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Show Family ecosystem factor in child abuse & neglect By D. KIM OPENSHAW, Ph.D. College of Family Life Utah State University Three sets of factors put families at risk for child abuse and neglect: parental characteristics, child characteristics and the family ecosystem the way the family system interacts with the environment envir-onment in general. Each of these characteristics also has indicators of child abuse and neglect. Parental factors: Researchers have found that a number of characteristics set abusing parents apart from non-abusing parents. Their lists include the following: The abusing father was physically punished by his parents. His father was physically abused by his mother. The parents believe in physical discipline of children and spouses. The marital relationship itself may not be valued by the parents. There may be inter-spousal violence. The parents believe that the father should be the dominant authority au-thority figure. The parents are low in self-esteem. The parents have unrealistic expectations ex-pectations of the child. There is persistent role reversal in which the parents use the child to gratify their own needs, rather than vice versa. The parents appear unconcerned unconcern-ed about the seriousness of a child's injury, responding with "Oh, well, accidents happen." Characteristics of the child: In answering the question, "Who are the battered children" and "Are they any different from other children," researchers found that children who are abused are often labeled by their parents as "unsatisfactory," for example: A "normal" child who is the product of a difficult or unplanned pregnancy, is often the "wrong sex, or is bom outside marriage." An abnormal ' ' child-premature child-premature or low birth weight, possibly with congenital defects or illness. A difficult child-fussy, hyperactive, hy-peractive, and so on. Unfortunately, it is all too often that a child's perceived difficulties are the direct result of abuse and neglect rather than a cause. Family ecosystem: It has been recognized for some time that what occurs in the general environment has an effect on the family which in turn affects the parent-child relationship. rela-tionship. These "stressors" impact the family resulting in frustration which may be exhibited in aggression. aggres-sion. A complicating factor to recognizing recog-nizing family violence is that an accurate ac-curate understanding is frequently obscured by the myths perpetuated to "protect" us. The twelve most popular myths are: Family violence is extremely rare. Family violence is restricted to families with low education and low socioeconomic status. Minority families experience more violence than white families. Violent spouses or parents have psychopathic personalities. Violent families are not loving families. Battered women cause their battering bat-tering because they are masochistic or crazy. Most sexual abuse is perpetrated by strangers. Incest is a fairly rare occurrence. occur-rence. Abused children will grow up to abuse their own children. The police give adequate protection pro-tection to battered women. Most society does not condone domestic violence. These myths function to hide the extent of physical and sexual abuse that actually actu-ally takes place inside a painfully large number of American families. |