The federal Child Welfare Information Gateway's booklet, "Child Abuse and Neglect Fatalities: Statistics and Interventions," states that 2.35 children out of every 100,000 American children die each year from child abuse and thousands of others are injured physically and emotionally. If you are an abused child or teen, a concerned relative or friend, or a parent whose relationship with your child is deteriorating, you want to know why this is happening.
Emotional Illnesses
The causes of abuse generally fall into one of two categories: emotional illnesses and stressful circumstances affecting the abused children's parents.
Many parents who would never harm their children under ordinary circumstances can become neglectful or abusive when suffering from an untreated mental illness or substance abuse, notes Prevent Child Abuse New York in "General Causes and Risk Factors for Child Abuse." Children whose mother is deeply depressed may find that she cannot make their meals or wash their clothes. If a father becomes an alcoholic, his children might discover that their father is violent or unpredictable when he is drunk.
If parents were abused themselves as children, they may suffer from psychological problems that make them abusive parents. They may not recognize that the negative ways in which they treat their children mimic the abuse that they themselves suffered as children, or they may think that harsh treatment of children is an appropriate way to parent.
Stressful Circumstances
Stressful circumstances can trigger child abuse. Such circumstances include poverty, single parenting, parenting as a teen or twenty-something, domestic violence and raising a disabled child. Parents struggling to raise children in these tense situations might become so distraught that their repeated losses of temper or neglect of their children's basic needs cause physical and psychological harm to their children.
Helpguide's article, "Child Abuse and Neglect," points out that teen and twenty-something parents are often unfamiliar with the typical stages of child development, and become extremely angry when children cannot meet unrealistic expectations, even though the children are not old enough to carry out certain tasks.
Healing and Prevention
Understanding the causes of child abuse helps to stop ongoing child abuse, heal adult survivors and enable troubled parents to learn better parenting methods. If you are an abused child or teen or a concerned relative or friend seeking to report possible child abuse, you can call the National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-4-A-CHILD.
If you are an adult survivor of child abuse, there are websites devoted to helping you survive and thrive, such as the Adult Survivors of Child Abuse, which offers a free online self-help manual and advice on finding a therapist. If you are a parent who seeks advice on better parenting practices, a good place to start is the American Humane Association's web page on "Emotional Abuse," which has suggestions on how to stop negative behaviors
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