Child Abuse

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arm, sexual abuse or exploitation, or an act or failure to act which presents an imminent risk of serious harm.” For CAPTA, the term child is someone who has not reached the age of 18 or (except in the case of sexual abuse) the age specified by the child protection law of the state in which the child resides.
There are four forms of child abuse: emotional, physical, sexual abuse, and neglect. Emotional abuse, also known as verbal abuse, mental abuse, and psychological maltreatment, includes acts or the failures to act by parents or caretakers that have caused or could cause serious behavioral, cognitive, emotional, or mental disorders. This can include extreme forms of punishment, belittling or rejecting treatment, using derogatory terms to describe the child, or habitual scapegoating or blaming. Physical abuse is the inflicting of physical injury upon a child. This may include burning, hitting, punching, shaking, kicking, beating, or otherwise harming a child. Sexual abuse is inappropriate sexual behavior with a child. It includes fondling a child’s genitals, making the child fondle the adult’s genitals, intercourse, incest, rape, sodomy, exhibitionism, and sexual exploitation. To be considered child abuse these acts have to be committed by a person responsible for the care of a child.
Neglect is the failure to provide for the child’s basic needs. Neglect can be physical, educational or emotional. Physical neglect can include not providing adequate food or clothing, appropriate medical care, supervision, or proper weather protection. It may also include abandonment. Educational neglect includes failure to provide appropriate schooling or special educational needs, allowing excessive truancies. Psychological neglect includes the lack of any emotional support and love, never attending to the child, spousal abuse, drug and alcohol abuse including allowing the child to participate in drug and alcohol use.
Neglect represents th...