenting that results in mental or emotional injury.
Emotional neglect is extreme lack of emotional responsiveness and
involvement that causes mental or developmental harm. Child sexual abuse
is extreme oral, genital or anal contact (or defined legally in terms of
age difference, minor status and/or relationship to perpetrator). Child
neglect is restricted to the extremes of parental lack of involvement
and supervision, and failure to meet the child?s needs, which place the
child?s life in serious danger.

Consequences.
Given the above, it is surprising that many people do not believe that
child maltreatment has profoundly negative consequences that go beyond
the specific childhood injury to impact the rest of the child?s life.
Instead, people often mistakenly attribute the long-term consequences of
child abuse to irrelevant factors. However, the reality is that the
consequences of child maltreatment are enormous, not only for the
survivor, but also for society.

Some consequences of maltreatment differ according to the child?s
vulnerability. For instance, infants and toddlers are at greatest risk
of fatal abuse, with a blow to the baby?s head as the most common cause
of death. Some consequences for the child are greater for one type of
maltreatment than another. For example, child neglect is most strongly
associated with the child having a lower IQ and lower educational
achievement; child physical abuse with the child engaging in violent
crime as a teen and adult; and child emotional abuse with subsequent
psychopathology. However, all forms of maltreatment are associated with
adverse effects for children and the adults they become. As discussed in
my paper ?Causes and Consequences of Child Abuse: Shedding More Light on
the Cycle of Violence and Neglect,? prior research points to the following:

Child physical and emotional abuse and neglect all increase the
likelihood that the child will subsequently:
? Be cognitively impaired (including having a lower IQ and
cognitive development; lower grades and educational achievement);
? Have impaired moral reasoning (including having less empathy,
less compliance and less developed conscience);
? Engage in violence and crime (including higher rates of juvenile
delinquency, teen and adult violent and nonviolent crime);
? Be violent in relationships (including being more likely to
assault their siblings and other children as a child, and later to abuse
their own children, spouse and elderly parents).
In addition, all types of child maltreatment ? physical and
emotional abuse and neglect and sexual abuse ? increase the likelihood
that the child will subsequently:
? Have mental health problems (including higher rates of
depression, anxiety, dissociation, etc.);
? Become a substance abuser of both legal and illegal substances as
a teenager and adult;
? Become pregnant as a teenager and engage in risky sexual behavior
(including earlier first intercourse, exposure to sexually transmitted
diseases and greater number of partners).

Aside from the obvious, part of the reason these effects are so profound
is that much child maltreatment occurs before age 6, during ?critical
windows? of development. Being neglected early in life, for example, is
linked to the underdevelopment of those parts of the brain responsible
for cognitive development and empathy. Being the target of or witnessing
physical violence early in life is more likely to result in the
overdevelopment of parts of the brain that ultimately affect
impulsivity, reactivity, anxiety and aggression. As research by Bruce D.
Perry, M.D., Ph.D., senior fellow of the Child Trauma Academy, shows,
both abuse and neglect physiologically predispose a child to a series of
neurobiological problems and violent behavior. These physiological
changes are compounded by the modeling effect of seriously inadequate
parenting; the adoption of a belief system about self, others and the
world as malevolent; and the defense mechanisms abused children must
develop to cope with their terror, despair and hopelessness. For
example, the child blames himself for the abuse or denies that the
parent is maltreating him.

Causes.
The general belief is that parents who maltreat their children are rare,
pathological and certainly not like us. The reality is that most parents
engage in culturally permissible or low levels of child abuse and
neglect. Inflicting these permissible levels of maltreatment not only
harms children, but also often escalates to the more severe forms of
maltreatment.

Many of the parents who abuse and neglect their children were themselves
maltreated as children. They are the little ones we failed to protect a
generation ago. Also, many of the harmful consequences that resulted
from their abuse and neglect, such as mental health problems, substance
abuse and teen pregnancy, caused them to maltreat their children, laying
the foundation for a cycle of abuse and neglect across generations. As
reviewed in ?Causes and Consequences of Child Abuse,? research indicates
the following.

First, parents who abuse or neglect their children are more likely to:
? Have been maltreated as a child;
? Have mental health problems, including parent depression;
? Have a violent marriage;
? Be a substance abuser;
? Be a teenage mother;
? Have lower levels of education and income.
Second, parents who abuse or neglect their children are also more
likely to:
? Have serious parenting deficits (e.g., have unrealistic
expectations for their children);
? Use harsh and aggressive parenting with their children (i.e., low
levels of emotional abuse);
? Have low levels of parental involvement and supervision, and give
their children very little positive attention and affection (i.e., low
levels of physical and emotional neglect);
? Frequently use corporal punishment on their children (i.e., low
levels of physical abuse);
? Have few cognitively stimulating materials in the home for their
children (i.e., low levels of neglect).

The first group of factors provides insights into the cycle of abuse and
neglect. Being maltreated as a child models parenting behaviors and
leads to the adoption of beliefs and defenses that increase the
survivor?s chances of harming his own children. In addition, being
maltreated as a child increases the likelihood that one will suffer
other outcomes such as lower IQ and educational attainment, more mental
health problems, substance abuse and teen pregnancy ? each of which, in
turn, independently increases the risk of maltreating one?s own child.

The second set of factors shows that parents who severely maltreat their
children are more likely than other parents to more frequently subject
their children to low levels of abuse and neglect. In other words, when
parents engage in ?culturally acceptable? levels of harsh parenting,
corporal punishment, verbal aggression, and minimal involvement and
supervision, they are significantly more likely to proceed to more
severe abuse and neglect of their children. Thus, in contrast to what is
typically assumed, low levels of maltreatment are dangerous for
children. Moreover, at least in the area of physical violence, more
frequent corporal punishment has the same adverse consequences as
physical abuse, from lower IQ to more violent behavior and mental
problems, except to lesser degrees. (This includes a finding from a
master?s-level study in Old Dominion?s Department of Sociology and
Criminal Justice that the more frequently a girl is subjected to
corporal punishment when young, the more likely she is to become
pregnant as a teenager.)

As discussed in ?Causes and Consequences of Child Abuse,? these findings
help us to understand another important reason why children of teenage
mothers and socioeconomically disadvantaged parents are more likely to
be abused and neglected. These parents are also significantly more
likely to use ?low levels of abuse and neglect,? such as more hostile
and aggressive parenting, more frequent corporal punishment, and less
responsiveness and involvement. They also are less likely to get care
and more likely to use both legal and illegal drugs while pregnant,
which is related to premature birth and neurological and cognitive
problems in the baby. In turn, substance-abusing mothers are also more
likely to be young and impoverished. All of this is related to having
been abused and neglected themselves as children.

Intervention.
Some people believe that intervention on behalf of maltreated children
is so effective that even adequate parents now have to worry about
outside interference. The reality is that intervention and prevention
programs have not been effective in reducing the prevalence of child
abuse and neglect.

As many researchers and practitioners acknowledge, few resources are
committed; agencies have little power to intervene; and treatment is
often low cost, short term and focused on keeping the family together,
rather than ensuring that the child is safe from abuse and neglect. We
refuse to acknowledge that both child abuse and neglect, as well as low
levels of child maltreatment, have serious consequences for the child
and society. Instead, we blame child maltreatment and its consequences
(for example, delinquency and drug abuse), on people and conditions that
fit preconceived stereotypes and political agendas, such as a common
belief that maternal employment causes delinquency, even though there is
no evidence to support this. In this country, we continue to spend
hundreds of millions of dollars on programs like Abstinence Only or Just
Say No that just don?t work because they don?t address the underlying
problems.

The need to unite.
Discussions of child maltreatment are often polarized around issues of
religion, class, race, ethnicity and culture, both within and across
countries. Often, parents may believe that group status justifies how
they treat their children. However, the reality that emerges from a
multicultural look at child abuse and neglect is that while children of
certain groups may experience different types of abuse, children of all
religions, income levels, races, ethnic groups and countries suffer from
maltreatment.

A review of research on rates in the United States indicates that
incidences of child sexual abuse and emotional abuse do not differ
significantly for African American, Caucasian and Hispanic girls. On the
other hand, African American children have higher rates of physical
abuse and neglect than Caucasians, although a significant portion of
this difference is due to variations in education, income and poverty ?
i.e., factors that increase the child?s risk of maltreatment. However,
with rare exception, research shows that children of all races and
ethnic groups suffer adverse consequences when abused or neglected.

Lighting the way to concerted action on behalf of children, African
American leaders like Dr. Alvin Poussaint and the Rev. Jesse Jackson
have joined other leaders in the fight to end not only severe child
abuse, but also lower levels of abuse and neglect, including corporal
punishment.

Internationally, we are urged to look for ways that we have
inadvertently supported child maltreatment, such as buying products made
by young children, refusing to confront travel agencies that covertly
advertise sex tours to Thailand for young virgins, and simply remaining
silent.

Standing in the way of preventing child maltreatment is the power
differential between parents and children. Parents are for the most part
lawfully free to engage in child abuse and neglect, short of serious
injury, as part of their parental prerogative. As discussed in several
papers that I have written with Professor Lombardo, including ?Cycles of
Trauma and Cycles of Nurturing: The UN Convention on the Rights of the
Child and the Path from Childhood to Adulthood? and ?The Enlightened
Witness: Reasserting Humanity in the Face of Violence at the Beginning
of the 21st Century,? the key is to extend to children the rights of
human beings.

As many scholars have stressed, the most logical way for the United
States to begin this process of reducing child maltreatment is to join
every other country (except for Somalia) in the United Nations that has
adopted the UN Convention on the Rights of Children. This will take
courage, for in granting children human rights, we must challenge not
only the beliefs and laws which support the power parents have to hit,
harm, ignore and exploit their children, but also the beliefs, defenses
and behaviors that parents developed to survive their own childhood
maltreatment. As Dr. Perry concludes in his paper ?Incubated in Terror:
Neurodevelopmental Factors in the ?Cycle of Violence??: ?In order to
solve the problems of violence, we need to transform our culture. We
need to change our child rearing practices, we need to change the
malignant and destructive view that children are the property of their
biological parents. ? Children belong to the community, they are
entrusted to parents.?

As researchers and practitioners emphasize, we, as a society, must do
everything in our power to prevent and treat child maltreatment, not
only because of the suffering of the victims, or even because of the
benefits that society stands to gain, but because it is the right thing
to do. It is an ethical imperative. It is our moral responsibility.

For more information about child abuse and how you can help prevent it,
visit UNICEF at www.unicef.org; Child Trauma Institute at
www.childtrauma.com; In Support of Children, an ODU student organization
devoted to ending child abuse, at
http://groups.hamptonroads.com/SupportChildren; the Post Institute for
Family Centered Therapy at www.postinstitute.com; and Child Abuse
Prevention Network at http://child-abuse.com. Dr. Perry?s paper,
?Incubated in Terror: Neurodevelopmental Factors in the ?Cycle of
Violence,?? is available at
www.childtrauma.org/CTAMATERIALS/incubated.asp. An excellent sourcebook,
The APSAC Handbook on Child Maltreatment, written in 2002, can be found
at www.APSAC.org.

Karen Polonko is a professor in the Department of Sociology and Criminal
Justice.

Quest Fall 2005 ? Volume 8 Issue 2








--
"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what
to have for lunch. Liberty is a well armed lamb
contesting the vote." - Benjamin Franklin (or someone else)




--
"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what
to have for lunch. Liberty is a well armed lamb
contesting the vote." - Benjamin Franklin (or someone else)

On Mon, 31 Jul 2006, 0:- wrote:

Doan wrote:
I guess you must have missed this notice:

"All content of this site is copyright Old Dominion University unless
otherwise noted."

Do you know that you are violating copyright law, STUPID?

Nope. Fair use.

I changed nothing, did not mislead as to meaning of content.

Did not pretend it was my OWN work.

Your buddy from Tx apparently did all those things.

Want to try again?

Read up on fair use.

"For permission to reprint from Old Dominion University?s Quest, contact
the Vice President for Institutional Advancement, John R. Broderick
101 Koch Hall, Norfolk, VA 23529"

So fair use? Do you know the definition of fair use? The site explicitly
stated that you needed permission to reprint. Did you get their
permission?

Doan



Doan

On Sat, 29 Jul 2006, 0:- wrote:

... really. Honest. That's it. Make them up.

Besides, what this got to do with spanking?

0:-]

See if YOU can figure it out, Doan, Greg.


http://www.odu.edu/ao/instadv/quest/childabuse.html




Child Abuse and Neglect: The Need for Courage
By Karen Polonko

True stories.
In India, a 3-year-old is exposed to hazardous substances while working
in an unventilated room in a small village factory. Her fingers are
wrapped so that the blood from her cuts will not interfere with her
work. At the same moment, in Thailand, a child, age 8, is sold into
sexual slavery. Forced to have sex with an average of 15 customers a
day, she is likely to be infected with HIV within six months.

Closer to home, a 4-year-old boy labors in the grape fields in upstate
New York alongside other migrant workers. He suffers chronic respiratory
infections; his hands are in constant pain.

Meanwhile, in the Midwest, a desperate girl tells her mother that her
father is molesting her. The father says that she is making this up to
get even with him for something else. After the mom (who was sexually
abused as a child herself) leaves, the father ties his daughter to a
tree and partially buries her cat next to her. He then runs the lawn
mower over the animal, as the child screams that she will be good and
take everything back if he will let her cat live.

Elsewhere, a little boy, age 4, has his hands amputated after they were
tied tightly behind his back as punishment for using his father?s paint.
His father, an alcoholic, fell asleep and forgot to untie his son. When
they finally return from the hospital, the son asks his father if he is
really good, can he have his hands back. Later that day, the father
kills himself.

These are the stories that we do not want to hear. We want to believe
that all children are safe. We argue that these cases are the rare
exception. It is too painful to believe otherwise.

Prevalence.
Unfortunately, child maltreatment is not rare. According to the latest
UNICEF reports, literally hundreds of millions of children throughout
the world are victims of abuse, neglect and exploitation. At the
extremes, children are killed, abandoned, sold or given in ?debt?
bondage. Close to 6 million children work under conditions of virtual
slavery. Every year, millions of girls are trafficked, exploited in the
sex industry and/or genitally mutilated. Millions more at home and
abroad are beaten, emotionally abused, molested and/or neglected by
their parents.

In the United States alone, more than 3 million children are reported to
official agencies for severe maltreatment in any given year. Surveys
indicate that this figure grossly underestimates the true extent of the
problem as more than one-third of adults in the United States report
having experienced physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse and/or
neglect as a child.

Definitions.
Like our need to believe that child maltreatment is rare, many people
believe that only the most egregious forms of maltreatment could harm a
child. The rest just ?toughens them up,? ?keeps them under control? and
is ?for their own good.? Unfortunately, the reality is that both extreme
and less severe levels of maltreatment can harm children in profound ways.

Reflecting the myths, child abuse and neglect are typically
distinguished from other levels of child maltreatment by severity and
evidence of intentionally inflicted, observable injury or impairment,
under the mistaken assumption that only such extremes indicate that a
child has been harmed. So, for example, in a study that Old Dominion
University colleague Lucien Lombardo, professor of sociology, and I
conducted, titled ?A Comparative Analysis of Human Rights? and United
States? Law on Corporal Punishment: Implications for Understanding Human
Rights and Colonial Models of Child-Adult Relationships,? we found that
most U.S. statutes relating to corporal punishment are concerned with
explicitly safeguarding the rights of parents to use violence against
children. The exceptions are specified as excessive violence or
?physical abuse? ? i.e., violence that intentionally caused substantial
injury such as the child?s death, disfigurement, or brain or spinal cord
damage.

Similarly, other forms of child maltreatment are defined in terms of
granting parents permission to inflict maximal harm on children, finding
abuse only in the extremes that result in demonstrable injury. Child
emotional abuse is an extreme or habitual pattern of hostile and
aggressive parenting that results in mental or emotional injury.
Emotional neglect is extreme lack of emotional responsiveness and
involvement that causes mental or developmental harm. Child sexual abuse
is extreme oral, genital or anal contact (or defined legally in terms of
age difference, minor status and/or relationship to perpetrator). Child
neglect is restricted to the extremes of parental lack of involvement
and supervision, and failure to meet the child?s needs, which place the
child?s life in serious danger.

Consequences.
Given the above, it is surprising that many people do not believe that
child maltreatment has profoundly negative consequences that go beyond
the specific childhood injury to impact the rest of the child?s life.
Instead, people often mistakenly attribute the long-term consequences of
child abuse to irrelevant factors. However, the reality is that the
consequences of child maltreatment are enormous, not only for the
survivor, but also for society.

Some consequences of maltreatment differ according to the child?s
vulnerability. For instance, infants and toddlers are at greatest risk
of fatal abuse, with a blow to the baby?s head as the most common cause
of death. Some consequences for the child are greater for one type of
maltreatment than another. For example, child neglect is most strongly
associated with the child having a lower IQ and lower educational
achievement; child physical abuse with the child engaging in violent
crime as a teen and adult; and child emotional abuse with subsequent
psychopathology. However, all forms of maltreatment are associated with
adverse effects for children and the adults they become. As discussed in
my paper ?Causes and Consequences of Child Abuse: Shedding More Light on
the Cycle of Violence and Neglect,? prior research points to the following:

Child physical and emotional abuse and neglect all increase the
likelihood that the child will subsequently:
? Be cognitively impaired (including having a lower IQ and
cognitive development; lower grades and educational achievement);
? Have impaired moral reasoning (including having less empathy,
less compliance and less developed conscience);
? Engage in violence and crime (including higher rates of juvenile
delinquency, teen and adult violent and nonviolent crime);
? Be violent in relationships (including being more likely to
assault their siblings and other children as a child, and later to abuse
their own children, spouse and elderly parents).
In addition, all types of child maltreatment ? physical and
emotional abuse and neglect and sexual abuse ? increase the likelihood
that the child will subsequently:
? Have mental health problems (including higher rates of
depression, anxiety, dissociation, etc.);
? Become a substance abuser of both legal and illegal substances as
a teenager and adult;
? Become pregnant as a teenager and engage in risky sexual behavior
(including earlier first intercourse, exposure to sexually transmitted
diseases and greater number of partners).

Aside from the obvious, part of the reason these effects are so profound
is that much child maltreatment occurs before age 6, during ?critical
windows? of development. Being neglected early in life, for example, is
linked to the underdevelopment of those parts of the brain responsible
for cognitive development and empathy. Being the target of or witnessing
physical violence early in life is more likely to result in the
overdevelopment of parts of the brain that ultimately affect
impulsivity, reactivity, anxiety and aggression. As research by Bruce D.
Perry, M.D., Ph.D., senior fellow of the Child Trauma Academy, shows,
both abuse and neglect physiologically predispose a child to a series of
neurobiological problems and violent behavior. These physiological
changes are compounded by the modeling effect of seriously inadequate
parenting; the adoption of a belief system about self, others and the
world as malevolent; and the defense mechanisms abused children must
develop to cope with their terror, despair and hopelessness. For
example, the child blames himself for the abuse or denies that the
parent is maltreating him.

Causes.
The general belief is that parents who maltreat their children are rare,
pathological and certainly not like us. The reality is that most parents
engage in culturally permissible or low levels of child abuse and
neglect. Inflicting these permissible levels of maltreatment not only
harms children, but also often escalates to the more severe forms of
maltreatment.

Many of the parents who abuse and neglect their children were themselves
maltreated as children. They are the little ones we failed to protect a
generation ago. Also, many of the harmful consequences that resulted
from their abuse and neglect, such as mental health problems, substance
abuse and teen pregnancy, caused them to maltreat their children, laying
the foundation for a cycle of abuse and neglect across generations. As
reviewed in ?Causes and Consequences of Child Abuse,? research indicates
the following.

First, parents who abuse or neglect their children are more likely to:
? Have been maltreated as a child;
? Have mental health problems, including parent depression;
? Have a violent marriage;
? Be a substance abuser;
? Be a teenage mother;
? Have lower levels of education and income.
Second, parents who abuse or neglect their children are also more
likely to:
? Have serious parenting deficits (e.g., have unrealistic
expectations for their children);
? Use harsh and aggressive parenting with their children (i.e., low
levels of emotional abuse);
? Have low levels of parental involvement and supervision, and give
their children very little positive attention and affection (i.e., low
levels of physical and emotional neglect);
? Frequently use corporal punishment on their children (i.e., low
levels of physical abuse);
? Have few cognitively stimulating materials in the home for their
children (i.e., low levels of neglect).

The first group of factors provides insights into the cycle of abuse and
neglect. Being maltreated as a child models parenting behaviors and
leads to the adoption of beliefs and defenses that increase the
survivor?s chances of harming his own children. In addition, being
maltreated as a child increases the likelihood that one will suffer
other outcomes such as lower IQ and educational attainment, more mental
health problems, substance abuse and teen pregnancy ? each of which, in
turn, independently increases the risk of maltreating one?s own child.

The second set of factors shows that parents who severely maltreat their
children are more likely than other parents to more frequently subject
their children to low levels of abuse and neglect. In other words, when
parents engage in ?culturally acceptable? levels of harsh parenting,
corporal punishment, verbal aggression, and minimal involvement and
supervision, they are significantly more likely to proceed to more
severe abuse and neglect of their children. Thus, in contrast to what is
typically assumed, low levels of maltreatment are dangerous for
children. Moreover, at least in the area of physical violence, more
frequent corporal punishment has the same adverse consequences as
physical abuse, from lower IQ to more violent behavior and mental
problems, except to lesser degrees. (This includes a finding from a
master?s-level study in Old Dominion?s Department of Sociology and
Criminal Justice that the more frequently a girl is subjected to
corporal punishment when young, the more likely she is to become
pregnant as a teenager.)

As discussed in ?Causes and Consequences of Child Abuse,? these findings
help us to understand another important reason why children of teenage
mothers and socioeconomically disadvantaged parents are more likely to
be abused and neglected. These parents are also significantly more
likely to use ?low levels of abuse and neglect,? such as more hostile
and aggressive parenting, more frequent corporal punishment, and less
responsiveness and involvement. They also are less likely to get care
and more likely to use both legal and illegal drugs while pregnant,
which is related to premature birth and neurological and cognitive
problems in the baby. In turn, substance-abusing mothers are also more
likely to be young and impoverished. All of this is related to having
been abused and neglected themselves as children.

Intervention.
Some people believe that intervention on behalf of maltreated children
is so effective that even adequate parents now have to worry about
outside interference. The reality is that intervention and prevention
programs have not been effective in reducing the prevalence of child
abuse and neglect.

As many researchers and practitioners acknowledge, few resources are
committed; agencies have little power to intervene; and treatment is
often low cost, short term and focused on keeping the family together,
rather than ensuring that the child is safe from abuse and neglect. We
refuse to acknowledge that both child abuse and neglect, as well as low
levels of child maltreatment, have serious consequences for the child
and society. Instead, we blame child maltreatment and its consequences
(for example, delinquency and drug abuse), on people and conditions that
fit preconceived stereotypes and political agendas, such as a common
belief that maternal employment causes delinquency, even though there is
no evidence to support this. In this country, we continue to spend
hundreds of millions of dollars on programs like Abstinence Only or Just
Say No that just don?t work because they don?t address the underlying
problems.

The need to unite.
Discussions of child maltreatment are often polarized around issues of
religion, class, race, ethnicity and culture, both within and across
countries. Often, parents may believe that group status justifies how
they treat their children. However, the reality that emerges from a
multicultural look at child abuse and neglect is that while children of
certain groups may experience different types of abuse, children of all
religions, income levels, races, ethnic groups and countries suffer from
maltreatment.

A review of research on rates in the United States indicates that
incidences of child sexual abuse and emotional abuse do not differ
significantly for African American, Caucasian and Hispanic girls. On the
other hand, African American children have higher rates of physical
abuse and neglect than Caucasians, although a significant portion of
this difference is due to variations in education, income and poverty ?
i.e., factors that increase the child?s risk of maltreatment. However,
with rare exception, research shows that children of all races and
ethnic groups suffer adverse consequences when abused or neglected.

Lighting the way to concerted action on behalf of children, African
American leaders like Dr. Alvin Poussaint and the Rev. Jesse Jackson
have joined other leaders in the fight to end not only severe child
abuse, but also lower levels of abuse and neglect, including corporal
punishment.

Internationally, we are urged to look for ways that we have
inadvertently supported child maltreatment, such as buying products made
by young children, refusing to confront travel agencies that covertly
advertise sex tours to Thailand for young virgins, and simply remaining
silent.

Standing in the way of preventing child maltreatment is the power
differential between parents and children. Parents are for the most part
lawfully free to engage in child abuse and neglect, short of serious
injury, as part of their parental prerogative. As discussed in several
papers that I have written with Professor Lombardo, including ?Cycles of
Trauma and Cycles of Nurturing: The UN Convention on the Rights of the
Child and the Path from Childhood to Adulthood? and ?The Enlightened
Witness: Reasserting Humanity in the Face of Violence at the Beginning
of the 21st Century,? the key is to extend to children the rights of
human beings.

As many scholars have stressed, the most logical way for the United
States to begin this process of reducing child maltreatment is to join
every other country (except for Somalia) in the United Nations that has
adopted the UN Convention on the Rights of Children. This will take
courage, for in granting children human rights, we must challenge not
only the beliefs and laws which support the power parents have to hit,
harm, ignore and exploit their children, but also the beliefs, defenses
and behaviors that parents developed to survive their own childhood
maltreatment. As Dr. Perry concludes in his paper ?Incubated in Terror:
Neurodevelopmental Factors in the ?Cycle of Violence??: ?In order to
solve the problems of violence, we need to transform our culture. We
need to change our child rearing practices, we need to change the
malignant and destructive view that children are the property of their
biological parents. ? Children belong to the community, they are
entrusted to parents.?

As researchers and practitioners emphasize, we, as a society, must do
everything in our power to prevent and treat child maltreatment, not
only because of the suffering of the victims, or even because of the
benefits that society stands to gain, but because it is the right thing
to do. It is an ethical imperative. It is our moral responsibility.

For more information about child abuse and how you can help prevent it,
visit UNICEF at www.unicef.org; Child Trauma Institute at
www.childtrauma.com; In Support of Children, an ODU student organization
devoted to ending child abuse, at
http://groups.hamptonroads.com/SupportChildren; the Post Institute for
Family Centered Therapy at www.postinstitute.com; and Child Abuse
Prevention Network at http://child-abuse.com. Dr. Perry?s paper,
?Incubated in Terror: Neurodevelopmental Factors in the ?Cycle of
Violence,?? is available at
www.childtrauma.org/CTAMATERIALS/incubated.asp. An excellent sourcebook,
The APSAC Handbook on Child Maltreatment, written in 2002, can be found
at www.APSAC.org.

Karen Polonko is a professor in the Department of Sociology and Criminal
Justice.

Quest Fall 2005 ? Volume 8 Issue 2








--
"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what
to have for lunch. Liberty is a well armed lamb
contesting the vote." - Benjamin Franklin (or someone else)




--
"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what
to have for lunch. Liberty is a well armed lamb
contesting the vote." - Benjamin Franklin (or someone else)

Doan wrote:

On Mon, 31 Jul 2006, 0:- wrote:

Doan wrote:
I guess you must have missed this notice:

"All content of this site is copyright Old Dominion University unless
otherwise noted."

Do you know that you are violating copyright law, STUPID?
Nope. Fair use.

I changed nothing, did not mislead as to meaning of content.

Did not pretend it was my OWN work.

Your buddy from Tx apparently did all those things.

Want to try again?

Read up on fair use.


"For permission to reprint from Old Dominion University?s Quest, contact
the Vice President for Institutional Advancement, John R. Broderick
101 Koch Hall, Norfolk, VA 23529"

So fair use? Do you know the definition of fair use?

Yep, sure do. It's part of my professional life.

http://www.ams.org/authors/permissions.html

"Fair Use.

This provision in the copyright law allows for reproduction of material
under certain guidelines without requesting specific permission to do
so. Fair Use generally suggests those circumstances in which it is
permissible to use portions of another's copyrighted work--in teaching,
scholarship, research, commentary and news reporting. It is important to
note that the determination of fair use is subjective and is a judgment
of the copyright holder. One should therefore exercise caution when
contemplating use of another's work under these guidelines.
Four Factors in Fair Use

* The purpose and character of the use, including whether such use
is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;

* The nature of the copyrighted work;

* The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to
the copyrighted work as a whole;

* The effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of
the copyrighted work."

The site explicitly
stated that you needed permission to reprint.

Yep, sure did.

Did you get their
permission?

Nope. They are an academic organization very familiar with "Fair Use"
and I was careful not to reduce the market value of their paper.

And in fact have advertised their site by including their full URL to
the page.

I have not used it for profit, but in fact to educate a small group of
otherwise dimwitted souls, like yourself, as to the real scope of child
abuse in the world.

Or could it be they did not want the product used for commercial gain,
or to be used to misrepresent their mission?

I've done neither, of course. Surely you don't think they would support
the nitwits here that attempt to minimize child abuse, now do you?

The author, if she was inclined to post here might well ... no, would
most assuredly, argue from the same perspective I do.

In fact I know she would, but can't say why I know that, in particular.
State secret, you see. chuckle

Tell you what, if you're feelin' froggy why don't you jump and send them
my post and ask.

Of course you have to risk being taken for a fool, but that shouldn't
bother you much.

And just for fun you might point out your support of our Chris from Tx.
And how HE used someone else's document. About the only thing he avoided
was commercial use. 0:-

Doan

You sure are.



Doan

On Sat, 29 Jul 2006, 0:- wrote:

... really. Honest. That's it. Make them up.

Besides, what this got to do with spanking?

0:-]

See if YOU can figure it out, Doan, Greg.


http://www.odu.edu/ao/instadv/quest/childabuse.html




Child Abuse and Neglect: The Need for Courage
By Karen Polonko

True stories.
In India, a 3-year-old is exposed to hazardous substances while working
in an unventilated room in a small village factory. Her fingers are
wrapped so that the blood from her cuts will not interfere with her
work. At the same moment, in Thailand, a child, age 8, is sold into
sexual slavery. Forced to have sex with an average of 15 customers a
day, she is likely to be infected with HIV within six months.

Closer to home, a 4-year-old boy labors in the grape fields in upstate
New York alongside other migrant workers. He suffers chronic respiratory
infections; his hands are in constant pain.

Meanwhile, in the Midwest, a desperate girl tells her mother that her
father is molesting her. The father says that she is making this up to
get even with him for something else. After the mom (who was sexually
abused as a child herself) leaves, the father ties his daughter to a
tree and partially buries her cat next to her. He then runs the lawn
mower over the animal, as the child screams that she will be good and
take everything back if he will let her cat live.

Elsewhere, a little boy, age 4, has his hands amputated after they were
tied tightly behind his back as punishment for using his father?s paint.
His father, an alcoholic, fell asleep and forgot to untie his son. When
they finally return from the hospital, the son asks his father if he is
really good, can he have his hands back. Later that day, the father
kills himself.

These are the stories that we do not want to hear. We want to believe
that all children are safe. We argue that these cases are the rare
exception. It is too painful to believe otherwise.

Prevalence.
Unfortunately, child maltreatment is not rare. According to the latest
UNICEF reports, literally hundreds of millions of children throughout
the world are victims of abuse, neglect and exploitation. At the
extremes, children are killed, abandoned, sold or given in ?debt?
bondage. Close to 6 million children work under conditions of virtual
slavery. Every year, millions of girls are trafficked, exploited in the
sex industry and/or genitally mutilated. Millions more at home and
abroad are beaten, emotionally abused, molested and/or neglected by
their parents.

In the United States alone, more than 3 million children are reported to
official agencies for severe maltreatment in any given year. Surveys
indicate that this figure grossly underestimates the true extent of the
problem as more than one-third of adults in the United States report
having experienced physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse and/or
neglect as a child.

Definitions.
Like our need to believe that child maltreatment is rare, many people
believe that only the most egregious forms of maltreatment could harm a
child. The rest just ?toughens them up,? ?keeps them under control? and
is ?for their own good.? Unfortunately, the reality is that both extreme
and less severe levels of maltreatment can harm children in profound ways.

Reflecting the myths, child abuse and neglect are typically
distinguished from other levels of child maltreatment by severity and
evidence of intentionally inflicted, observable injury or impairment,
under the mistaken assumption that only such extremes indicate that a
child has been harmed. So, for example, in a study that Old Dominion
University colleague Lucien Lombardo, professor of sociology, and I
conducted, titled ?A Comparative Analysis of Human Rights? and United
States? Law on Corporal Punishment: Implications for Understanding Human
Rights and Colonial Models of Child-Adult Relationships,? we found that
most U.S. statutes relating to corporal punishment are concerned with
explicitly safeguarding the rights of parents to use violence against
children. The exceptions are specified as excessive violence or
?physical abuse? ? i.e., violence that intentionally caused substantial
injury such as the child?s death, disfigurement, or brain or spinal cord
damage.

Similarly, other forms of child maltreatment are defined in terms of
granting parents permission to inflict maximal harm on children, finding
abuse only in the extremes that result in demonstrable injury. Child
emotional abuse is an extreme or habitual pattern of hostile and
aggressive parenting that results in mental or emotional injury.
Emotional neglect is extreme lack of emotional responsiveness and
involvement that causes mental or developmental harm. Child sexual abuse
is extreme oral, genital or anal contact (or defined legally in terms of
age difference, minor status and/or relationship to perpetrator). Child
neglect is restricted to the extremes of parental lack of involvement
and supervision, and failure to meet the child?s needs, which place the
child?s life in serious danger.

Consequences.
Given the above, it is surprising that many people do not believe that
child maltreatment has profoundly negative consequences that go beyond
the specific childhood injury to impact the rest of the child?s life.
Instead, people often mistakenly attribute the long-term consequences of
child abuse to irrelevant factors. However, the reality is that the
consequences of child maltreatment are enormous, not only for the
survivor, but also for society.

Some consequences of maltreatment differ according to the child?s
vulnerability. For instance, infants and toddlers are at greatest risk
of fatal abuse, with a blow to the baby?s head as the most common cause
of death. Some consequences for the child are greater for one type of
maltreatment than another. For example, child neglect is most strongly
associated with the child having a lower IQ and lower educational
achievement; child physical abuse with the child engaging in violent
crime as a teen and adult; and child emotional abuse with subsequent
psychopathology. However, all forms of maltreatment are associated with
adverse effects for children and the adults they become. As discussed in
my paper ?Causes and Consequences of Child Abuse: Shedding More Light on
the Cycle of Violence and Neglect,? prior research points to the following:

Child physical and emotional abuse and neglect all increase the
likelihood that the child will subsequently:
? Be cognitively impaired (including having a lower IQ and
cognitive development; lower grades and educational achievement);
? Have impaired moral reasoning (including having less empathy,
less compliance and less developed conscience);
? Engage in violence and crime (including higher rates of juvenile
delinquency, teen and adult violent and nonviolent crime);
? Be violent in relationships (including being more likely to
assault their siblings and other children as a child, and later to abuse
their own children, spouse and elderly parents).
In addition, all types of child maltreatment ? physical and
emotional abuse and neglect and sexual abuse ? increase the likelihood
that the child will subsequently:
? Have mental health problems (including higher rates of
depression, anxiety, dissociation, etc.);
? Become a substance abuser of both legal and illegal substances as
a teenager and adult;
? Become pregnant as a teenager and engage in risky sexual behavior
(including earlier first intercourse, exposure to sexually transmitted
diseases and greater number of partners).

Aside from the obvious, part of the reason these effects are so profound
is that much child maltreatment occurs before age 6, during ?critical
windows? of development. Being neglected early in life, for example, is
linked to the underdevelopment of those parts of the brain responsible
for cognitive development and empathy. Being the target of or witnessing
physical violence early in life is more likely to result in the
overdevelopment of parts of the brain that ultimately affect
impulsivity, reactivity, anxiety and aggression. As research by Bruce D.
Perry, M.D., Ph.D., senior fellow of the Child Trauma Academy, shows,
both abuse and neglect physiologically predispose a child to a series of
neurobiological problems and violent behavior. These physiological
changes are compounded by the modeling effect of seriously inadequate
parenting; the adoption of a belief system about self, others and the
world as malevolent; and the defense mechanisms abused children must
develop to cope with their terror, despair and hopelessness. For
example, the child blames himself for the abuse or denies that the
parent is maltreating him.

Causes.
The general belief is that parents who maltreat their children are rare,
pathological and certainly not like us. The reality is that most parents
engage in culturally permissible or low levels of child abuse and
neglect. Inflicting these permissible levels of maltreatment not only
harms children, but also often escalates to the more severe forms of
maltreatment.

Many of the parents who abuse and neglect their children were themselves
maltreated as children. They are the little ones we failed to protect a
generation ago. Also, many of the harmful consequences that resulted
from their abuse and neglect, such as mental health problems, substance
abuse and teen pregnancy, caused them to maltreat their children, laying
the foundation for a cycle of abuse and neglect across generations. As
reviewed in ?Causes and Consequences of Child Abuse,? research indicates
the following.

First, parents who abuse or neglect their children are more likely to:
? Have been maltreated as a child;
? Have mental health problems, including parent depression;
? Have a violent marriage;
? Be a substance abuser;
? Be a teenage mother;
? Have lower levels of education and income.
Second, parents who abuse or neglect their children are also more
likely to:
? Have serious parenting deficits (e.g., have unrealistic
expectations for their children);
? Use harsh and aggressive parenting with their children (i.e., low
levels of emotional abuse);
? Have low levels of parental involvement and supervision, and give
their children very little positive attention and affection (i.e., low
levels of physical and emotional neglect);
? Frequently use corporal punishment on their children (i.e., low
levels of physical abuse);
? Have few cognitively stimulating materials in the home for their
children (i.e., low levels of neglect).

The first group of factors provides insights into the cycle of abuse and
neglect. Being maltreated as a child models parenting behaviors and
leads to the adoption of beliefs and defenses that increase the
survivor?s chances of harming his own children. In addition, being
maltreated as a child increases the likelihood that one will suffer
other outcomes such as lower IQ and educational attainment, more mental
health problems, substance abuse and teen pregnancy ? each of which, in
turn, independently increases the risk of maltreating one?s own child.

The second set of factors shows that parents who severely maltreat their
children are more likely than other parents to more frequently subject
their children to low levels of abuse and neglect. In other words, when
parents engage in ?culturally acceptable? levels of harsh parenting,
corporal punishment, verbal aggression, and minimal involvement and
supervision, they are significantly more likely to proceed to more
severe abuse and neglect of their children. Thus, in contrast to what is
typically assumed, low levels of maltreatment are dangerous for
children. Moreover, at least in the area of physical violence, more
frequent corporal punishment has the same adverse consequences as
physical abuse, from lower IQ to more violent behavior and mental
problems, except to lesser degrees. (This includes a finding from a
master?s-level study in Old Dominion?s Department of Sociology and
Criminal Justice that the more frequently a girl is subjected to
corporal punishment when young, the more likely she is to become
pregnant as a teenager.)

As discussed in ?Causes and Consequences of Child Abuse,? these findings
help us to understand another important reason why children of teenage
mothers and socioeconomically disadvantaged parents are more likely to
be abused and neglected. These parents are also significantly more
likely to use ?low levels of abuse and neglect,? such as more hostile
and aggressive parenting, more frequent corporal punishment, and less
responsiveness and involvement. They also are less likely to get care
and more likely to use both legal and illegal drugs while pregnant,
which is related to premature birth and neurological and cognitive
problems in the baby. In turn, substance-abusing mothers are also more
likely to be young and impoverished. All of this is related to having
been abused and neglected themselves as children.

Intervention.
Some people believe that intervention on behalf of maltreated children
is so effective that even adequate parents now have to worry about
outside interference. The reality is that intervention and prevention
programs have not been effective in reducing the prevalence of child
abuse and neglect.

As many researchers and practitioners acknowledge, few resources are
committed; agencies have little power to intervene; and treatment is
often low cost, short term and focused on keeping the family together,
rather than ensuring that the child is safe from abuse and neglect. We
refuse to acknowledge that both child abuse and neglect, as well as low
levels of child maltreatment, have serious consequences for the child
and society. Instead, we blame child maltreatment and its consequences
(for example, delinquency and drug abuse), on people and conditions that
fit preconceived stereotypes and political agendas, such as a common
belief that maternal employment causes delinquency, even though there is
no evidence to support this. In this country, we continue to spend
hundreds of millions of dollars on programs like Abstinence Only or Just
Say No that just don?t work because they don?t address the underlying
problems.

The need to unite.
Discussions of child maltreatment are often polarized around issues of
religion, class, race, ethnicity and culture, both within and across
countries. Often, parents may believe that group status justifies how
they treat their children. However, the reality that emerges from a
multicultural look at child abuse and neglect is that while children of
certain groups may experience different types of abuse, children of all
religions, income levels, races, ethnic groups and countries suffer from
maltreatment.

A review of research on rates in the United States indicates that
incidences of child sexual abuse and emotional abuse do not differ
significantly for African American, Caucasian and Hispanic girls. On the
other hand, African American children have higher rates of physical
abuse and neglect than Caucasians, although a significant portion of
this difference is due to variations in education, income and poverty ?
i.e., factors that increase the child?s risk of maltreatment. However,
with rare exception, research shows that children of all races and
ethnic groups suffer adverse consequences when abused or neglected.

Lighting the way to concerted action on behalf of children, African
American leaders like Dr. Alvin Poussaint and the Rev. Jesse Jackson
have joined other leaders in the fight to end not only severe child
abuse, but also lower levels of abuse and neglect, including corporal
punishment.

Internationally, we are urged to look for ways that we have
inadvertently supported child maltreatment, such as buying products made
by young children, refusing to confront travel agencies that covertly
advertise sex tours to Thailand for young virgins, and simply remaining
silent.

Standing in the way of preventing child maltreatment is the power
differential between parents and children. Parents are for the most part
lawfully free to engage in child abuse and neglect, short of serious
injury, as part of their parental prerogative. As discussed in several
papers that I have written with Professor Lombardo, including ?Cycles of
Trauma and Cycles of Nurturing: The UN Convention on the Rights of the
Child and the Path from Childhood to Adulthood? and ?The Enlightened
Witness: Reasserting Humanity in the Face of Violence at the Beginning
of the 21st Century,? the key is to extend to children the rights of
human beings.

As many scholars have stressed, the most logical way for the United
States to begin this process of reducing child maltreatment is to join
every other country (except for Somalia) in the United Nations that has
adopted the UN Convention on the Rights of Children. This will take
courage, for in granting children human rights, we must challenge not
only the beliefs and laws which support the power parents have to hit,
harm, ignore and exploit their children, but also the beliefs, defenses
and behaviors that parents developed to survive their own childhood
maltreatment. As Dr. Perry concludes in his paper ?Incubated in Terror:
Neurodevelopmental Factors in the ?Cycle of Violence??: ?In order to
solve the problems of violence, we need to transform our culture. We
need to change our child rearing practices, we need to change the
malignant and destructive view that children are the property of their
biological parents. ? Children belong to the community, they are
entrusted to parents.?

As researchers and practitioners emphasize, we, as a society, must do
everything in our power to prevent and treat child maltreatment, not
only because of the suffering of the victims, or even because of the
benefits that society stands to gain, but because it is the right thing
to do. It is an ethical imperative. It is our moral responsibility.

For more information about child abuse and how you can help prevent it,
visit UNICEF at www.unicef.org; Child Trauma Institute at
www.childtrauma.com; In Support of Children, an ODU student organization
devoted to ending child abuse, at
http://groups.hamptonroads.com/SupportChildren; the Post Institute for
Family Centered Therapy at www.postinstitute.com; and Child Abuse
Prevention Network at http://child-abuse.com. Dr. Perry?s paper,
?Incubated in Terror: Neurodevelopmental Factors in the ?Cycle of
Violence,?? is available at
www.childtrauma.org/CTAMATERIALS/incubated.asp. An excellent sourcebook,
The APSAC Handbook on Child Maltreatment, written in 2002, can be found
at www.APSAC.org.

Karen Polonko is a professor in the Department of Sociology and Criminal
Justice.

Quest Fall 2005 ? Volume 8 Issue 2








--
"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what
to have for lunch. Liberty is a well armed lamb
contesting the vote." - Benjamin Franklin (or someone else)


--
"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what
to have for lunch. Liberty is a well armed lamb
contesting the vote." - Benjamin Franklin (or someone else)




--
"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what
to have for lunch. Liberty is a well armed lamb
contesting the vote." - Benjamin Franklin (or someone else)

On Mon, 31 Jul 2006, 0:- wrote:

Doan wrote:

On Mon, 31 Jul 2006, 0:- wrote:

Doan wrote:
I guess you must have missed this notice:

"All content of this site is copyright Old Dominion University unless
otherwise noted."

Do you know that you are violating copyright law, STUPID?
Nope. Fair use.

I changed nothing, did not mislead as to meaning of content.

Did not pretend it was my OWN work.

Your buddy from Tx apparently did all those things.

Want to try again?

Read up on fair use.


"For permission to reprint from Old Dominion University?s Quest, contact
the Vice President for Institutional Advancement, John R. Broderick
101 Koch Hall, Norfolk, VA 23529"

So fair use? Do you know the definition of fair use?

Yep, sure do. It's part of my professional life.

http://www.ams.org/authors/permissions.html

"Fair Use.

This provision in the copyright law allows for reproduction of material
under certain guidelines without requesting specific permission to do
so. Fair Use generally suggests those circumstances in which it is
permissible to use portions of another's copyrighted work--in teaching,
scholarship, research, commentary and news reporting. It is important to
note that the determination of fair use is subjective and is a judgment
************************************************** ***********************
of the copyright holder. One should therefore exercise caution when
*************************

Do you understand English? I have even highlighted it for you! ;-)

contemplating use of another's work under these guidelines.
Four Factors in Fair Use

* The purpose and character of the use, including whether such use
is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;

* The nature of the copyrighted work;

* The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to
the copyrighted work as a whole;

You copied the WHOLE copyrighted work.

* The effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of
the copyrighted work."

The site explicitly
stated that you needed permission to reprint.

Yep, sure did.

And yet you did not asked for their permission to reprint?

Did you get their
permission?

Nope. They are an academic organization very familiar with "Fair Use"
and I was careful not to reduce the market value of their paper.

And in fact have advertised their site by including their full URL to
the page.

I have not used it for profit, but in fact to educate a small group of
otherwise dimwitted souls, like yourself, as to the real scope of child
abuse in the world.

Or could it be they did not want the product used for commercial gain,
or to be used to misrepresent their mission?

"One should therefore exercise caution when
contemplating use of another's work under these guidelines."

It's not your judgement, it's the judgement of the copyright holder,
STUPID!

I've done neither, of course. Surely you don't think they would support
the nitwits here that attempt to minimize child abuse, now do you?

The author, if she was inclined to post here might well ... no, would
most assuredly, argue from the same perspective I do.

In fact I know she would, but can't say why I know that, in particular.
State secret, you see. chuckle

Tell you what, if you're feelin' froggy why don't you jump and send them
my post and ask.

Why should I? I am not the one who reprinted their copyrighted work in
FULL! Why don't you write them and asked if what you done is ok under
fair use. Remember to report back to us, ok? ;-)

Doan

Of course you have to risk being taken for a fool, but that shouldn't
bother you much.

And just for fun you might point out your support of our Chris from Tx.
And how HE used someone else's document. About the only thing he avoided
was commercial use. 0:-

Doan

You sure are.



Doan

On Sat, 29 Jul 2006, 0:- wrote:

... really. Honest. That's it. Make them up.

Besides, what this got to do with spanking?

0:-]

See if YOU can figure it out, Doan, Greg.


http://www.odu.edu/ao/instadv/quest/childabuse.html




Child Abuse and Neglect: The Need for Courage
By Karen Polonko

True stories.
In India, a 3-year-old is exposed to hazardous substances while working
in an unventilated room in a small village factory. Her fingers are
wrapped so that the blood from her cuts will not interfere with her
work. At the same moment, in Thailand, a child, age 8, is sold into
sexual slavery. Forced to have sex with an average of 15 customers a
day, she is likely to be infected with HIV within six months.

Closer to home, a 4-year-old boy labors in the grape fields in upstate
New York alongside other migrant workers. He suffers chronic respiratory
infections; his hands are in constant pain.

Meanwhile, in the Midwest, a desperate girl tells her mother that her
father is molesting her. The father says that she is making this up to
get even with him for something else. After the mom (who was sexually
abused as a child herself) leaves, the father ties his daughter to a
tree and partially buries her cat next to her. He then runs the lawn
mower over the animal, as the child screams that she will be good and
take everything back if he will let her cat live.

Elsewhere, a little boy, age 4, has his hands amputated after they were
tied tightly behind his back as punishment for using his father?s paint.
His father, an alcoholic, fell asleep and forgot to untie his son. When
they finally return from the hospital, the son asks his father if he is
really good, can he have his hands back. Later that day, the father
kills himself.

These are the stories that we do not want to hear. We want to believe
that all children are safe. We argue that these cases are the rare
exception. It is too painful to believe otherwise.

Prevalence.
Unfortunately, child maltreatment is not rare. According to the latest
UNICEF reports, literally hundreds of millions of children throughout
the world are victims of abuse, neglect and exploitation. At the
extremes, children are killed, abandoned, sold or given in ?debt?
bondage. Close to 6 million children work under conditions of virtual
slavery. Every year, millions of girls are trafficked, exploited in the
sex industry and/or genitally mutilated. Millions more at home and
abroad are beaten, emotionally abused, molested and/or neglected by
their parents.

In the United States alone, more than 3 million children are reported to
official agencies for severe maltreatment in any given year. Surveys
indicate that this figure grossly underestimates the true extent of the
problem as more than one-third of adults in the United States report
having experienced physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse and/or
neglect as a child.

Definitions.
Like our need to believe that child maltreatment is rare, many people
believe that only the most egregious forms of maltreatment could harm a
child. The rest just ?toughens them up,? ?keeps them under control? and
is ?for their own good.? Unfortunately, the reality is that both extreme
and less severe levels of maltreatment can harm children in profound ways.

Reflecting the myths, child abuse and neglect are typically
distinguished from other levels of child maltreatment by severity and
evidence of intentionally inflicted, observable injury or impairment,
under the mistaken assumption that only such extremes indicate that a
child has been harmed. So, for example, in a study that Old Dominion
University colleague Lucien Lombardo, professor of sociology, and I
conducted, titled ?A Comparative Analysis of Human Rights? and United
States? Law on Corporal Punishment: Implications for Understanding Human
Rights and Colonial Models of Child-Adult Relationships,? we found that
most U.S. statutes relating to corporal punishment are concerned with
explicitly safeguarding the rights of parents to use violence against
children. The exceptions are specified as excessive violence or
?physical abuse? ? i.e., violence that intentionally caused substantial
injury such as the child?s death, disfigurement, or brain or spinal cord
damage.

Similarly, other forms of child maltreatment are defined in terms of
granting parents permission to inflict maximal harm on children, finding
abuse only in the extremes that result in demonstrable injury. Child
emotional abuse is an extreme or habitual pattern of hostile and
aggressive parenting that results in mental or emotional injury.
Emotional neglect is extreme lack of emotional responsiveness and
involvement that causes mental or developmental harm. Child sexual abuse
is extreme oral, genital or anal contact (or defined legally in terms of
age difference, minor status and/or relationship to perpetrator). Child
neglect is restricted to the extremes of parental lack of involvement
and supervision, and failure to meet the child?s needs, which place the
child?s life in serious danger.

Consequences.
Given the above, it is surprising that many people do not believe that
child maltreatment has profoundly negative consequences that go beyond
the specific childhood injury to impact the rest of the child?s life.
Instead, people often mistakenly attribute the long-term consequences of
child abuse to irrelevant factors. However, the reality is that the
consequences of child maltreatment are enormous, not only for the
survivor, but also for society.

Some consequences of maltreatment differ according to the child?s
vulnerability. For instance, infants and toddlers are at greatest risk
of fatal abuse, with a blow to the baby?s head as the most common cause
of death. Some consequences for the child are greater for one type of
maltreatment than another. For example, child neglect is most strongly
associated with the child having a lower IQ and lower educational
achievement; child physical abuse with the child engaging in violent
crime as a teen and adult; and child emotional abuse with subsequent
psychopathology. However, all forms of maltreatment are associated with
adverse effects for children and the adults they become. As discussed in
my paper ?Causes and Consequences of Child Abuse: Shedding More Light on
the Cycle of Violence and Neglect,? prior research points to the following:

Child physical and emotional abuse and neglect all increase the
likelihood that the child will subsequently:
? Be cognitively impaired (including having a lower IQ and
cognitive development; lower grades and educational achievement);
? Have impaired moral reasoning (including having less empathy,
less compliance and less developed conscience);
? Engage in violence and crime (including higher rates of juvenile
delinquency, teen and adult violent and nonviolent crime);
? Be violent in relationships (including being more likely to
assault their siblings and other children as a child, and later to abuse
their own children, spouse and elderly parents).
In addition, all types of child maltreatment ? physical and
emotional abuse and neglect and sexual abuse ? increase the likelihood
that the child will subsequently:
? Have mental health problems (including higher rates of
depression, anxiety, dissociation, etc.);
? Become a substance abuser of both legal and illegal substances as
a teenager and adult;
? Become pregnant as a teenager and engage in risky sexual behavior
(including earlier first intercourse, exposure to sexually transmitted
diseases and greater number of partners).

Aside from the obvious, part of the reason these effects are so profound
is that much child maltreatment occurs before age 6, during ?critical
windows? of development. Being neglected early in life, for example, is
linked to the underdevelopment of those parts of the brain responsible
for cognitive development and empathy. Being the target of or witnessing
physical violence early in life is more likely to result in the
overdevelopment of parts of the brain that ultimately affect
impulsivity, reactivity, anxiety and aggression. As research by Bruce D.
Perry, M.D., Ph.D., senior fellow of the Child Trauma Academy, shows,
both abuse and neglect physiologically predispose a child to a series of
neurobiological problems and violent behavior. These physiological
changes are compounded by the modeling effect of seriously inadequate
parenting; the adoption of a belief system about self, others and the
world as malevolent; and the defense mechanisms abused children must
develop to cope with their terror, despair and hopelessness. For
example, the child blames himself for the abuse or denies that the
parent is maltreating him.

Causes.
The general belief is that parents who maltreat their children are rare,
pathological and certainly not like us. The reality is that most parents
engage in culturally permissible or low levels of child abuse and
neglect. Inflicting these permissible levels of maltreatment not only
harms children, but also often escalates to the more severe forms of
maltreatment.

Many of the parents who abuse and neglect their children were themselves
maltreated as children. They are the little ones we failed to protect a
generation ago. Also, many of the harmful consequences that resulted
from their abuse and neglect, such as mental health problems, substance
abuse and teen pregnancy, caused them to maltreat their children, laying
the foundation for a cycle of abuse and neglect across generations. As
reviewed in ?Causes and Consequences of Child Abuse,? research indicates
the following.

First, parents who abuse or neglect their children are more likely to:
? Have been maltreated as a child;
? Have mental health problems, including parent depression;
? Have a violent marriage;
? Be a substance abuser;
? Be a teenage mother;
? Have lower levels of education and income.
Second, parents who abuse or neglect their children are also more
likely to:
? Have serious parenting deficits (e.g., have unrealistic
expectations for their children);
? Use harsh and aggressive parenting with their children (i.e., low
levels of emotional abuse);
? Have low levels of parental involvement and supervision, and give
their children very little positive attention and affection (i.e., low
levels of physical and emotional neglect);
? Frequently use corporal punishment on their children (i.e., low
levels of physical abuse);
? Have few cognitively stimulating materials in the home for their
children (i.e., low levels of neglect).

The first group of factors provides insights into the cycle of abuse and
neglect. Being maltreated as a child models parenting behaviors and
leads to the adoption of beliefs and defenses that increase the
survivor?s chances of harming his own children. In addition, being
maltreated as a child increases the likelihood that one will suffer
other outcomes such as lower IQ and educational attainment, more mental
health problems, substance abuse and teen pregnancy ? each of which, in
turn, independently increases the risk of maltreating one?s own child.

The second set of factors shows that parents who severely maltreat their
children are more likely than other parents to more frequently subject
their children to low levels of abuse and neglect. In other words, when
parents engage in ?culturally acceptable? levels of harsh parenting,
corporal punishment, verbal aggression, and minimal involvement and
supervision, they are significantly more likely to proceed to more
severe abuse and neglect of their children. Thus, in contrast to what is
typically assumed, low levels of maltreatment are dangerous for
children. Moreover, at least in the area of physical violence, more
frequent corporal punishment has the same adverse consequences as
physical abuse, from lower IQ to more violent behavior and mental
problems, except to lesser degrees. (This includes a finding from a
master?s-level study in Old Dominion?s Department of Sociology and
Criminal Justice that the more frequently a girl is subjected to
corporal punishment when young, the more likely she is to become
pregnant as a teenager.)

As discussed in ?Causes and Consequences of Child Abuse,? these findings
help us to understand another important reason why children of teenage
mothers and socioeconomically disadvantaged parents are more likely to
be abused and neglected. These parents are also significantly more
likely to use ?low levels of abuse and neglect,? such as more hostile
and aggressive parenting, more frequent corporal punishment, and less
responsiveness and involvement. They also are less likely to get care
and more likely to use both legal and illegal drugs while pregnant,
which is related to premature birth and neurological and cognitive
problems in the baby. In turn, substance-abusing mothers are also more
likely to be young and impoverished. All of this is related to having
been abused and neglected themselves as children.

Intervention.
Some people believe that intervention on behalf of maltreated children
is so effective that even adequate parents now have to worry about
outside interference. The reality is that intervention and prevention
programs have not been effective in reducing the prevalence of child
abuse and neglect.

As many researchers and practitioners acknowledge, few resources are
committed; agencies have little power to intervene; and treatment is
often low cost, short term and focused on keeping the family together,
rather than ensuring that the child is safe from abuse and neglect. We
refuse to acknowledge that both child abuse and neglect, as well as low
levels of child maltreatment, have serious consequences for the child
and society. Instead, we blame child maltreatment and its consequences
(for example, delinquency and drug abuse), on people and conditions that
fit preconceived stereotypes and political agendas, such as a common
belief that maternal employment causes delinquency, even though there is
no evidence to support this. In this country, we continue to spend
hundreds of millions of dollars on programs like Abstinence Only or Just
Say No that just don?t work because they don?t address the underlying
problems.

The need to unite.
Discussions of child maltreatment are often polarized around issues of
religion, class, race, ethnicity and culture, both within and across
countries. Often, parents may believe that group status justifies how
they treat their children. However, the reality that emerges from a
multicultural look at child abuse and neglect is that while children of
certain groups may experience different types of abuse, children of all
religions, income levels, races, ethnic groups and countries suffer from
maltreatment.

A review of research on rates in the United States indicates that
incidences of child sexual abuse and emotional abuse do not differ
significantly for African American, Caucasian and Hispanic girls. On the
other hand, African American children have higher rates of physical
abuse and neglect than Caucasians, although a significant portion of
this difference is due to variations in education, income and poverty ?
i.e., factors that increase the child?s risk of maltreatment. However,
with rare exception, research shows that children of all races and
ethnic groups suffer adverse consequences when abused or neglected.

Lighting the way to concerted action on behalf of children, African
American leaders like Dr. Alvin Poussaint and the Rev. Jesse Jackson
have joined other leaders in the fight to end not only severe child
abuse, but also lower levels of abuse and neglect, including corporal
punishment.

Internationally, we are urged to look for ways that we have
inadvertently supported child maltreatment, such as buying products made
by young children, refusing to confront travel agencies that covertly
advertise sex tours to Thailand for young virgins, and simply remaining
silent.

Standing in the way of preventing child maltreatment is the power
differential between parents and children. Parents are for the most part
lawfully free to engage in child abuse and neglect, short of serious
injury, as part of their parental prerogative. As discussed in several
papers that I have written with Professor Lombardo, including ?Cycles of
Trauma and Cycles of Nurturing: The UN Convention on the Rights of the
Child and the Path from Childhood to Adulthood? and ?The Enlightened
Witness: Reasserting Humanity in the Face of Violence at the Beginning
of the 21st Century,? the key is to extend to children the rights of
human beings.

As many scholars have stressed, the most logical way for the United
States to begin this process of reducing child maltreatment is to join
every other country (except for Somalia) in the United Nations that has
adopted the UN Convention on the Rights of Children. This will take
courage, for in granting children human rights, we must challenge not
only the beliefs and laws which support the power parents have to hit,
harm, ignore and exploit their children, but also the beliefs, defenses
and behaviors that parents developed to survive their own childhood
maltreatment. As Dr. Perry concludes in his paper ?Incubated in Terror:
Neurodevelopmental Factors in the ?Cycle of Violence??: ?In order to
solve the problems of violence, we need to transform our culture. We
need to change our child rearing practices, we need to change the
malignant and destructive view that children are the property of their
biological parents. ? Children belong to the community, they are
entrusted to parents.?

As researchers and practitioners emphasize, we, as a society, must do
everything in our power to prevent and treat child maltreatment, not
only because of the suffering of the victims, or even because of the
benefits that society stands to gain, but because it is the right thing
to do. It is an ethical imperative. It is our moral responsibility.

For more information about child abuse and how you can help prevent it,
visit UNICEF at www.unicef.org; Child Trauma Institute at
www.childtrauma.com; In Support of Children, an ODU student organization
devoted to ending child abuse, at
http://groups.hamptonroads.com/SupportChildren; the Post Institute for
Family Centered Therapy at www.postinstitute.com; and Child Abuse
Prevention Network at http://child-abuse.com. Dr. Perry?s paper,
?Incubated in Terror: Neurodevelopmental Factors in the ?Cycle of
Violence,?? is available at
www.childtrauma.org/CTAMATERIALS/incubated.asp. An excellent sourcebook,
The APSAC Handbook on Child Maltreatment, written in 2002, can be found
at www.APSAC.org.

Karen Polonko is a professor in the Department of Sociology and Criminal
Justice.

Quest Fall 2005 ? Volume 8 Issue 2








--
"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what
to have for lunch. Liberty is a well armed lamb
contesting the vote." - Benjamin Franklin (or someone else)


--
"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what
to have for lunch. Liberty is a well armed lamb
contesting the vote." - Benjamin Franklin (or someone else)




--
"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what
to have for lunch. Liberty is a well armed lamb
contesting the vote." - Benjamin Franklin (or someone else)

Doan wrote:
On Mon, 31 Jul 2006, 0:- wrote:

Doan wrote:
On Mon, 31 Jul 2006, 0:- wrote:

Doan wrote:
I guess you must have missed this notice:

"All content of this site is copyright Old Dominion University unless
otherwise noted."

Do you know that you are violating copyright law, STUPID?
Nope. Fair use.

I changed nothing, did not mislead as to meaning of content.

Did not pretend it was my OWN work.

Your buddy from Tx apparently did all those things.

Want to try again?

Read up on fair use.

"For permission to reprint from Old Dominion University?s Quest, contact
the Vice President for Institutional Advancement, John R. Broderick
101 Koch Hall, Norfolk, VA 23529"

So fair use? Do you know the definition of fair use?
Yep, sure do. It's part of my professional life.

http://www.ams.org/authors/permissions.html

"Fair Use.

This provision in the copyright law allows for reproduction of material
under certain guidelines without requesting specific permission to do
so. Fair Use generally suggests those circumstances in which it is
permissible to use portions of another's copyrighted work--in teaching,
scholarship, research, commentary and news reporting. It is important to
note that the determination of fair use is subjective and is a judgment
************************************************** ***********************
of the copyright holder. One should therefore exercise caution when
*************************

Do you understand English? I have even highlighted it for you! ;-)

contemplating use of another's work under these guidelines.
Four Factors in Fair Use

* The purpose and character of the use, including whether such use
is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;

* The nature of the copyrighted work;

* The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to
the copyrighted work as a whole;

You copied the WHOLE copyrighted work.

* The effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of
the copyrighted work."

The site explicitly
stated that you needed permission to reprint.
Yep, sure did.

And yet you did not asked for their permission to reprint?

Did you get their
permission?
Nope. They are an academic organization very familiar with "Fair Use"
and I was careful not to reduce the market value of their paper.

And in fact have advertised their site by including their full URL to
the page.

I have not used it for profit, but in fact to educate a small group of
otherwise dimwitted souls, like yourself, as to the real scope of child
abuse in the world.

Or could it be they did not want the product used for commercial gain,
or to be used to misrepresent their mission?

"One should therefore exercise caution when
contemplating use of another's work under these guidelines."

It's not your judgement, it's the judgement of the copyright holder,
STUPID!

I've done neither, of course. Surely you don't think they would support
the nitwits here that attempt to minimize child abuse, now do you?

The author, if she was inclined to post here might well ... no, would
most assuredly, argue from the same perspective I do.

In fact I know she would, but can't say why I know that, in particular.
State secret, you see. chuckle

Tell you what, if you're feelin' froggy why don't you jump and send them
my post and ask.

Why should I?

Because I didn't challenge me, you did?

I am not the one who reprinted their copyrighted work in
FULL!

But you challenged me for doing so.

Why don't you write them and asked if what you done is ok under
fair use.

Because I don't need to?

You have something to prove. So prove it.

Remember to report back to us, ok? ;-)

Since I'm under no obligation to contact them on your simple command to
do so, I'm not going to.

Now you are either a coward, or a fool. Show us which, or run away.

That's all you've done in this newsgroup for years. Your posting history
shows it as far back as it's available.

A coward.

And you'll likely always be one.


Doan

0:-


--
"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what
to have for lunch. Liberty is a well armed lamb
contesting the vote." - Benjamin Franklin (or someone else)