Children and Sexual Abuse

Identifying symptoms/signals of child sexual abuse When a child has been sexually abused, he or she may begin to form many different types of problems. Some of these problems may be physical or mental in nature. With these problems children will begin to show signs of said abuse. Each child will show different signs throughout different stages depending on the type of abuse that they have endured such as being looked at in the nude, inappropriate touching, and physical penetration.

Younger children will normally show you signs rather than tell you what is happening to them, and each child will be unique from the next child in his or her signs, forever many people may not be aware of what signs of sexual abuse are. The initial signs of abuse may not indicate that sexual abuse is happening, however may be an indicator to parents, teachers, and others that something is not right with this child in question.

Some of the initial signs that suggest that abuse is happening may be nightmares with no apparent reason, changes in the eating habits, refusing to eat at all, or being withdrawn from others. Signs may also escalate to be to showing that there may in fact be sexual abuse happening. The sexually abused child may suddenly become afraid of certain places or people, may talk about new secrets with certain adults or adolescents, and may talk of having a new older friend. The child may have money, toys, and other gifts that he or she cannot explain, or say that they came from a new friend.

Some children may even refuse to remove their clothing during appropriate times, such as to take a bath. Children may regress to a younger child’s behavior by once again sucking their thumbs, or wetting the bed again when they haven’t done so in years. A child who has been sexual abused may begin to act out inappropriate sexual actions with joys or other objects, such as touching themselves with objects, or using dolls, stuffed animals, or other toys to imitate sexual acts, and others may draw pictures of what has been going on with them.

While another child that has been sexually abused he or she may develop new names for their body parts, or start thinking that that their body, and body parts are dirty, or that they are bad. There are some children that will even harm themselves, or disfigure their bodies when they have been sexually abused. Many of these children will become anxious, nervous, some may have mood swings that old include anger, aggressiveness towards parents, siblings, friends, and even their pets. They physical signs of child sexual abuse may be rare, especially to someone who is not trained but do exist.

Pain, disconsolation, bleeding, and abnormal discharge in the genitals, anus, and mouth are a few of the physical signs that may be seen. Some children may have frequent pain during urination and bowel movements as well as, wetting and soiling accidents that they have otherwise outgrown. Other physical signs that may be seen, but are more likely to be noticed by a trained professional may be TTS and tears in or around the vaginal or anal openings, or vaginal infections. There are the rare occasions that the signs of sexual abuse are sexually transmitted diseases and even pregnancy. Center, n. D. ) Long and Short-term Effects For the victim child sexual abuse can be devastating, not only in the near future because the effects of sexual abuse can extend far beyond childhood, in some that may last for the rest of their lives. In many the short term effects are very similar to the signs of sexual abuse, such as betting and thumb sucking when it should be out grown, sleep disorders, eating robbers, behavior issues, or performance problems at school, and refusal to participate in school activities.

The effects of child sexual abuse can deprive a child of their childhood and their ability to learn how to have a healthy relationship with an adult, as they lose the ability to trust in those who were supposed to protect them. Children learn how to trust, love, and make relationships from adults and older children. When an adult or adolescent child sexually abuses a child it breaks that trust that an adult will give them that care that they are supposed to be instilling within that child.

Sexual abuse robs children of their childhood and creates a loss of trust, feelings of guilt and self-abusive behavior along with anxiety, depression, aggressive behavior, and poor self-esteem. When it comes to long term effects child sexual abuse can lead to antisocial behavior, deeper depression, identity confusion other serious emotional problems. Adults who have been sexually abused as a child can have difficulty with intimate relationships, and often feel guilt, shame, and self-blame as they become adolescents and adults.

Many will take personal responsibility for the abuse, as though they have rough the abuse on to themselves, that they asked to be touched in these wrong ways and because they feel that way they think that they are dirty individuals, because when the abuse is by someone that they know and trust it makes it hard for the child to see the abuser negatively, which makes it may be hard for some children to see that it was the adult who was at fault rather than the child themselves.

So they often blame themselves and take on a negative messages about themselves, and intern may display self-destructive behaviors and experience more suicidal ideation than those who have not en abused (Browne & Finickier, 1986) Many children grow into adolescents and adulthood having low self-esteem and have body image problems. They see themselves as being dirty or ugly, unhappiness with body or appearance, and eating disorders, some even grow to disfiguring their bodies so that they will no longer look attractive to those that have sexually abused them.

Children who were sexually abuse may experience difficulty in establishing interpersonal relationships. Common relationship difficulties that victims may experience are difficulties with trust, fear of intimacy, fear of Ewing different or weird, difficulty establishing interpersonal boundaries, passive behaviors, and many continue life into abuse by getting involved in abusive relationships. Risks. There are certain risk markers for children to possibly be sexually abused. The main factor is age, as most children who are abused are within the ages of 7 and 13.

Gender is also a factor, as female children are sexually abused more often than children, however it may be that boys are not reported as often as female children. It is not easy finding risk factors of child sexual abuse as most research goes back to the signs and symptoms of children that ay have been sexually abused. Statistical data. There are many estimates of the number of children who are the victims of sexual abuse. ; One U. S. Governmental source counts 78,1 88 child victims of sexual abuse in 2003.

That’s a rate of 1. 2 per 1 ,OHO American children. ; The 2001 National Crime Victimizing Survey, which only covers youth 12-17, estimates that 1. 9 per 1,000 children are raped or sexually assaulted. ; National surveys of adults find that 9-28% of women say they experienced some type of sexual abuse or assault in childhood. (Finickier) Studies by David Finickier, Director of the Crimes Against Children Research Center, show that 1 in every 4 girls and 1 in every 7 boys is a victim of child sexual abuse.

Studies also show that 20% of adult females and 5-10% of adult males recall a childhood sexual assault or sexual abuse incident. During a one-year period in the U. S. , 16% of youth ages 14 to 17 had been sexually victimized, and over the course of their lifetime, 28% of U. S. Youth ages 14 to 17 had been sexually victimized. He states that children are most vulnerable to childhood sexual abuse between the ages of 7 and 13. (crime. Org, n. D. There are so many different statistics on child sexual abuse.

Many reports show a very different stats on each site, however they are all relatively close. Treatments Treatment for child sexual abuse can be very complicated, and can be a very long if not life long process. Treatment starts with making sure that the child knows that he or she is safe and that they will not be hurt any more, it also starts by educating the parents and family members, as to what they should expect throughout the duration of treatment and that it is not the child’s fault.

Trauma-focused Therapy for Childhood Sexual Abuse was developed to help revived information about the impact of child sexual abuse on a child. It helps to stress the importance of including parents/caretakers in the treatment of the child of sexual abuse, and to show the need for children in therapy to learn specific skills to deal with what has happened to them and to talk about the details of their sexually abusive experiences. With this therapy they emphasize how talk therapy can help a child by talking about what happened to them.

Showing them that what happened to them was wrong, but that the child what not the one who was doing something wrong. It is an evidence- eased treatment to help children, adolescents, and their parents overcome trauma-related problems, such as child sexual abuse. It’s supposed to help reduce negative emotional and behavioral responses caused by child sexual abuse, as well as domestic violence, traumatic loss, and other traumatic events.

It addresses inaccurate beliefs and thoughts related to the abuse, while it helps to provide an environment that will support the child in therapy, where children are encouraged to talk about their traumatic experience. This therapy helps the parents who were not abusive to the child to cope effectively with their own emotional distress, and to teach them about child sexual abuse, while helping them develop skills that support their children.