squirt13000 asked this question on 5/10/2000:
Dear Mr. Hays I am a ninth grade student at Timbercrest Junior igh in washington. I am doing an extensive research project on child abuse, and I really need help. If you could assist me it would be greatly appreciated. My e-mail is alc2003@hotmail.com. What I need to know is: How do parents begin to become abusive? What are the long term affects on the child? How to the children cope with abusing parents, and what is the punishment for abusing parents? Thank you very much. I look forward to hearing from you.
snowbird gave this response on 5/11/2000:
Dear Squirt
You are asking the right questions for a young adult to ask.
There are many ways and reasons adults and childrens become abusive and it usually goes back to the environment they were raised in; type of family, type of surroundings, type of friends, etc. Abuse is usually a cycle that keeps being passed on from generation to generation. It, also, can be brought on by a person's mental and emotional state, but that, also, can usually be traced back to the person's environment when growing up.
Another thing you also have to consider is that what may be classified as abuse by many today is what was called proper discipline by most a few short generations ago. Discipline when carried to extremes is abuse, but a lot of people today see discipline of any type as abuse and that is what is going wrong in the United States and other parts of the world today. Without proper discipline, you raise a world of adults who have no regard for themselves, let alone the world around them. And, I hope you realize the consequences of that.
Abuse can ruin a person's whole life and effect the way they will deal with life itself for as long as they live, which in some cases is not very long.
The punishments for abuse vary from place to place depending on how the person responsible for deciding views what is abuse and what is not and to what extent it occurred. I have seen a lot of variance in my years as an abuse counselor and counselor in general, too much variance.
There are, also, a lot of good websites of abuse that can be found easily.
If you have further questions and/or comments, please feel free to contact me at any time.
Blessings in all that you do.
Paul