wfn.org | TCN: Study reveals parents are perpetrators in 85% of child abuse cases

["Lydia Ma" <enews@pctpress.org>]

>Taiwan Church News

>2981 Edition

>April 13~19, 2009

Study reveals parents are perpetrators in 85% of child abuse cases

>Reported by Chiou Kuo-rong

>Written by Lydia Ma

According to recent statistics on child abuse collected by Taiwan Fund  for Children and Families (TFCF), more than 85% of child

abuse cases involve children abused by their own parents. Of the 1206  cases that have been reported in 2009, 1031 cases involve

children abused by their own parents. This means that in 85.5% of all  child abuse cases in the past few months, parents are the

>perpetrators.

When asked about the causes of child abuse, 64% of respondents cited  lack of parenting skills, 38% cited marital breakdown, 38%

>cited poverty, and 26% cited unemployment.

To highlight the importance of protecting children, TFCF came up with  five steps or slogans to help parents prevent child abuse in

their homes. TFCF CEO Wang Ming-ren pointed out that government agencies  and social organizations have been pushing for

child protection services and activities and will continue to do so,  however, there are still many parents who abuse their children

during bouts of frustration and anger because they don’t have other  means to relieve pressure and pent-up emotions.

Cases of child abuse have been widely reported by the media and the  recent financial crisis has exacerbated child abuse because

parents are under greater stress and must strive harder to control their  emotions.

According to one TFCF leader, child abuse is very much related to the  national economy and to parents who don’t know how to

take care of their children. It can also result from parents who are  unable to deal with unemployment and poverty. Oftentimes,

parents who lack child-rearing skills will also treat their children as  objects to vent their frustrations.

Why would parents abuse their children? According to experts, parents  are not exempt from making mistakes. They are also not

immune to the pressures of life. When parents keep their emotions and  the pressures they face bottled up inside and cannot find

good means to vent their emotions, as soon as their child makes a  mistake, these parents are more likely to respond with

uncontrollable outbursts resulting in child abuse.

Though experts support disciplining children as soon as they make  mistakes so that effective correction can take place, they also

point out that if parents do not have adequate means to vent their daily  frustrations, discipline can often become marred by illogical

outbursts that destroy a parent’s relationship with their children  and lead to irreparable damage.

According to reports, parents who are from lower socio-economic  backgrounds tend to be rougher when disciplining their children.

They often speak to their children using a commanding tone that belittle  them and negatively impact their development. Therefore,

lack of money in itself is not directly related to child abuse. Many  child abuse cases are from parents who are financially rich but

lack good parenting skills, causing them to use violence when  interacting with their children.

To help parents relieve their stress and also prevent child abuse, TFCF  suggested using five steps when interacting with children:

1-     Don’t get angry, instead, take 10 deep breaths

2-     Close your eyes and cool down for 10 minutes

>3-     Call TFCF hotline at 0800-078585

>4-     Hug your child for 10 minutes

5-     Laugh out loud, take ten hearty laughs with your child.

TFCF also designed a blog so that parents can share their parenting  experiences and tips and help each other increase their

knowledge on child-rearing, decrease instances of child abuse, and  create a safe environment for their children to grow into

maturity. The blog can be found at http://tw.myblog.yahoo.com/tfcf-tfcf

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