Abuse of Children is Not Love

This blog is about abuse, not only a phenomena in Australia but endemic around the world. This is the next generation, if they are not functional, how can we expect them to have the strength to face the future. Clearly there are significant problems in generations of parents, how they parent and how they cope in life and how this transfers to children.

I just had a quick look at official figures on child abuse from the Australian Institute of Family Studies, as follows:

http://www.aifs.gov.au/nch/pubs/sheets/rs1/rs1.pdf

“The most recent national figures from the AIHW indicate that in Australia, during 2009–10, there were 286,437 reports of suspected child abuse and neglect made to state and territory authorities, which is a significant decrease of 16% from the 339,454 reports made in 2008–09. This is the first decrease in notifications across Australia in the last 10 years. This decrease may largely be due to significant decreases in notifications in New South Wales, attributed to legislative changes in the NSW Children and Young Persons (Care and Protection) Act 1998, that included raising the reporting threshold from “risk of harm” to the new “risk of significant harm”

The figures show that the reporting of cases to child protection services has increased through to 2008–09. Although there was a significant decrease in notifications and substantiations in 2009–10 it is too early to determine whether this will be a continuing trend.”

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I have to say my gut feeling was disbelief that the figures had decreased although there was qualification that there had been legislative changes given the raising of the threshold in NSW which may have reduced the classification sizes, rather than reflecting real numbers.

I recall my brief time working in a Family Services child abuse reporting unit. I was taking the calls, they were nonstop. Now after investigations abuse is determined and there are complex issues of parental conflict that use children to punish the other parent. My observation from my short time in this area was that the persons sent out to investigate appeared just out of university and had not had children of their own. I do consider the latter important, as there is life experience there. I did question in my mind their ability to assess and their experience. Moreover, they were understaffed and that would reflect less funding. Also societal guidelines as to what is abuse and what is not? I wondered if this has loosened overtime given community attitudes and the frequent abuse we see on television that appears as normal. This of course was one unit and my expertise was not sufficient to make any professional judgements, my words are just personal observations and opinions, I could be wrong in my own assessment.

My uneasiness is furthered when I see how parents deal with screaming kids and the lack of awareness of how their words and actions can hurt and damage a child. I also see power issues where parents have unquestioned authority over their children and what they say goes, even if it is unjust, the children must just comply. This is where power over others takes root in society. My concerns with abuse concerns emotional abuse, where injuries are not visible, but children grow up with severe esteem issues, bullying by parents or siblings, neglect and not received the love they need to develop as functional people in a society. You cannot expect a kind and compassionate society if this is not role modelled or experienced in a child’s life. I recently spoke to a woman who had never been told she was loved by her mother, her home was not loving at all. Her mother regarded emotions as weakness. I have another friend who’s mother was mentally ill and father an alcoholic, chairs were thrown at the children in fits of rage. She had a life of foster homes, abuse, neglect and rape. She had never known the love of family until she had her own son. Others are tortured or experience sexual assault. Another friend was raped by her brothers and men would come to their home off the street, they were extremely vulnerable.

I did a study in the south of Brisbane that was focussed on youth in public spaces. Many had parents on drugs, they were kicked out or felt they were not to come home. They hung out on the streets. The community became concerned and they found themselves moved on by centre management, police and hassled. Turns out the solution was a youth centre run by them which gave them a sense of belonging and where the community got to know their names. When that happened, the situation was much better. It was mentioned to me today that the youth of today just have nowhere to go and nothing to do, they are not getting good parenting. Their lives are computers, video games or pubs. She remembers more community activities for them when she was young. The person I spoke to explained she had real concerns about them.

One of the key issues in bullying and violent behaviour is the lack of empathy. Empathy comes from personal experience, therefore those without empathy may well have been neglected and treated with cold indifference when they felt pain. Moreover, particularly boys, are taught to not feel for others, that they are girls if they cry and on it goes. Hence desensitising them from their humanity.

In my observation and life experience, I feel there has been a decline in societal values, parenting skills and self esteem and a rise in broken families. I see that parents have little time, little support and don’t seem to have the awareness of what the needs of children are. In separated families the mother’s mostly raise the kids and the fathers have them on the weekend with different experiences of how to parent or simply just giving them whatever they want. The kids get pulled in many directions. If there is conflict with grandparents, children may miss out from other role models that make up family or close friends.

It seems to me that parents are barely aware of their own needs or indeed who they are, and in many cases find themselves trying to cope with life or just giving up. I’ve seen quite a few kids are raising their parents, as the parents don’t appear to be able to nurture the children. So, children live extraordinary lives.

I remember working in a Forensic Accountant’s office a few years ago and reading a report from a Judge in a family law matter who was appalled at the treatment of children and how they were used as pawns so two parents could maximise the pain they caused each other. They would typically fight over the children to make the other suffer. There was no consideration for the children at all, the children were objects and significantly confused and damaged.

I recall interviewing Principals in Canberra who told me the situation for children had significantly changed over 20 years, they witnessed far more obesity, some kids unable to move properly (transient lifestyles), mixed or blended families, single parent families, neglect and children basically plonked in front of television as the babysitter and left. Other educators have said kids haven’t had enough to eat or they stay up too late. One just told me a few days ago that she was appalled at parenting. She witnessed a parent swearing at her 5 year old and the child was screaming. The teacher observed the child was tired, it was late at night, the child needed sleep but the parent was unaware or didn’t seem to care, she screamed at the child to ‘fucking get over here’ and the child complied. In a sense making it the child’s fault they are crying, rather than not receiving the care they need by a balanced parent. Others speak of kids as difficult to deal with in the classroom, many teachers are dealing with behavioural issues rather than a peaceful classrooom where they can just teach. This indicates the importance of social wellbeing over numeracy and literacy, in my view.  Many teachers are not trained in psychology or abuse issues. Another teacher told me you have to be tough to be a teacher, otherwise you don’t survive teenagers. The issues are significant, if kids don’t understand respect and work cooperatively with the teacher, how do they learn?

There are real concerns in schools about bullying and a decline in pro-social wellbeing and resiliency. Moreover, the violent shootings in schools and violent behaviours cropping up are signposts that something is wrong in society. The focus with schools is on positivity and anti-bullying as negative aggressive behaviours are increasing. The issues in schools mirror the society, so there are real problems there that it appears the statistics are not picking up on.  That would be my viewpoint.

Here is some information on child abuse from the Monash study.

http://www.clan.org.au/images/Access%20Economic%20Report_Exec%20Summary_FINAL.pdf

The cost of child abuse to the Australian community is a staggering figure. It includes paying the salaries of the thousands of doctors, nurses, police officers, social workers, judges, probation officers, teachers and others who protect and respond to children identified as being abused and neglected. There is also a significant outlay in
reimbursing foster carers and others who look after traumatised and vulnerable children and in the administrative costs associated with managing these complex systems.

In addition, the cost of the pain and suffering experienced by the children and young people who are abused and neglected represents a burden that is most heavily paid in the loss of their childhood. It is transacted in personal impacts which disrupt their daily lives. The memories of abuse are pronounced and ever present for children.
Small reminders may cause them to relive their fear and confusion. The world itself is experienced as dangerous for abused children — a place without haven or safety. Abuse and neglect undermines their self confidence and eats away at their self esteem, making them feel worthless and unlovable.

As a consequence, abused and neglected children can suffer Depression, anxiety and ongoing effects of trauma. They struggle to learn at school and can lag well behind their classmates in their education. They may feel dislocated from their friends and family — leading to isolation and even harsher longer term consequences such
as homelessness and crime. Some will turn to drugs and alcohol to escape reliving the fear and confusion of the violence and neglect they have endured. All these costs can be estimated but not easily comprehended.

And yet, there is an even darker side to these numbers. Our Estimates are in reality only a fragment of the real costs to the community because we do not know how many children are abused and neglected each year in Australia. The sad reason for this is that child abuse does not attract the investment that is required to undertake quality research and evaluation unlike the funding that is spent on research into other major health and welfare problems, such as depression and obesity. Child abuse fails to register as enough of a critical concern to galvanise our collective effort to tackle it.

In September 2003, we released the first results of our national community attitude tracking research about child abuse and child protection (Tucci et al, 2003). At that time, we concluded that the community did not understand or appreciate the seriousness, size and cost of child abuse in Australia. There was a commonly held view that
child abuse was not an important challenge facing children. In fact, child abuse was perceived as less concerning than problems Associated with council rates and the standard of services provided by the public transport system.

The community was extremely ambivalent about trusting children’s histories of abuse and family violence. Thirty-five percent (35%) of respondents would not believe children’s stories about being abused.
Just over 1 in 3 respondents did not believe that child abuse was a problem that they needed to be personally concerned about. 54% of respondents did not identify child abuse as causing a substantial cost to Australian society, reflecting a widespread lack of basic knowledge about how pervasive the effects of child abuse are in the
developmental experiences of childhood, adolescence and adulthood.

Unfortunately for children, the results of our follow up study in 2006 (Tucci et al, 2006) showed no improvement in the community’s awareness, understanding or engagement with the issue. In 2006, child abuse was perceived as less concerning than the rising cost of petrol and problems with public transport and roads. 31% of
respondents stated that they would not believe children’s stories about abuse. 43% of respondents felt so poorly informed on the issue that they were unable to guess the number of reported cases of child abuse, whilst those prepared to estimate, significantly underestimated the problem.

ABUSE OF CHILDREN IS NOT LOVE

I speak to the children with my eyes,
I see the clear water,
Through their eyes,
So light and playful,
Unencumbered by worries,
As life unfolds new promises.

My heart reaches to their smiling faces,
The arms of kindness wrap love and concern around their slight frames,
Keeping them warm,
Keeping them whole,
It is such a shame,
That confusion swirls in clouds of illusion,
Around their tiny faces,
As they look up and wonder,
What is this turmoil?
Is this normal,
Thinking about the words that adults say,
The contradictions they must accept,
This is our way.

Busy lives,
Minds occupied,
They are vacant,
For they know not what they do,
I hear acceptance and rejection in sentence construction,
I feel arrows of pain in the soul’s destruction,
Frustration and overwhelming feelings,
Restrictions and low ceilings,
Preventing a vision which is the grandest version,
Of who they want to be.

Their eyes are lowered it is darkness they see,
Life burns the innocence from their eyes,
Language is the cloak,
It is a disguise,
For the hopelessness,
The demands,
That tie us to responsibility,
We are not free to enjoy humility,
To hold hands and walk in the sun,
To teach wisdom,
And have some fun.

The children are dragged along in a mould,
That bodes not well for the future,
Parents do their best,
But abuse is not a suture,
It opens the wounds,
They are gaping and septic,
Words can be poisonous and deceptive,
Strangling the potential,
The brightness of a vulnerable child,
Molded into a preconceived idea,
Of what is their role,
But they have their own journey,
And yes you can say it is perfect,
Given energy response,
But the mosaic can be changed,
In a positive impulse,
In a moment,
In a decision,
When we take responsibility.

For the shape of the glass,
Breaks in moments of panic,
When fear galvanises our lives,
And transfers to your child,
Curbed and deflected,
Rejected not respected,
Bruised and reduced,
By a culture that is crying,
That is trying,
But cannot lift its head above water,
You will go under if you don’t see,
That there is a crisis,
In the world of children,
Can you see the reality?