Beware of child abuse
May 08, 2005
CHILDREN are back for holidays. To some parents, it is a burden, while to others it is an opportunity to deliver the child to torture chambers. Child abuse is being embraced like it is fashionable.
CHILDREN are back for holidays. To some parents, it is a burden, while to others it is an opportunity to deliver the child to torture chambers. Child abuse is being embraced like it is fashionable.
Print media is awash with stories of parents, who torture their children in the name of ‘discipline’. The hands meant to sooth now slap and pinch leisurely. The lips meant to kiss, hiss abuse and the very parents meant to nurture the child’s innocence are mutilating it and shattering the budding personality.
The story of a father jailed for sexually abusing his daughter for eight years is still fresh in memory. US pop star Michael Jackson is before court for child molestation.
Many similar cases have been swept under the carpet due to ‘lack of sufficient evidence’. Although child abuse takes different forms, the pain of emotional mutilation cuts across them all.
Our parenting style determines what kind of adults our children turn out to be. Since childhood is the foundation of life, laying it is the most challenging task of parenthood.
Guttman and Seeley in their book, The Psychologically Battered Child explains a close relationship between early child abuse and later crime life of an individual.
They say degrading verbal abuse like ‘dumb’, ‘stupid’ ‘hopeless’ shatters the child’s self-image. Children, who are given a good dose of such abuse, grow into adults with low self-image and often have a ‘failure mentality’ in school.
Shouting at the child especially in the presence of others can have far-reaching consequences in the child’s personality. Such children grow into adults, who can neither speak in public nor stand for their rights. Physical abuse or harassment might traumatise your child for life.
A story is told of a man who became sexually impotent as a result of the torture he experienced in the hands of his stepmother.
He associated every female with harassment. Instead of getting sexually aroused, he would shiver in the presence of his wife.
Sexual abuse stands out prominently, perhaps because sexuality is held as sacred. Our self-concept and identity is enshrined in our sexuality. When the child is sexually abused, this divinity is mutilated, eroded and desecrated. This erosion is compounded if the abuser is a trusted person from whom the child expects security, love and care.
Psychologists say this betrayal mutilates not only our relationship with others but also with ourselves.
Child abuse is therefore a potential enemy of education. The victim sinks into a cave of shame and strives to keep the painful memories suppressed.
They feel unworthy of love and dread intimacy. There is no emotional value; love or strong feelings attached to sex any more. This perception of sexual experience that plagues a victim of sexual abuse is often deep-seated in the individual’s psyche.
Some psychologists say that unpleasant feelings of this nature cannot be forgotten.
They can only be pushed to the subconscious mind. In an attempt to forget the painful emotions, victims of abuse prefer to keep it secret.
Mike Lew, in his book Victims No Longer, describes secrecy as the cement that holds abuse firmly in place. Secrecy has allowed child abuse to reign unabated despite the existence of child protective legislations. The result is a vicious cycle in which the abused grow into abusers.
Children learn behaviour from their environment. When parents abuse their children, the children in turn adopt the abuse as ‘acceptable’ and use it against others. Make your home abuse-free.
jwagwau@newvision.co.ug
Print media is awash with stories of parents, who torture their children in the name of ‘discipline’. The hands meant to sooth now slap and pinch leisurely. The lips meant to kiss, hiss abuse and the very parents meant to nurture the child’s innocence are mutilating it and shattering the budding personality.
The story of a father jailed for sexually abusing his daughter for eight years is still fresh in memory. US pop star Michael Jackson is before court for child molestation.
Many similar cases have been swept under the carpet due to ‘lack of sufficient evidence’. Although child abuse takes different forms, the pain of emotional mutilation cuts across them all.
Our parenting style determines what kind of adults our children turn out to be. Since childhood is the foundation of life, laying it is the most challenging task of parenthood.
Guttman and Seeley in their book, The Psychologically Battered Child explains a close relationship between early child abuse and later crime life of an individual.
They say degrading verbal abuse like ‘dumb’, ‘stupid’ ‘hopeless’ shatters the child’s self-image. Children, who are given a good dose of such abuse, grow into adults with low self-image and often have a ‘failure mentality’ in school.
Shouting at the child especially in the presence of others can have far-reaching consequences in the child’s personality. Such children grow into adults, who can neither speak in public nor stand for their rights. Physical abuse or harassment might traumatise your child for life.
A story is told of a man who became sexually impotent as a result of the torture he experienced in the hands of his stepmother.
He associated every female with harassment. Instead of getting sexually aroused, he would shiver in the presence of his wife.
Sexual abuse stands out prominently, perhaps because sexuality is held as sacred. Our self-concept and identity is enshrined in our sexuality. When the child is sexually abused, this divinity is mutilated, eroded and desecrated. This erosion is compounded if the abuser is a trusted person from whom the child expects security, love and care.
Psychologists say this betrayal mutilates not only our relationship with others but also with ourselves.
Child abuse is therefore a potential enemy of education. The victim sinks into a cave of shame and strives to keep the painful memories suppressed.
They feel unworthy of love and dread intimacy. There is no emotional value; love or strong feelings attached to sex any more. This perception of sexual experience that plagues a victim of sexual abuse is often deep-seated in the individual’s psyche.
Some psychologists say that unpleasant feelings of this nature cannot be forgotten.
They can only be pushed to the subconscious mind. In an attempt to forget the painful emotions, victims of abuse prefer to keep it secret.
Mike Lew, in his book Victims No Longer, describes secrecy as the cement that holds abuse firmly in place. Secrecy has allowed child abuse to reign unabated despite the existence of child protective legislations. The result is a vicious cycle in which the abused grow into abusers.
Children learn behaviour from their environment. When parents abuse their children, the children in turn adopt the abuse as ‘acceptable’ and use it against others. Make your home abuse-free.
jwagwau@newvision.co.ug