High Rates Of Childhood Exposure To Violence And Abuse In United States, New Study Finds

[caseymoz]

Source: Science Daily


A new study from the University of New Hampshire finds that U.S. children are routinely exposed to even more violence and abuse than has been previously recognized, with nearly half experiencing a physical assault in the study year.

"Children experience far more violence, abuse and crime than do adults," said David Finkelhor, director of the UNH Crimes against Children Research Center and the study director. "If life were this dangerous for ordinary grown-ups, we'd never tolerate it."

The research was sponsored by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) and supported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The research results are presented in the journal Pediatrics and an Office of Justice Programs/OJJDP bulletin titled "Children's Exposure to Violence: A Comprehensive National Survey."

UNH researchers asked a national sample of U.S. children and their caregivers about a far broader range of exposures than has been done in the past.

Read more: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/10/091007081351.htm

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What a sad, appalling discovery this is!

How long has this been happening? And could it be the actual reason for the crime rate? Committing violence on children does, of course, tend to make them develop into more violent adults.

The question is, how to stop this cycle?

[earcandle]

1. I developed a website devoted to bring back a gateway to the humanities for them until

we get our shit back together.

http://www.noodlebrain.com

look around, especially the education tab.

I think if we reach out to teach them and have them value
learning
rather than imprint them with the need to protect and defend,
then
we will heal them.  It isn't easy. We have to give up being
right and 
start being real.  Then they will be able to trust us.  Only
then. 
IMNSHO.  

I am not always right, but at least I go up to bat.  

[Bonobo]

18. Reading your wonderful site now. Integrity scale indeed! Nice! nt

[Demeter]

2. And By Their Very Own Federal and State Governments, Too

[harry_pothead]

3. .

As a teacher trainee, from my experience and what I've heard from other teachers, it's hard to see the signs. Not to mention, when something does get reported, it usually causes the abused student to lash out at the teacher for "interfering in their business." This happened to the special ed teacher at the school I was an aide at last year.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

4. Back in the 60's, I wished every day that someone would notice and help me.

Talk to me. Be a friend. Just got more abuse though. School AND home.

(my muther was everyone's favorite teacher too. Only one friend of mine who took her class knew "nobody's that nice".)

[fasttense]

6. BlancheSplanchnik I know how you feel.

I went to high school in the 70s and when the marks of the beatings I got from home were on display in gym class, I got made fun of, not by the students, but by the teachers. After the teachers were done ridiculing me, they encouraged the students to do the same.

You get abuse at home and at school and no one gives a shit.

And people wonder why you don't want to be near them.

I married a really good man and raised 2 children that were not abused. I fought like hell to make sure they had better childhoods than I did. To this day my daughter tells me we were the perfect parents. So, I think I have accomplished something despite my horrible childhood years.

You too can over come the horrors of your childhood. It's a matter of fighting back, knowing that what these people did to you was wrong, and being determined that you will make it different for those you love.

[raccoon]

7. Sorry that happened to you. I was surprised that was in the 1970's.

I would've thought by then people were more aware of stuff like that. Guess not.

Much less in prior decades, 1960's, 1950's. In those days, the parent was ALWAYS RIGHT, and that was that.

If something was wrong, everyone thought the kid was the bad one.

Thank goodness there's been a paradigm shift about that.

[ChickMagic]

9. Gosh, that sounds like me too, Blanche

When I was about 6 or 7, probably in response to the
daily violence I experienced at home, I would rock so hard
against the couch that I developed headaches, and still wouldn't
stop rocking. Teachers would see me sitting in the hall
rocking against the concrete walls. They didn't help -
just told me to stop my foolishness.

How much violence can kids take before they become
violent to others or themselves?

[caseymoz]

11. I could see their reaction being from both shame and fear.

They are afraid the teacher has made it worse for them, not better. They are also ashamed, in several different ways, depending on the crime.

Solutions to this are neither going to be easy nor short-term, and it is not helpful that traumatic childhoods are probably going to skew US politics as the traumatized children reach adulthood. I know it shows my bias, but I do sense severe damage to people like Scalia, Limbaugh and Clarence Thomas.

It does, unfortunately, explain too much about this country.

[pattmarty]

5. Where in the hell do you think all these "teabaggers" come from?????

[fascisthunter]

8. ding, ding, ding, ding

and most of them will defend abuse of children

[pattmarty]

10. Yep, you're right. Defend it as discipline.

There were a couple of posts here about people that came from abused backgrounds and I do not want to minimize their hurt. But, there are a lot of people out there that came from abuser homes where there was drunkenness, drug abuse, spousal beating etc that have grown up and continue the process. And, I have no statistics whatsoever, but probably a good percentage of the teabaggers came from abuser homes.




Edit: To add discipline and teabaggers. Dumb me!!!!!! (slaps himself in head)

[caseymoz]

13. Some people are injured in different ways than others by abuse.

And some recover, or cope differently or better than others.

Tea bag conservatives have always struck me first as being damaged. Limbaugh, Beck and others have struck me as damaged as well. I would pity them much more if I weren't more afraid of the damage they could do.

[pattmarty]

14. I'll tell ya, you're a more sympathetic person than I am...........

..........I don't pity them at all, I despise and am disgusted by their greed and totally unsympathetic concerns for most of their fellow citizens.

[caseymoz]

16. A rabid dog is to be pitied, too, but it's too damn dangerous.

The tea bag people are really being manipulated by the likes of Glen Beck and Rush Limbaugh, who are, really paid propagandists of people who are the greediest. I mean, generally, all the tea baggers do is repeat what those guys say, and are made too suspicious to check on any of it. If you listen to Rush (I despise what he says more than I pity him, but I listen because I think it is important to know my opposition) what you'll find is that he is extremely, extremely repetitious. He says everything now sounding mad as hell, and he says it over and over for three hours.

If you then listen to his tea bag disciples, the are simply repeating exactly those repetitious points. When they do get in the least bit original, they embarrass themselves-- more.

For Rush himself? This was a guy who was a failure at everything he did. Now that he has "succeeded" he really thinks his life is a lesson in being persistent and being faithful toward conservatism. I think he's now simply paid to say things, and perhaps charges more for saying things to help certain industries. He might have started out as a conservative zealot, and he probably believes everything people in the "Plutomony" tell him to say. The way he sees it now, they would not lie to him and if they do, he is just a hired gun anyway.

Meanwhile, he has had 2-3 failed marriages since his "success." And now he lives on an empty estate with 4 large houses and a cat. If you wanted to make "Citizen Kane" again, you could base it on Rush Limbaugh.

[caseymoz]

12. When I wrote #11 above, I hadn't yet seen this title.

With my original post, though, that's exactly what I wanted to convey.

[Blandocyte]

17. For real. Read Alice Miller's "The Drama Of The Gifted Child"

she uses psychoanalytic theory to assert a link between the abused and the future abuser.

[Igel]

15. A lot of the problem is kid-on-kid violence.

Assaults by siblings being a major contributor. By peers being another major contributor. Non-peer non-sibling assaults include everybody else--parents, relatives, older kids.

Kids are mean, by and large. They bully, tease, and fight. (In my case, I was bullied; my response was to snap one day and leave the bully sitting next to me on the bus a bit battered and bloodied. I dutifully repented of my foul aggression, but the bullies never said another nasty word to me. So much for the wages of sin.)

They tease and bully even more when there's a significant cultural or behavioral difference and they're in the majority. Or when there's some kind of prestige in it for them. My kid's frequently teased. He speaks differently from the way the majority speak, he acts differently, he's been exposed to a different set of standards for proper behavior. He's also the new kid in the neighborhood. So they pick on him as the outsider. Well, at least the majority kids do. The Latinos treat him decently. Partly it's because he was socialized one way, the majority was socialized a different way, and the Latinos are just trying to figure out how to mesh their home and family socialization with public life in a neighborhood where they're a minority.

How long has it been happening? Since forever, basically.

http://www.unh.edu/ccrc/pdf/Pediatrics_NatSCEV.pdf
Don't read the press release when you can read the original. At least the spin is the authors', not the reporter's. I was really hoping for more fine-grained classifications and a bit of definition when it came to many of the terms.