Abstract
This study intends to examine the impact of child abuse on the physical and psychological health of victims. Child abuse is defined as the physical, mental, or sexual maltreatment of a child. Physical abuse involves the infliction of pain on victims that is dangerous on their bodies. Psychological abuse hurts the feelings of a person, causing them to have a negative perception of themselves, which implies low self-esteem, depression, and anxiety. Both males and females are sampled for the study consisting of a total of 20 participants. The selected children are between five and thirteen years old. A survey is used as the research design, while materials include recording gadgets and notebooks. The expected results are that both physical and psychological child abuse has adverse effects on the mental well-being of a child.
Child Abuse and Its Physical and Mental Effects
Introduction
The life experiences of a child have an impact, whether positive or negative, to their physical and mental health. Cases of child abuse have been reported to result in cases of psychological conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, depression, and schizophrenia, among others. Child abuse refers to the maltreatment of a child by parents, guardians, relatives, or any other person who associates with the child. Such kind of harm may be either physical, psychological, or sexual. Physical abuse implies the direct infliction of harm to a child who sustains injuries, whereas mental abuse involves causing mental disturbance to a person by threatening or causing harm. Psychological abuse targets the self-esteem of a person, unlike physical abuse, which targets the body. Sexual abuse takes the form of both physical and psychological harm through acts like rape. Therefore, this paper examines the psychological and physical impact of child abuse on the victim.
Literature Review
Abused children show signs like withdrawal from crowds, stigma, low self-esteem, problems with trusting those around them, negative self-perception, and socialization or relationship problems (Crouch et al., 2010). The cognitive ability of such children makes them wallow in self-pity, something that causes reduced expression of emotions, isolation, and a closed-up nature. Other researchers explain that children that are ill-treated show signs of troubled social behavior, deviant self-perception of oneself, inability to express oneself, decreased ability to comprehend typical roles in daily activities (Chang et al., 2008). Most children agree that abuse is related to a lack of parental physical and emotional support, which often results from cases of alcoholic or violent parents. Therefore, children end up in fear and lack of someone to confide in. Carrying such thoughts for a long time leads to the common causes of mental health problems such as depression and PTSD.
Problem Statement
Maltreatment of children severely inflicts emotional, physical, or psychological pain to them even in adult life.
Hypothesis
There is a possibility that the experiences of a child during growth will affect their perception of the world either positively or negatively.
Methodology
Participants
The research focused on a population of children by sampling school-going children between five and thirteen years in their homes of both genders with the permission of their parents. The population was appropriate since an adult population tends to distort or forget their childhood experiences even when they affect their present.
Materials
The research was conducted with the help of notebooks that recorded the experiences of the children from responses to questions asked. Gadgets were also used to record the responses for further analysis.
Procedure
The study begins with identifying the target populations and sampling out the participants. A total of 20 participants are chosen and divided into two groups. The first group will be used to show the prevalence of child abuse among children while the second group is the control group, which entails participants that are from well off families and have the attention of both parents. The study will be conducted for two days and analysis reviewed for preparation of the final report.
Research Design
A survey research design will be used for this study since children will report their experiences willingly. It will also involve the heavy use of interviewing and questionnaires.
Results and Discussion
The research will involve the use of a child abuse scale that is modified to present the child’s ability to recall the experiences in specific environments. Physical abuse will be measured by using the physical punishment scale as presented in Assessing Environments-III. The scale has eleven items and Cronbach alpha 83. The psychological abuse will be measured using the parental neglect scale as in the AE-III scale. It contains eight items and a Cronbach alpha of 76.
The anticipated results are that children between five years and thirteen years in Group A will show adverse signs of child abuse and symptoms of their effects. Contrarily, children in Group B, which is the control group, will show a healthy physical and emotional life. Group B children are well taken care of with parents and guardians who love them and support them emotionally. They have confidants to express their emotions too, unlike Group A, children whose parents are violent and have no time for them. Thus, Group A children are likely to develop mental health problems in the future, including anxiety, PTSD, and depression, among others.
The study will follow APA guidelines appropriately. It includes the use of a debriefing statement, IRB permission, and deception.
The study may be limited by the lack of cooperation from some parents to allow their children to engage in the survey.
Conclusion
I anticipate that future studies will focus on developing ways of helping affected children. For instance, future studies may focus on parental education on the proper raising of children. Also, future studies may focus on the role of social media in mitigating cases of child abuse.
