Child Abuse and what causes it

  

                             Child Abuse from getty images

    Many different children around the world have to deal with abuse from one parent or even both, possibly sometimes even other relatives in the family. No child should have to fear being at home or being by parents but what exactly causes this abuse? There are many different factors that contribute to this and cause abuse to happen. No child should have to deal with this in there life but many will, so its important to know why it happens.

    The child being abused is a factor in abuse. The child's age, mental, emotional, and social development are big contributing factors to what causes child abuse. The younger and less developed a child is, the more vulnerable they are, and because of that they are more likely to have a parental figure pick them to abuse. A young child crying can also cause parents to get annoyed and act aggressively towards the kid, sometimes even shaking them so hard that it ends up in the baby's death. Kids who are also disabled in some way are more vulnerable to abuse from parents than others too. With some disabilities, it makes it a lot harder for the child to do anything on their own so a parent can take advantage of this and abuse them either physically or verbally. There are many different factors of the child that contribute to abuse, but the parents are also a factor in the causes of abuse. The child isn't the one at fault for this abuse happening and all the blames is still on the parents, these disabilities and development aren't something a child can control.

    The parents of children also play a role in the abuse. One cause of abuse is a mental illness in one or more of the parents. There are very many cases of parents becoming abusive because of a mental illness they either already had or developed over time. Mental illness is one of the most documented and known causes of abuse, but it is not the only one. Being and single parent is another one of the biggest causes of abuse. Many times, this is because the parent sees part of the other parent in the child and it can make them feel resentful and angry towards the child, which if left unresolved, can lead to abuse. There was a survey done that shows that single-parent households are more prone to child abuse than households with two parents. Substance abuse also greatly contributes to the causes of abuse. Parents who are alcoholics or are addicted to any drug are much more likely to get annoyed at their kids, even over small things. This eventually leads to the parents getting overly annoyed and at that point leads to abuse. Roughly 40 percent of all abuse cases involved alcohol or drugs as a contributing factor, and it is the current leading cause of child abuse.

     Many people believe that the environment that children grow up in doesn't contribute to child abuse at all but evidence suggests otherwise. There is a lot of evidence that the environment children are in can make child abuse more likely. Environmental stress due to poverty is linked to increased chances of a parent abusing their child. In some cultures, it is perceived as more normal to hit your kids, so people are less likely to get in trouble for doing it. There is a cultural factor to abuse because of this, where a child can get abused because of the culture they are in. Families that are also socially disconnected or cut off from the rest of their community are at a higher risk of abuse happening. This is because these families are often isolated from others, whether that's location or the parents restricting how the kid interacts with the community around them, and this can cause the parents to feel like they are very in control and can do whatever they want. The environment a kid is in plays a big factor in if the parents will become abusive or not, so the belief that the environment doesn't affect anything is false.

    Abuse can very deeply affect children for the rest of their life. One long-term effect is the victim feeling isolated from everyone and always in fear that people will hurt them. Abuse also leads to victims always feeling distrustful of the people around them, thinking that everyone is going to try and hurt them. This distrust can also make it hard for victims to maintain any sort of relationship with anyone. in school, abuse can often lead to children doing worse and having difficulty focusing in class because they are more worried about the abuse happening rather than school. The stress that abuse causes can also cause children's brains to not develop correctly or fully in some cases, which depending on how severe, can completely ruin the rest of their lives.

  Many different factors like the parents, environment, and culture play a role in contributing to abuse happening. It is important to know this information because it can help you to see if a child might be in a situation or at risk of abuse. This information can also be used to help abused children. If you have the time and money for it, you should donate to an organization that helps children who have been abused heal from what has happened to them. Better yet, you could do volunteer work for those organizations and help innocent children to heal.