The Cause and Effect of Domestic Violence against children

Seven year old Alice is running and playing around with her friends. It is in the heat of the hottest summer in the middle of July. Alice stops every now and then because her thick black sweater makes her sweat even more. Alice is having some chest and stomach pains. A friend  of Alice's  asks if she can take her sweater off, but she changes her attitude, and starts to say in a mean tone "my dad doesn't want me to take my sweater off or I will get in trouble." Alice continues to give her friend an attitude. This keeps Alice's friend suspicious that maybe something is happening to Alice. Could there be a possibility of Alice's father is being physically abusive to her? Alice's mood and attitude have changed because she does not want anyone to know what is happening to her.

This scenario happens everyday in real life to children in America, the cause and effect of this can be both in a positive way or negative one. Most people who are involved in child abuse are parents or child care givers. Officer Perez from the Cicero Police Department quotes, "I usually see physical abuse against children every week, the abusers are mostly the mothers and father."

 Children's brain are not fully developed at this time. When children are surrounded by physical mistreatment and/or when their guardian is physically abusing them, for their own emotional reasons,  sometimes children grow up thinking it's okay to act out and behave in a negative way. Some children like to push around people and take over someone in a bad way, some children can have permanent effects, like a physical disability or a mental disability according to the website  domesticviolenceshelter.com.


This type of abuse can take place where the guardian is alone with the child and is isolated. A worker who used to work for a Domestic Violence shelter for four years says, "When I used to work at a Domestic Violence Shelter there were many women with children, usually the children didn't have many friends and were isolated." She goes on to say that there were children there who had it really bad, one girl had been mistreated so badly that her arm had been totally broken, but some of the affects could've been good, she goes on to say that some of the effects had helped the children, she says years later she had seen the children that had come to get help at the Domestic Violence shelter and had said that the shelter had helped them a great deal.

This abuse usually starts when the guardian is having a problem in life, or is emotionally unstable. A statistic by domesticshelters.org was taken and said children who experienced child abuse are 59% more likely to be arrested as a juvenile, 28% more likely to be arrested as an adult and 30% more likely to commit violence crime, this proves that children that have been physically abused can have an effect on their life.
Dr. Den Karrow from 58th Avenue Baptist Church had said religiously it is a sin to commit physical or any other abuse to a child, he went on to say it is was an abomination and he wouldn't hesitate calling on someone who he had known who was physically abusing any child.

 People can make a change by calling a domestic violence hotline if they know someone or knew someone who has been physically abused. If people are suspicious there are many hotlines to call to get information to know if that child is really being physically abused. Children are often afraid to confide in other adults because they do not know what will happen to them. There is a lot of help out there for children, we can also help others by being a friend and asking if they need help. Sometimes that may be the only way to help.