Child Abuse is a terrible problem in the United States and in many countries around the world. Child Abuse comes in many forms, and causes problems for kids as infants, toddlers, school-age children, adolescents, and young adults. Child abuse even leaves, scars, both physical and emotional on adults that last a lifetime.

Child Abuse can be physical. Now and in the past, children have been hit by parents, as well as other adults they know. Children have been hit with open hands, closed fists, with bats, belts, electrical cords, and other things. Besides the physical, which leaves marks on the skin, children have suffered other forms of abuse.

Emotional abuse is where children have been made to feel they are bad or unwanted. Children have been abused with a lack of nutrition. This can be a situation where a child is not given enough to eat. And more recently, some children have been abused by being given too much to eat, or the wrong kinds of food, like fast food and junk food.

Children have been forced to live in homes where parents abuse drugs and alcohol. Children have been abused by what is called neglect, where the parent(s) pay so little attention to the child that the child is endangered or can even die. Maybe you can see  in your mind some cases of neglect: a child riding in a car without a seatbelt, a child left in a locked car in a parking lot on a hot day, a child left home alone, or a child whose pain goes unsoothed.  

Taking good care of children is the most important thing an adult can do. Adults need to be especially careful about what they do around children. Even if they don’t mean to, adults can abuse children by allowing them to see them do things like smoking, drinking alcohol, using drugs, driving dangerously, swearing and disrespecting others.  What children see adults they know do, they may well do themselves as they grow up. Adults should set good examples for children.