Child Abuse Awareness

In the month of child abuse awareness, it feels like an obligation to talk about violence among children, and to try to understand its causes and some of the possible effects. In a society where more than ever children are raising themselves, where humanity is anesthetized and violence becomes as normal as breathing, it is necessary to analyze what led to this social immunity towards the problem. It turns out to be compulsory to understand, in order to prevent and reeducate. Children with violent behaviors might result to be adults with violent behaviors. To better understand this phenomenon is this indispensable to define the term ‘violence’. According to the world health organization, violence is defined as “the intentional use of physical …show more content…
As doctor Osofsky states in one of his researches, children “living in low income areas, experience chronic community violence.” (34) When talking about “chronic community violence”, Osofsky refers to a frequent and continual exposure to random violence in the community. Recent estimates show that almost 4 million children a year witness or are victims of community violence. This massive exposure has significant effects during the children’s development. In fact, children who witness violence in their homes or communities show excessive irritability, immature behaviors, sleep disturbance, emotional distress, fears of being alone, and regression in toileting and language. Thus, the effects of community violence on children are atrocious. Not to forget that this massive exposure leads children to become aggressive adults. They start in their adolescence to attach themselves to gangs that substitutes the families they never had, and they learn to integrate violence as a system of dealing with disputes and frustrations. As some scholars demonstrate, the main cause of youths attaching themselves to baby gangs and violent peers is to substitute a missing parental role. To enable a child to cope and to heal, studies show the need of a strong relationship with a caring and competent adult, preferably a parent. Ironically, both the cause of violence among children and their …show more content…
In the journal “Media and Risky Behaviors” Escobar-Chavez and Anderson depict that the average American youngster spend approximately one third of their days with some sort of electronic media, and that this exposure engages them in unhealthy behaviors that have a huge societal cost. Media exposure has as cause the absence of parental figures to control it. This exposure however has more effects than causes. In fact, the excessive contact with media set a new whole level of behaviorism issues. On an average 30 minutes of television, there are 17 high calories food ads. Such exposure led to the increment of obesity in children by 18 points from 1999 to 2014. As children are consumers, they can influence the decisions of purchasing certain products in the family, and they certainly are the future adult market. No surprise that the advertisers spends billions of dollars on food marketing. Obesity is not the only effect that derives from the Medias. Smoking, for example, is one of the 10 greatest health concerns of the government. About 65% of new smokers are children and adolescents. Smoking on television is widespread. A lot of studies provide evidences of how children are more intrigued by smoking if they are exposed to it through media. Alcohol abuse is also another effect of this exposure. As for smoking, children and adolescents are curious about alcohol