Child Abuse and Effects on Adulthood

About 80% of 21 year olds that were abused as children met criteria for at least one psychological disorder. Child abuse occurs at every socioeconomic level, across ethnic and cultural lines, within all religions and at all levels of education. Approximately 30% of abused and neglected children will abuse their own children. Children who experience child abuse & neglect 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 violent crime. All of these statistics are proof of the stress and trauma neglect has on children. Children learn from adults. Children learn from what they see, hear, feel, and smell.

There are quite a few different types of child abuse; Child sexual abuse, Neglect, Physical abuse, Psychological Maltreatment, medical neglects, etc. Throughout childhood, when abuse has been found, children go through periods of coping. This coping is a mechanism given by therapists and sometimes even through the subconscious mind that helps to get over the trauma and the feeling of helplessness or terror. It's a protection precaution to help create a shield against the abuse. This coping is very common in child abuse.

A child's brain that adapts to an extreme environment, like abuse and neglect, has a very hard time adjusting to any other environment. Also, children that live in abusive environments often have suffered impairments in language and cognitive skills; Thus making school very hard for the child to learn. For those children who survive abuse, emotional trauma remains. Often the severe emotional damage to abused children does not surface until adolescence or even later in some cases. Kids display signs such as: a poor self image, sexual

acting out, the inability to trust or love others, aggressive, disruptive, and sometimes illegal behavior, self destructive or self abusive behavior, suicidal thoughts, flashbacks, nightmares, and drug and alcohol abuse. They are also more likely to become pregnant or contract a sexually transmitted disease as a teenager and be placed in juvenile detention because of violence. In adolescence these children think they know what is right and through acting out and constraint from others they again feel neglected which causes more acting out.

The "acting out" continues into adulthood where the same person is more likely to commit crimes and even in their own relationships be clingy or even controlling to their partner. There is lack of intrapersonal and social feelings from neglected people, in other words, they don't care about others feelings. Most people that are neglected as a child are not remorseful of wrong-doings because of their lack of caring. 14% of men in the U.S. prison system and 36% of women in prison were abused as children. They are also more likely to take illicit drugs, smoke cigarettes, and abuse alcohol. After a child is born to a neglected parent