I am actually a product of an abusive father. He was physically and emotionally abusing. I know in my situation, there was the feeling of guilt that I had done something wrong that caused the abuse as well as the feeling of dread of breaking up the family, if I told.
It wasn't until years later that I told my Mother of the abuse and she subsequently left him the next day. My Brother and I always confided in each other about the physical abuse but never told adults about the abuse. I don't know what I would have done without my friends back then. They always were comforting although it never stopped until later in life.
I think the biggest fault during that time period of my life is that I didn't feel as if I had an adult figure that I could talk to about the issues. My Mother has always been easy to talk to but when your in the situation, you tend to want to talk to people your own age or outside of the situation. Adults seemed scary to me. I think the best answer to help a child in need, as an adult, is to listen and watch for warning signals.....
Prevent Child Abuse is an organization that helps combat child abuse and neglect and has some great information on their website about recognizing signs of child abuse. You can find that website here http://www.preventchildabuse.org/publications/parents/downloads/recognizing_abuse.pdf.
Other website organizations that help children are as follows:
www.childabuse.org
www.childabuseprevention.org
www.saferchild.org
If you suspect that a child is being abused or neglected, there are also child abuse hot line that you can call 1-800-4-A-CHILD.
I think being there for a child is the best thing that people can do to stop the abuse.
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I am actually a product of an abusive father. He was physically and emotionally abusing. I know in my situation, there was the feeling of guilt that I had done something wrong that caused the abuse as well as the feeling of dread of breaking up the family, if I told.
It wasn't until years later that I told my Mother of the abuse and she subsequently left him the next day. My Brother and I always confided in each other about the physical abuse but never told adults about the abuse. I don't know what I would have done without my friends back then. They always were comforting although it never stopped until later in life.
I think the biggest fault during that time period of my life is that I didn't feel as if I had an adult figure that I could talk to about the issues. My Mother has always been easy to talk to but when your in the situation, you tend to want to talk to people your own age or outside of the situation. Adults seemed scary to me. I think the best answer to help a child in need, as an adult, is to listen and watch for warning signals.....
Prevent Child Abuse is an organization that helps combat child abuse and neglect and has some great information on their website about recognizing signs of child abuse. You can find that website here http://www.preventchildabuse.org/publications/parents/downloads/recognizing_abuse.pdf.
Other website organizations that help children are as follows:
www.childabuse.org
www.childabuseprevention.org
www.saferchild.org
If you suspect that a child is being abused or neglected, there are also child abuse hot line that you can call 1-800-4-A-CHILD.
I think being there for a child is the best thing that people can do to stop the abuse.
December 6, 2008 - 10:38amThis Comment
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