The Effects of child abuse on the mental health and development of a child
The physical development of a child has a strong connection with their psychological well-being. Children who experience negative childhood experiences develop the body’s low mental and physical functioning, even in their adult life. Child abuse refers to a child’s mistreatment by either parent, a relative, or anyone else close to the child. The form of abuse can either be physical, sexual, or psychological. Physical abuse of a child involves the infliction of injuries and pain directly to the victim’s body, while psychological is the aversive and coercive actions that threaten the well-being of a child or that which can harm them emotionally (James & Green, 2018). Psychological abuse does not involve inflicting any pain directly, but the acts have a lasting impact on the sense of self.
In most cases, psychological abuse targets lowering the victim’s self-esteem and affects mental well-being, while physical abuse is intended to cause harm or injury. Sexual abuse, on the other hand, refers to forced or coerced sexual interaction with a minor without their consent. Sexual abuse can take the forms of forced kissing, intercourse, fondling, sodomy, oral or anal sex.
Earlier studies about the subject have not published enough knowledge to specify the kind of mistreatment. Most of them do not specify whether the mistreatment was sexual, physical, neglect, or emotional (Easton & Kong, 2017). Besides, one form of abuse can lead to another; thus, the research’s impacts should establish the contribution of each type of abuse. Some of the abuses that have a lasting impact on child mental health include threatening a child of an inevitable consequence when they do something wrong, ridiculing a child, among other emotional abuses. Such psychological abuses may not cause physical harm to the child at the moment, but they pose a long-term mental health consequence that causes damage to the mind, which is equivalent to physical and sexual abuse. Child neglect is also a form of child abuse with severe mental health effects but has received little attention. Earlier studies have not focused on such maltreatments such as medical neglect, lack of supervision, lack of adequate shelter, lack of clothing and food, or desertion (James & Green, 2018). In the modern world, child neglect is becoming one of the most frequently occurring forms of child abuse. Few earlier types of research have examined the positive and negative impacts of different forms of child abuse on children’s mental health.
Child abuse affects not only the well-being and health of adults but also the child’s mental health development (Easton & Kong, 2017). The effects cause emotional trauma because of the pain’s children undergo while living in an abusive environment. Several other psychological implications might not be noticed. Children who have suffered psychologically during their mental health development have been shown to have higher depression, lower levels of self-esteem, lower self-efficacy, and sighs of post-traumatic stress disorders than children who have not been abused. Existing works of literature show a positive correlation between psychological abuse during childhood and drug abuse, cognitive impaired, and negative perceptions towards health. Some other victims become more violent and anti-social. Children who were abused during their development stages are likely to report health problems such as migraine, stomach ulcers, sexually transmitted diseases, or arthritis (Sege et al. 2018).
Victims of child abuse are likely to develop anxiety disorders and depression due to insecurity of living with their abusers or suffering from neglect. Kisely et al. (2018) argue that children have evolutionary tendencies that shape how they interact with their caregivers and their environment. Therefore, the responses from the caregivers determine their security and trust in their interactions. Some attachments elicit positive attachment with the caregiver, such as cuddling, attention, hugging, and caressing from the primary caregiver. The earlier attachment forms a perception about how they perceive themselves. For instance, malicious early attachments lead to an internal working model that disrupts other relationships. The response of the caretaker determines how the children perceive protection and comfort. The absence of care, protection, availability, and comfort leads to neglect, affecting mental health due to psychological abuse (Kisely et al. 2018). There are two types of insecure attachment that can be described as either anxious-avoidant where the individual can survive without intimate relationships and thus rejects them, or anxious-ambivalent attachment. Anxious-ambivalent means that an individual cannot survive without intimate relationships (Herrenkohl et al. 2016). The attachments’ quality also determines how a victim can be flexible and adapt to deviant behaviors in society. The development of a child affects their mental health and ability to make decisions and vulnerability to disorders. Abusive parents also have many expectations for the children. Some of these expectations are, however, rigid and hard to achieve. They only pile pressure on the children, causing confusion and leaving them disturbed as they seek to fulfill them. Abusive parents negatively view their children’s behavior and become easily angered, thus threatening their children in case of a small mistake. More research is needed to investigate how these forms of abuse affect a child’s mental development.
References
Easton, S. D., & Kong, J. (2017). Mental health indicators fifty years later: A population-based study of men with histories of child sexual abuse. Child abuse & neglect, 63, 273-283.
Herrenkohl, T. I., Jung, H., Klika, J. B., Mason, W. A., Brown, E. C., Leeb, R. T., & Herrenkohl, R. C. (2016). Mediating and moderating effects of social support in the study of child abuse and adult physical and mental health. American journal of orthopsychiatry, 86(5), 573.
James, F., & Green, J. (2018). Long term effects of child abuse: lessons for Australian pediatric nurses. Australian Journal of Advanced Nursing.
Kisely, S., Abajobir, A. A., Mills, R., Strathearn, L., Clavarino, A., & Najman, J. M. (2018). Child maltreatment and mental health problems in adulthood: a birth cohort study. The British Journal of Psychiatry, 213(6), 698-703.
Sege, R. D., Siegel, B. S., ABUSE, C. O. C., & COMMITTEE ON PSYCHOSOCIAL ASPECTS OF CHILD FAMILY HEALTH. (, 2018). Effective discipline to raise healthy children. Pediatrics, 142(6).