child abuse

7 Pages 1700 Words

ernourished infant often fails to thrive and may even die. In the age range between eight and seventeen years, neglect, as opposed to physical or sexual abuse, was involved in about seventy percent of all validated reports of mistreatment in the United States in a recent year (Encarta, 1997).
Physical abuse is any physical action toward another person: pushing, hitting, whipping, biting, holding down, throwing, slapping, and spanking. Physical violence can produce bruises, concussions, welts, broken bones, and broken lives. When a person is hit in anyway by another human being, it is demeaning. When people are hit, they also receive a message of worthlessness. The victim may think, "I'm no good; therefore, I deserve to be hit." Violence is a learned behavior that has its roots in early childhood experiences. This type of abuse starts in the home and is passed on from generation to generation (Brinegar, Pg.13).
Child abuse dates back to twenty-one hundred B.C. Children in the Hammurab...