Suspicious Bruises
The statistical scope of child abuse
As mentioned in the last post, the coming articles will be covering child abuse. Different topics I’ll be researching include:
— Tips on how to document and report child abuse;
— Organizations responsible for investigating child abuse;
— Their investigation processes and, importantly, the bar for determining whether abuse has occurred;
— Different possible responses and outcomes;
— The history of such organizations; the history of relevant legislation;
— Major court cases associated with child abuse;
— Plus anything else of interest or concern that readers might flag.
Do you have any tips on recognizing, recording and/or reporting child abuse?
If yes, please reach out to me to share your story. Message me here on Substack or email me at protecttheparents@proton.me.
As first I wondered if this would be a useful topic for readers. My main point of reference is Ruth, the woman I interviewed over the course of two years when I was doing my master’s thesis. Ruth has been a protective parent since her son was born, and that’s been many years now. She has dealt with documenting and reporting myriad abuses, from offensive moves (burns and bruises) to passive moves (neglect of Boy’s needs, preferences, and agency). I wondered what new information I might be able to provide someone else like Ruth, if I could.
But then I figured I should widen my sense of scope on who PtP readers might be. There can be some mothers who are just entering the protective parent experience. And perhaps they could garner value.
I recall once interviewing a protective mom who was in the early stages. A mother of two, she’d met her abuser and they’d soon after gotten pregnant. Having her third child by him, signs of Mr. Hyde began to appear. She was at the hospital, about the give birth to his child, and he is screaming at her over the phone. At a group meeting of protective parents, she asked, “if I do what he says, will he ease up?”
It’s an understandable question most of us have calculated, consciously or not. This person has made their force so unrelenting, we are faced with it and try to navigate a way to peace.
By the way, the answer is “no,” just to be 100% clear.
Let’s start with an orientation to the statistics of abuse.
Perhaps this can help protective parents to contextualize their pain. You should know that, as the parent of an abused child, you are not alone. There are many other moms (and some dads) who are navigating this thorny experience. This stats might also help you communicate the plight of protective parents to family, friends and neighbors.
Depending on the particular study, the exact statistical prevalence of child abuse ranges. All sources agree that childhood abuse is common and widespread. In a truly healthy society, there would be no child abuse.
According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 1 in 7 children experienced abuse last year. This figure is cited from a study by Dr. Finkelhor, who you might remember from the series on Battered Child Syndrome, which was the earliest articulation / systemic investigation into the signs and patterns of child abuse.
If you’d like to read that series, you can start here: “How to predict child sexual abuse: David Finkelhor came up with the influential Four-Point Precondition Model that continues to be used today”
According to the National Children’s Alliance (NCA), 1 in 4 girls and 1 in 13 boys experience child abuse. They cited their source as the CDC.
Additional stats from the NCA:
— The youngest children are the most vulnerable. Children in the first year of their life are 15% of all victims, and 27% of child maltreatment victims are no more than 2 years old.
— Socially and medically marginalized children are especially vulnerable. They experience abuse at a rate almost three-and-a-half times higher than the average child. This might include LGBTQ youth, kids with Autism or those in wheelchairs.
— In 77% of cases, the parent or legal guardian is the abuser.
— Neglect is the most common form of abuse. Three-fourths (74%) of victims are neglected, 17% are physically abused, 11% are sexually abused.
For the mother who is forced to co-parent with an abusive ex, these data points can help assess the threat of abuse to the child; similar to the Danger Assessment Tool which evaluates the risk of death for an abuser’s target.
For example, when the child is younger, he/she/they is at the greatest risk. In my observation of Ruth’s case, this has borne out. Boy was subject to more abuse as an infant and toddler; as he has grown and become larger and more vocal, it seems that has helped him to evade or push back against some abuse. Admittedly this is speculation, because I’ve not had a chance to ask Boy directly. Someday, when he is much older, I hope I could hear about how he handled it, if he is willing to share.
There’s a naïve, if not irresponsible, perception and implementation of procreative ‘rights’ as though the potential parent will somehow, in blind anticipation, be innately inclined to sufficiently understand and appropriately nurture the child’s naturally developing bodies, minds and needs. In Childhood Disrupted the author writes that even “well-meaning and loving parents can unintentionally do harm to a child if they are not well informed about human development” (pg.24).
Although society cannot prevent anyone from bearing children, not even the plainly incompetent and reckless procreator, it can educate all young people for the most important job ever, even those intending to remain childless. Rather than being about instilling ‘values’, such child-development science curriculum should be about understanding, not just information memorization. It may even end up mitigating some of the familial dysfunction seemingly increasingly prevalent in society.
If nothing else, such curriculum could offer students an idea/clue as to whether they’re emotionally suited for the immense responsibility and strains of parenthood. Given what is at stake, should they not at least be equipped with such important science-based knowledge?
Crucial knowledge like: Since it cannot fight or flight, a baby hearing loud noises nearby, such as that of quarrelling parents, can only “move into a third neurological state, known as a ‘freeze’ state. … This freeze state is a trauma state” (pg.123). And it’s the unpredictability of a stressor, rather than the intensity, that does the most harm. When the stressor “is completely predictable, even if it is more traumatic — such as giving a [laboratory] rat a regularly scheduled foot shock accompanied by a sharp, loud sound — the stress does not create these exact same [negative] brain changes” (pg. 42).
The prolonged absorption of such traumatic experiences will cause the brain to improperly develop. It can readily be the starting point towards a childhood, adolescence and adulthood in which the brain uncontrollably releases potentially damaging levels of inflammatory stress hormones and chemicals, even in non-stressful daily routines. It can make every day a mental ordeal, unless the turmoil is prescription and/or illicitly medicated.
‘Child abuse in disguise’: The impact of parental alienation on children
Diagnosing parental alienation
Dr. William Bernet, a psychiatrist and professor emeritus at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, says that he and colleagues in the field have made dedicated efforts to have parental alienation included as a term in the DSM because properly identifying and defining alienation from the onset is the best way to combat counselor negligence.
“The problem with not naming parental alienation anywhere in the DSM is that courts can argue it isn’t real, and then, in turn, parents cannot defend themselves legally,” Bernet says. But “if it’s taught to clinicians of all types and accepted into curricula, then mental health practitioners can be held more accountable to identify these cases.”
Bernet, co-editor of Parental Alienation: The Handbook for Mental Health and Legal Professionals, sees therapists making two mistakes with parental alienation. First, they often fail to properly diagnose parental alienation early on in treatment. Second, they rely on traditional clinical approaches for far too long when treating this issue.
“Traditional family therapy approaches can be helpful in mild cases,” Bernet says. “But in more moderate or severe cases, alienation needs to be identified and both parents need to agree to be part of treatment.”
Bernet says that having only one parent attend sessions or offering traditional family therapy without identifying alienation has the potential to worsen the balance and allow an alienating parent and child to continue to target the other parent. If that happens, “therapists actually can make it worse,” he stresses, “because a child is going to be even more narcissistically powerful and won’t do what the therapist asks out of allegiance to the alienating parent.”
Bernet developed the five-factor model, which is an effective method to use when diagnosing parental alienation. This model includes five criteria for diagnosis:
Contact refusal: Is the child refusing contact with a parent?
Previous relationship: Did the child previously have a positive relationship with the rejected parent?
Lack of abuse: Does the rejected parent show signs of being abusive or neglectful
Alienating behaviors: Is the preferred parent engaging in alienating behaviors?
Child symptoms: Is the child manifesting symptoms of alienation?
Although it’s essential for counselors to properly diagnose for treatment, custody evaluators should be the ones making decisions related to parental alienation, Baker cautions. And she advises clinicians to call for a proper custody evaluation if they suspect parental alienation. avoiding counselor negligence.