What is Child Abuse?
- What is Abuse?
- Significant Harm
- Physical Abuse
- Emotional Abuse
- Sexual Abuse
- Neglect
- Children & Trauma
What is Abuse?
In order to protect children, we need to know what we are protecting them from. Abuse and neglect are forms of maltreatment of a child. Someone may abuse or neglect a child by inflicting harm, or by failing to act to prevent harm.
Children may be abused in a family or in an institution or community setting, by those known to them or, more rarely, by a stranger – for example, via the Internet. Children may be abused by an adult or adults, or another child or children.
The law recognises four categories of child abuse and maltreatment:
Significant Harm
The concept of ‘Significant harm’ (Children Act 1989 - external link) is the threshold that justifies compulsory intervention in family life in the best interests of children and young people.
‘Harm’ means ill-treatment or the impairment of heath or development (including impairment suffered from seeing or hearing the ill-treatment of another).
Whether the harm suffered by a child is ‘significant’ is determined by comparison of the child’s health and development with that which could reasonably be expected of a similar child.
There is no absolute criteria in judging what constitutes significant harm – it may be the result of a single, traumatic event, or more often, of accumulation of significant events, both acute and long standing.
The Local Authority has a duty to make enquiries to decide whether action needs to be taken to protect the child or young person.
Physical Abuse
Physical abuse involves physical harm being deliberately inflicted upon a child or young person. It may involve hitting, suffocating, shaking, scalding, poisoning, burning, drowning or throwing.
Physical abuse may also be caused when a parent or carer fabricates the symptoms of, or deliberately induces, illness in a child.
Impact of Physical Abuse
Children can be permanently injured or can be killed as a result of physical abuse - small children are particularly vulnerable. Shaking babies can be fatal.
Physical abuse can lead to feelings of humiliation and helplessness, and can contribute to very low sense of self-worth.
Children who are physically punished tend to be more disobedient and do less well at school overall.
If you are Worried
If you are worried that a child you know about is suffering abuse, please contact a duty social worker immediately.
Emotional Abuse
Emotional abuse is defined as the persistent emotional maltreatment of a child such as to cause severe and persistent adverse effects on the child’s emotional development (Working Together to Safeguard Children 2010 (PDF, 2.5Mb)).
It may involve conveying to children that they are worthless, unloved, inadequate. Children may feel that they are only valued insofar as they meet the needs of another person. Children may be silenced or prevented for participating in normal social activities, or they may be asked to behave in ways that are beyond their developmental capacity.
It is emotional abuse when a child sees or hears the ill-treatment of another person; particularly when that person is close to them (for example, witnessing domestic violence).
Serious bullying is also emotionally abusive for children and young people - including cyberbullying.
Causing children to feel frightened or in danger is emotionally abusive. The way a parent behaves as a consequence of substance misuse and/or parental mental illness can also result in the emotional abuse of a child or young person.
All types of child maltreatment involve emotional abuse, though it may occur alone.
Impact of Emotional Abuse
Children and young people who have been emotionally abused may show delayed physical and emotional development, low self-esteem and depression.
Young people may self-harm or attempt suicide.
If you are Worried
If you are worried that a child you know about is suffering abuse, please contact a duty social worker immediately.
Sexual Abuse
Sexual abuse involves forcing or enticing a child or young person to take part in sexual activities, not necessarily involving a high level of violence, whether or not the child is aware of what is happening.
The activities may involve:
- physical contact, including assault by penetration (for example, rape or oral sex)
- non-penetrative acts such as masturbation, kissing, rubbing and touching outside of clothing.
- non-contact activities, such as involving children in looking at, or in the production of, sexual images, watching sexual activities, encouraging children to behave in sexually inappropriate ways, or grooming a child in preparation for abuse (including via the Internet).
Sexual abuse is not solely perpetrated by adult males. Women also perpetrate acts of sexual abuse, as do children.
See the London Safeguarding Children Board's:
- Guidelines for Assessing Children and Families Affected by Adults Viewing Child Sexual Abuse Images on the Internet (PDF, 232Kb)
- Supplementary Procedures on Safeguarding sexually exploited children (PDF, 307Kb)
- Supplementary Procedures on Safeguarding sexually active children (Word, 151Kb)
Impact of Sexual Abuse
Many sexually abused children display symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, while others show no outward symptoms.
Young people who were sexually abused may make themselves more vulnerable to further sexual assault or exploitation.
If you are Worried
If you are worried that a child you know about is suffering abuse, please contact a duty social worker immediately.
Neglect
Neglect is the persistent failure to meet a child’s basic physical and/or psychological needs, likely to result in the serious impairment of the child’s health or development.
Neglect may occur during pregnancy as a result of maternal substance abuse.
Once a child is born, neglect may involve a parent or carer failing to:
- provide adequate food, clothing and shelter (including exclusion from home or abandonment)
- protect a child from physical and emotional harm or danger
- ensure adequate supervision (including the use of inadequate care-givers)
- ensure access to appropriate medical care or treatment
- It may also include neglect of, or unresponsiveness to, a child’s basic emotional needs
Impact of Neglect
Children can die as a result of neglect and lack of supervision.
Child neglect is also associated with failure of normal brain development. Neglected children have lower IQs than their peers, tend to have more difficulty making friends and lasting relationships, and may develop behavioural, personality and psycho-social problems that persist throughout their lives.
If you are Worried
If you are worried that a child you know about is suffering abuse, please contact a duty social worker immediately.
Children & Trauma
This content in this section has been adapted from Kate Cairns' writing (external link) on traumatised children, specifically in relation to children in care.
Children who have experienced trauma and who do not have access to the emotional support they need to process their experiences may develop coping behaviours that differ from their peers' behaviour.
Usual behavioural responses to trauma include:
- Hyperactivity
- Dissociation
- Avoidance
- Transference & Counter Transference
- Identity
- Memory Disturbance
- Learning Difficulties
- Aggression (towards self and others)
- Psychosomatic and Psychogenic Disorders
What is Trauma?
Trauma is an injury. Traumatic events are described in the Diagnostic and Statistical manual of mental disorders (1994) as any of the following:
- An event that involves actual or threatened death or serious injury, or other threat to one's personal integrity
- Witnessing an event that involves death, injury or a threat to the physical integrity of another person
- Learning about unexpected or violent death, serious harm or threat of death or injury experienced by a family member or other close associate
The person's response to experiencing the trauma will involve intense fear, helplessness or horror, or in children, a disorganised or agitated behaviour.
Hyperactivity
Hyperactivity can affect sleep patterns, including frequent nightmares. Children may be unable to get to sleep or may wake in the night, and then may find it difficult to wake in the morning.
Children may seek constant stimulation and may get bored easily. This can be due to the fact that traumatised children are hypervigilant and may be scanning their periphery vision and hearing to detect threat. This can mean that they tune out all sounds and visual stimuli that do not pose a threat.
Hypervigilance is a symptom of traumatic stress, and results in individuals being jumpy and finding it hard to settle, especially in unfamiliar settings. Going into new settings can be exhausting for traumatised children, as they may feel the need to scan the setting for potential threats.
Dissociation
Some children's defence mechanisms resulting from experiencing trauma include dissociating. This means that they split their awareness so that they can be highly functioning while not entirely present.
Such children may also show different parts of themselves to different people and create splits or conflict between professionals working with them - for example, complaining about one professional to another. As professionals, we need to be conscious of this, and avoid being polarised in this way and pitted against other professionals, thus avoiding repeating the same patterns of untrustworthiness for the child.
Children who dissociate are difficult to engage in relationships. They also find it difficult to see themselves clearly and truthfully as they may only see one part of themselves at a time. For example, they might be caught in the act of stealing and deny any responsibility in the act.
Dissociation can have long-term adverse consequences for a child's sense of themselves and their social functioning as adults.
Avoidance
Children who have experienced trauma may react by avoiding situations, people and circumstances that remind them or 'trigger' re-experiencing. Even neutral stimuli can be experienced as triggers for some children. Children may justify these reactions by creating a strong explanation for their response, and this ensures that they continue to not think about their trauma rather than face it.
Transference & Counter Transference
Transference occurs when a person projects an earlier experience of one person onto another person. For example, a child might expect their social worker to respond in the same way as their abusive parent. Because the child interacts with an adult in such a way, expecting the rejection or the hurt, frequently the object of the transference - say, the social worker - will emotionally feel and respond accordingly.
In the way we tend to become the person that others assume we are, the person who has patterns transferred onto them may collaborate and play the game, especially if the transference gives them power or makes them feel good in some way. An example might be where a professional begins to think, 'This child has not bonded with any other worker, so I must be very good at my job!' creating anger at other professionals. This anger engendered in the professional may reflect the child's hidden anger at their abusing parent.
In transference, the child experiences in us the absent parent or abuser who originally produced the strong feelings. Through counter-transference, we feel in ourselves the powerful feelings denied to the child. For this reason, traumatised children can generate irrational rage, misery or despair in those who live or work around them.
As workers, we need to be aware of these dynamics so that we are not distracted from our primary goal of ensuring the welfare of the child.
Identity
Children who are traumatised can make basic assumptions about themselves and the world they live in. For example, rather than see the world as ultimately benevolent, meaningful and seeing themselves as deserving good things, they may feel the opposite. These children may feel that they have no positive impact on the world around them and have no control over their lives. These children will develop an identity around being a victim and may resist any challenge to this idea.
Memory Disturbance
Children who are traumatised may have no memory of the traumatic incidents in their lives. This is called traumatic amnesia and may be confusing to a child who is nonetheless triggered emotionally by certain stimuli. Other children are unable to stop thinking about the trauma, as with hypermnesia, where the child finds it difficult to focus on anything else. Other children still may experience disturbance in their short-term memory. These children can be frustrating to be around as they will frequently fail to follow out instructions, and are likely to cover up their memory failings.
Learning Difficulties
Due to the fact that trauma can have a significant impact on children's cognitive function, it is not surprising that many traumatised children experience difficulties learning.
Aggression (towards self and others)
Victims of trauma can be physiologically locked in permanent terror. Terror generates aggression. Self-loathing and self-harm are common (acting in), as is outward aggression and anger towards others (acting out).
Psychosomatic and Psychogenic Disorders
Children who experience the level of constant stress experienced by traumatised children can develop a range of physical illnesses.
Downloads:
- What To Do if You're Worried a Child is Being Abused (PDF, 439Kb)
- Haringey Thresholds (PDF, 129Kb)
- Have Your Say leaflet (Word, 209KB)