EMOTIONAL ABUSE

Constant attach of a child/youth by an adult that negatively affects the child/youth’s self worth.

Boys and girls reacted to emotional abuse differently because of their upbringing. Boys are taught that crying is not masculine but displaying anger and other physical behaviours are acceptable. Girls are taught that anger is not ladylike and that showing emotion is part of being female.

Signs of emotional abuse:
- agression
- stubborn
- withdrawn
- passive
- easily frustrated

Effects of emotional abuses:-
Behavioural:
- irritability
- sleep disorder
- withdrawal
- stealing
- self-harm

Physical:
- lag in physical development
- speech problems
- facial tics
- self harm
- eating disorder

Emotional:
- inability to control emotions
- questioning of religious beliefs

Types of emotional abuse:
1. Rejecting – Putting down a child/youth’s worth or their needs
- constant criticism
- yelling at the child
- verbal humiliation
- exclude child from family activities
- telling a child he/she is ugly

2. Isolating – Keeping child away from family and friends
- not allowing child to have friends
- isolating child in closet
- prevent child to interact with other children
- rewarding child for withdrawing from social contact
- insisting in excessive studying/chores

3. Ignoring – Failing to give any response to interact with a child/youth at all
- denying health care
- denying dental care
- failure to protect child
- lack of attention to schooling
- not accepting the child as an offspring

4. Corrupting – Encourage a child/youth to do things that are illegal/harmful to themselves
- reward for bullying others
- reward for stealing
- supplying drugs
- teaching and promoting prostitution
- reward for lying

5. Exploiting – Giving responsibilities that are greater than a child/youth that age can handle, usually for making profit
- sexual abuse
- participate in pornography
- child labour
- blaming the child/youth for misbehaviour of other sibling
- infants expected not to cry

6. Terrorizing – Cause a child/youth to be terrfied by the constant use of threats/intimidating behaviour
- extreme verbal threats
- yelling and screaming
- threatening abandonment
- inconsistant demand on the child
- changing the “rule of the game”

PHYSICAL ABUSE

Physical force or action that results in or may result in a non-accidental injury of a child.

Difference of abuse and discipline:-
Abuse:
- Demonstrate anger and hostility
- Make child listen
- Involves humiliation
- Teach child that decisions are at the whim of the caregiver
- Caregiver has all the power, no respect given to the child
- Requires submission

Discipline:
- Demonstrate love and affection
- Teach child right from wrong
- Does not involve humiliation
- Teach child to make healthy choices and prepare for eventual independence
- Power balance and mutual respect
- Does not require submission

Signs of physical abuse:
1. Bruising – Most common abuse injuries, must take into account location, size, colour, and frequency usually found on forehead, knees, legs, arms, hands, shins etc.

2. Beatings – Pattern of bruising/abrasions will resemble the shape of the object/body part used such as belt, bottles, bats, sticks etc.

3. Burning – Third most frequent cause of death in children. Can be chemical, heat, electrical etc. Skin might have rashes, bleeding, pussing, blistering etc.

4. Choking and hanging – Bruise around the front and back of the neck resemble the fingers and thumb of the attacker doing the choking. Can also have bruising that take the shape of red band known as rope burn.

5. Smothering and drowning – Smothering compromises the child’s breathing, no other noticeabke abuse evidence. Can have bruising around the face(nose and eyes), and upper chest area. Drowning may have finger bruiseing at the back or side of the neck or shoulders where the child is hold under water with force.

6. Poisoning – Hard to determined as it depends on the quantity can be drugs, dish liquid, gas etc. May suffer from vomitting, nausea, abdominal cramping, diarrhoe, lethargy etc. There might be rashes, redness, bleeding around the mouth.

7. Hair-pulling – Thining hair and bald patches on the scalp. Experience headaches and neck pain.

8. Pushed from height – Brusing and broken bones are the common abuse injuries.

9. Shaken Baby Syndrom – Most common infant immortality and account for most long-term disability in infant and young children due to physical child abuse. Frequently a single event and there may be no visible injury. Mostly trigger by inconsolable crying and feeding problem. Can cause lethargy, tremors, vomiting, coma, death and etc.

Effects of physical abuse:
- behavioural problems
- negative peer relation
- depression
- violence to others
- developmental delay

SEXUAL ABUSE

When a child/youth/adult uses a child/youth for his/her sexual gratification. This includes incest.

There are two types of sexual abuse:-
Non-contact:
- No touching
- Force to watch porn
- Force to listen to sex talk
- Force to look at others sexual parts

Contact:
- Touched/Fondled the own genitals
- Force to touch others genitals
- Force to oral sex
- Force intercourse

Sign of sexual abuse:-
Physical signs:
- Constipation
- Urine in blood
- Pain/discomfort during urination
- Difficulty in bowel/bladder control
- Pain/itching at genitals

Behavioural signs:
- Sexualized behaviour that is inappropriate in child’s age
- Promiscious behaviour
- Share same signs as emotional abuse

Sexual abuse effects:-
Emotional & physical:
- Losses self-esteem
- Losses trust
- Losses intimacy
- Losses childhood
- Losses control of his/her body

Behavioural:
- Nightmares
- Phobia
- Learning problem
- Insecurity
- Relationship problems

Factors that affect the effects:
- Relationship of the victim and the offender
- The age of the child
- Type of sexual activities exposed to
- The degree of physical aggression
- The respond receives when the victim disclose the abuse
- The availability of supportive person

Why children don’t tell?
- Fear of revenge
- No one will believe
- Openly threat the safety of the people related to the child/youth
- Fear of abandonment especially if offender is family member
- Promise with gifts/rewards/offer bribes

Inter/Intrapersonal/Spatial/Social
Good in interacting with people and easy to make friends.
Positive effect: Can be a good sales person, councellor, social worker
Negative effect: Easily influcences people to do bad things, proud, manipulate people feelings, commit crimes

Kinesthetic
Have high level of energy, good physical activities as dancing, running, swimming…
Positive effect: Be sportsmen representing country in sporting events, encourage healthy and active lifestyle
Negative effect: Harm people who are weaker than them

Musical
Good in playing musical instruments, composing songs and etc.
Positive effect: Provide entertainment
Negative effect: Sound pollution, fan obsessions

Numerical
Good sense of numbers
Positive effect: Earn money, improve economy
Negative effect: Corruptions, obssession with money

Linguistic
Good in language art
Positive effect: Share knowledge
Negative effect: Provide misleading information

Natural
Love nature.
Positive effect: Protect the ecosystem
Negative effect: Disrupt ecosystem

If a person looks up: Active Learner
They must get involve in things they learn, must have hands on activities.

If a person looks down: Visual Learner
Attractive props for learning can be prepared, there must be step by step instructions, differences must be made clear, reading materials must be available.

If a person looks sideway: Audible Learner
There should not be interruption, must hear the right information, do not confused them. Usually has low self-esteem.

Emotional/Psychological
Sample activities: role playing, dance, sand/water play. drawing, singing

Creative
Sample activities: arts/crafts, music/movement, pantomime/drama

Social
Sample activities: pantomime, playing in group, passing message

Intellectual
Sample activities: reading, sorting/matching/comparing, puzzles, blocks

Spiritual(believeing something that is bigger than them exist)
Sample activities: moral, religion

Basically what we had covered was about how children can use their rights to get what they want, how decision made during a child will affect his/her adult life, and how much intervention from the adults is needed to provide children with an acceptably good life in the future.

There’s one thing that children have the right to request for but not the adult which is to be loved. Adults cannot sue someone for not giving them love but children can because children need to be loved.

Children are allowed to make choices if they have enough knowledge and believe that it’s for their own best interest such as the consequences of not being granted with certain thing or otherwise. The court will listen to them and consider their requests if they have enough knowledge about what they want because they have the rights to be heard just like the adults. Weight is given in accordance to the age and maturity of the children.

It is surprising that many children in the US actually brought their parents to court because they couldn’t get what they want. For example, getting contraceptive because she wanted to have sex, or the parents did not give enough love to him or her and requested that he/she doesn’t want to live with his/her parents and instead live under the care of someone else.

Adults have the responsibility to provide the best they could for the children and also to protect the children from harm. However, the the adults should not forget about his/her own welfare which many parents tend put the children welfare first before themselves.

Children should be given enough choices so that they can develop well and face the adult world in the future. Parents should give as much options as possible for their children to discover themselves based on the capabilities of the parents especially financially.

Adults tend to make decision of behalf of the children based on their own knowledge and their liking. Usually what a child grow up into is most likely influenced by how they were brought up based on the parents preference. Implanting good values in children is very important however children should be given space to discover themselves by giving enough options for them in life. Adult must choose what is best for a child and not what some imagined adult version of the child would choose for him/herself.

Besides that, parents should treat every children under their care equally.

There is a problem that is widely affected everyone in this world which is “what’s best for the child in this culture is different from another culture”. However, there’s also some conflicts or disagreements within the culture itself for example canning of children. Therefore it is not easy to determine what is the best interest for the children. So at the end, we can only make sure that whatever decision we made or actions that we take for the child or on behalf of the child must be of the best interest of the child as what the children will choose if the child is an adult.

Children have the rights to grow up, this their developmental rights. If a child cannot grow up to be an adult due to sickness, they will not have the developmental rights but this child should be allowed to live his/her life to the fullest while he/she still can. They will not have the future but they should not suffer from harm during his/her lifetime and enjoy a certain standard of life just like any other healthy children especially in getting education because learning new things is what children should be doing.

When it comes to the above issue, there’s “wrongful life” comes into the picture. Example is like when a mother is pregnant and found out that the child isn’t going to develop well when he/she is born and will suffer for his/her lifetime but the mother did not want to abort the child in her womb and took the courage to give birth to the child. When the child is born, the child suffers from pain and misery throughout his/her lifetime. In this case, some people will think that this child shouldn’t be brought into this world to suffer, this child should not exist, this child is given a wrongful life. The worst thing is that, the parents decided to bring the child to this world and ended up not being able to care for him/her and some even “threw” them away!

Then again to some people, they will not agree with this “wronglful life” theory because to them abortion is wrong, no matter how the baby in the womb is, he/she must be born into this world as he/she also human beings. Abortion would mean killing another human being.

Still, at the end, it is up to the parents decision and how responsible they are.

So, that’s the summary of last Sunday’s class. Tired… Such subjective topics, there’s so many theories involved! How am I going to score? *LOL*

Rights are:-
Legal and moral entitlement of human being for exmaple, voting, education, medical, religion… When too many rights are given away, the rights will devalued.

Right holders are:-
People with rights.

Privileges are:-
Benefit given to certain people, some are given and some don’t based on certain criterias. It can be stripped off anytime.

Do children have rights?
There’s two answers for this, YES and NO. It is something people kept debating about especially when it comes to legal and moral issues regarding children.

No matter what, children have the rights to have their “best interest” be a primary consideration in all actions concerning them. Adult’s duty is to protect the important interest of the children. Both rights and duties are correlative.

No: Children cannot make their own decision because they have not enough knowledge or unable to voice out what they want especially babies.

Yes: They are human beings. They have the right to grow up, to be heard, given benefits and privileges to protect their interest so that they can grow up properly.

There are also arguments such as human beings are right holders; if they are not right holders, they are not human beings.

Positive rights
Rights considered as positive rights may have include other civil and political rights such as police protection of person and property and the right to counsel, as well as economic, social and culturals rights such as public education, heatlh care, social security, and a minimum standard if living. A positive right is a right to be provided with something through the action of another person or the state.

Moral rights
Based on religious/cultural concept of morality. The most popular one would be the abortion issue.

Both positive and moral rights are at odds with each other and the debates continue.

Will/Choice Theory
Sees a right as the protected exercise of choice.
E.g Right to education
“Have the option of enforcing the duty of some other person to provide me with an education or discharge them from the responsibility of doing so”

Welfare/Interest Theory
As the protection of an interest of sufficient importance to impose on others certain duties whose discharge allows the right-holder to enjoy the interest in question.
E.g. Right to education
“Is for me to have an interest in being educated which is so important that others are under an enforceable duty to provide me with an education”

“that others”
Are people or entity that provide the services such as doctors/hospital and teachers/school.