Dear future President,

No child should have to experience that pain whether it’s physically, verbally, or mentally. I am completely against child abuse. Every child should be able to know what it’s like to be loved and anyone who does abuse children should be convicted of a crime. Child abuse should be taken more seriously because babies, toddlers, and children can die from being abused and the fact that some children do go through this isn’t right.

Child abuse is when a parent or guardian causes harm to their child whether it is physical, mental, and/or emotional. I believe that child abuse is a serious matter and that the government needs to do something about it to stop it from happening. The causes for child abuse may be the lack of knowing how to raise a child, alcohol and drug abuse, anger issues, the abuser may have history of being abused and may take their anger out on the victim, and many more reasons. Some people may call it an act as to how they want to raise their children but some parents do take it too far. No child should be harmed in their own home.

The effects of child abuse can be very severe. The physical effects of child abuse are bruising, cuts, medical problems, broken bones and sometimes death. The emotional effects of child abuse are eating disorders, self harm, their self-esteem may be lowered, isolation from their peers, hostility, anxiety, they may feel like other people should experience what they’ve experienced and many more.

There needs to be a change about child abuse and here are my solutions. To try and prevent child abuse we can see if we can get laws enforced, people can report the abuse if they know it’s happening, or they can even get the child or children out of that situation by getting help from a police officer or someone else, having public meetings and/or parent education classes can be held. There is a child abuse awareness month in April but no one really makes a big deal about it just like they do about breast cancer. Also, autism awareness is in the same month as child abuse.  We need to let people know that children are still suffering from child abuse and that it’s a problem. I’ve researched the laws, but they haven’t changed the fact that children are being abused. These laws aren’t working at all and I feel that these laws need to be improved. We can make people aware by developing an effective message and using social media to spread the word about child abuse. There are also services called Child Protective Services (CPS) that you can call to protect children from abuse. We need to make children feel safe to talk to anybody, especially if they are getting abused. They need to be able to speak up!

Sincerely,

Nahjae-Nichol

Works Cited -

Medscape “Physical Child Abuse” http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/915664-overview

According to Child Protective Services the abuse or maltreatment of children is against the law. http://ocfs.ny.gov/main/cps/