What is Child Abuse?
Child abuse is when someone does something to you or your body that you don't want them to do.
There are several type of abuse:-
Physical abuse - an adult deliberately hurts you by causing cuts, bruises, broken bones or other injuries. Physical abuse includes hitting, shaking, throwing, poisoning, burning, and slapping.
Mental/emotional abuse – someone severely and persistently ill treats you which can harm your confidence and self-worth. It may be your parents faiing to show you that they love you.
Verbal abuse – a person says something horrible or hurtful to you.
Neglect – an adult fails to keep you healthy, clean and well-cared for.
Child sexual abuse – a person forces you to take part in sexual activities or encourages you to behave in sexually inappropriate ways.
Child sex abuse is not when you start to think about sex with a boyfriend or girlfriend which is all a normal part of growing up. Sexual abusers tend to be older than you, maybe an adult, and someone in a position of power who can use that power over you to get you to do things that you probably don’t want to do.
Sexual abuse includes passionate kissing, touching parts of your body and forcing you to have sex against your will. The law protects children and young people and anyone sexually abusing you is breaking the law.
Abuse doesn’t have to be carried out by a stranger and is usually someone you know, a teacher, lodger, relative, baby sitter or family friend. Because the abuser may be known to your family, they may feel happy leaving you alone with the person so your family needs to know what is happening so they can put a stop to it as soon as possible.
Every type of abuse is wrong and should be stopped. The best thing you can do if you are experiencing any abuse is to tell someone as they can help to make it stop and there is more information about this in the next section.
If you have been physically abused you may:-
- Be wary of adults
- Be aggressive
- Be abusive
- Be unable to concentrate
- Lie or steal
- Bully other people
- Have tantrums
- Have difficulty making friends and trusting people
If you have been emotionally abused or neglected you may:-
- Be slow in development with walking, talking and learning
- Have problems feeding and grow slowly
- Be passive (don't stand up for yourself)
- Find it hard to develop relationships
- Have difficulties playing imaginatively
- Do badly at school
If you have been sexually abused you may:-
- Think badly of yourself
- Not look after yourself
- Have problems with food
- Be secretive
- Be sexually inappropriate during normal play
- Be scared of physical contact
- Become withdrawn
- Run away
- Have problems at school and learning
- Become depressed
- Self-harm
- Take drugs or alcohol
- Become promiscuous (have sex with lots of boys or girls)
- Run away
- Wet the bed
- Develop an eating disorder
Your mental health
Abuse can make you feel hurt, sad, lonely, isolated, ashamed, dirty, confused, to blame for what is happening, guilty, worried, frightened, depressed or anxious. It can also make you have low self-esteem and affect how you are in future relationships. If the abuse has been going on for a long time, it can affect your mental health and you may have problems with:-
- Problems sleeping/nightmares
- Bed wetting
- Losing your temper
- Unable to make friends
- Self-harming
- Misusing drugs or alcohol
- Eating problems
- Depression
- Anxiety
- Post-traumatic stress symptoms such as flashbacks or nighmares (see our pages on Post Traumatic Stress Disorder).
Abuse is very difficult to talk about but talking to someone is the only way to get it to stop. You may even like the person who is abusing you even though you don’t like what they are doing and you may feel a sense of loyalty to that person and not want them to get into trouble. But what they are doing is wrong and if it is left to continue can impact on your future happiness and so it needs to stop. There are more details about getting help in the next section.
There are around 30,000 children and young people on the child protection register which is where social services staff place a child’s name if they are concerned that that young person may be at risk of abuse or neglect.
Before I told anyone, I was scared to go to sleep at night. Even though I tried not to think about what happened, I still had nightmares. I was too tired to bother with school and just wandered around on my own. I felt like an alien, the only one in the world like this, and I couldn’t tell anyone."
If you are being abused, you need to get help.