Child Abuse Study Notes
What to focus on:
➢ Child Abuse in general and how it contextually presents in South African society
➢ The difficulty in explaining the aetiological pathways of child abuse and how it
impacts the mental health of individuals
➢ Define various types of child abuse: physical, emotional, sexual and cyber-sexual
abuse
➢ Distinguish between: Child Abuse and Neglect
➢ Define paedophilia and Child Abuse in line with DSM-5 criteria
➢ Using the prescribed readings, outline the systemic contextual factors that need to be
taken into account when explaining the aetiological factors that interplay between the
family and the wider community in relation to Child Abuse
➢ Using prescribed readings and your knowledge from other previous themes, explain
how child abuse often occurs co-morbidly with other psychiatric disorders
1
,Child Abuse in general and how it contextually presents in South
African society:
Child Abuse:
The World Health Organisation (WHO) defines child abuse as potential harm or actual harm
to a child’s well-being, development or dignity resulting from any form of emotional abuse,
physical abuse, sexual abuse, neglect or exploitation (WHO, 2016).
A child is a person who is below the age of 18 years. According to the Children’ Act, child
abuse refers to any form of harm or ill-treatment that is purposefully inflicted on a child
(Children’s Act 38, 2005). The Act provides a list of acts which legally constituted child
abuse. These include assaulting or deliberately inflicting any other harm onto a child, abusing
or violating a child sexually, allowing a child to experience being abused in a sexual manner,
bullying by a peer or another child, exploiting a child in labour practice, or exposing a child
to behaviour which may bring the child psychological or emotional harm.
How Child Abuse is contextually present in South African Society:
The context in which children grow is a critical component in their development. The family
system needs to provide stimulation, care, and nurturance, as well as inculcate values and
behavioural models for children.
Bronfenbrenner defines a developmental context as a “ socially constructed system of
external influences that is mediated by individuals’ minds ... whatever influences local
environments have on children must be seen as a product of how these environments are
perceived and interpreted by parents and children” (Furstenberg & Hughes, 1997, p. 27).
Within the ecological model are four interacting dimensions that can be used to develop an
understanding of social phenomena for example, child abuse, namely:
- Individual factors (e.g., the temperament of the child or parent);
- Process factors (e.g., the forms of interaction process that occur in a family);
- Contextual factors (e.g., poor neighbourhoods, corporal punishment); and
- Time factors (e.g., developmental changes over time in the child or in the
environment)
In South Africa, not all children grow up in safe environments rather they are exposed to
abuse and neglect. Childhood abuse is related to psychological health of individuals.
Importantly, we will examine how child abuse occurs in society and the impact that it has to
those individuals who are victims and the implications child abuse and neglect has within the
South African society. This exploration will aid us as citizens to assist in preventing child
abuse.
*Reading by Browne (“High Risk Infant and child maltreatment: conceptual and research
model for determining factors predictive of child maltreatment”)
2
, The Ecological Model which was derived from ecological psychology and developed by
Bronfenbrenner. It conceives that the child, family and community as an interactive set of
systems “nested” within each other and sees social reality as the interaction of interdependent
systems.
The model offers a framework for considering stress and the availability of social support or
social networks in relation to the typology of 4 levels:
- Individual
- Familial
- Social
- Cultural
The 4 levels of factors, as a group, compromise what is termed, predisposing factors.
Predisposing factors: characteristics that make the individual susceptible to child
maltreatment and precede the life events
- Individual factors: the characteristics that the parent and the child-victim possess as a
result of their unique life histories and physical/psychological attributes
o Parental characteristics – found to be related to incidents of child maltreatment
in South Africa are poor self-concept, poor self-esteem, history of abuse as a
child, lack of parenting skills and/or general lack of knowledge about child
development
o These individual factors are not sufficient in and of themselves to cause abuse
or neglect. Rather: it must be seen in the context of the parent-child
relationship, which in turn, is nested in the wider family
- Familial Factors: Involving both the structure and the function of the unit
o some of the family structural variables found to be associated with child
maltreatment are single working (female) parent in the home and families with
4 or more children
o Also included are family functioning characteristics, such as: martial
instability and violence
o Families interact with larger social units and these relationships may also
affect the risk of abuse
- Social Category: includes the quality of housing, presence of unemployment or
underemployment and formal/informal relationships.
o General community welfare, housing conditions, economic resources or
unemployment are all predisposing social factors – why poverty is strongly
associated with child maltreatment and is prevalent in SA.
- Cultural Factors: the all-embracing ideological fabric in which the individual, the
family and society are embedded. Most NB among these cultural values – those that
favour violence or corporal punishment. For example, SA is an extremely patriarchal
society, thus males are seen as dominant figures, leaving women and children more
vulnerable and submissive.
According to the ecological model, these individual, familial, societal and cultural factors
interact with the precipitating factors and result in child maltreatment
3
What to focus on:
➢ Child Abuse in general and how it contextually presents in South African society
➢ The difficulty in explaining the aetiological pathways of child abuse and how it
impacts the mental health of individuals
➢ Define various types of child abuse: physical, emotional, sexual and cyber-sexual
abuse
➢ Distinguish between: Child Abuse and Neglect
➢ Define paedophilia and Child Abuse in line with DSM-5 criteria
➢ Using the prescribed readings, outline the systemic contextual factors that need to be
taken into account when explaining the aetiological factors that interplay between the
family and the wider community in relation to Child Abuse
➢ Using prescribed readings and your knowledge from other previous themes, explain
how child abuse often occurs co-morbidly with other psychiatric disorders
1
,Child Abuse in general and how it contextually presents in South
African society:
Child Abuse:
The World Health Organisation (WHO) defines child abuse as potential harm or actual harm
to a child’s well-being, development or dignity resulting from any form of emotional abuse,
physical abuse, sexual abuse, neglect or exploitation (WHO, 2016).
A child is a person who is below the age of 18 years. According to the Children’ Act, child
abuse refers to any form of harm or ill-treatment that is purposefully inflicted on a child
(Children’s Act 38, 2005). The Act provides a list of acts which legally constituted child
abuse. These include assaulting or deliberately inflicting any other harm onto a child, abusing
or violating a child sexually, allowing a child to experience being abused in a sexual manner,
bullying by a peer or another child, exploiting a child in labour practice, or exposing a child
to behaviour which may bring the child psychological or emotional harm.
How Child Abuse is contextually present in South African Society:
The context in which children grow is a critical component in their development. The family
system needs to provide stimulation, care, and nurturance, as well as inculcate values and
behavioural models for children.
Bronfenbrenner defines a developmental context as a “ socially constructed system of
external influences that is mediated by individuals’ minds ... whatever influences local
environments have on children must be seen as a product of how these environments are
perceived and interpreted by parents and children” (Furstenberg & Hughes, 1997, p. 27).
Within the ecological model are four interacting dimensions that can be used to develop an
understanding of social phenomena for example, child abuse, namely:
- Individual factors (e.g., the temperament of the child or parent);
- Process factors (e.g., the forms of interaction process that occur in a family);
- Contextual factors (e.g., poor neighbourhoods, corporal punishment); and
- Time factors (e.g., developmental changes over time in the child or in the
environment)
In South Africa, not all children grow up in safe environments rather they are exposed to
abuse and neglect. Childhood abuse is related to psychological health of individuals.
Importantly, we will examine how child abuse occurs in society and the impact that it has to
those individuals who are victims and the implications child abuse and neglect has within the
South African society. This exploration will aid us as citizens to assist in preventing child
abuse.
*Reading by Browne (“High Risk Infant and child maltreatment: conceptual and research
model for determining factors predictive of child maltreatment”)
2
, The Ecological Model which was derived from ecological psychology and developed by
Bronfenbrenner. It conceives that the child, family and community as an interactive set of
systems “nested” within each other and sees social reality as the interaction of interdependent
systems.
The model offers a framework for considering stress and the availability of social support or
social networks in relation to the typology of 4 levels:
- Individual
- Familial
- Social
- Cultural
The 4 levels of factors, as a group, compromise what is termed, predisposing factors.
Predisposing factors: characteristics that make the individual susceptible to child
maltreatment and precede the life events
- Individual factors: the characteristics that the parent and the child-victim possess as a
result of their unique life histories and physical/psychological attributes
o Parental characteristics – found to be related to incidents of child maltreatment
in South Africa are poor self-concept, poor self-esteem, history of abuse as a
child, lack of parenting skills and/or general lack of knowledge about child
development
o These individual factors are not sufficient in and of themselves to cause abuse
or neglect. Rather: it must be seen in the context of the parent-child
relationship, which in turn, is nested in the wider family
- Familial Factors: Involving both the structure and the function of the unit
o some of the family structural variables found to be associated with child
maltreatment are single working (female) parent in the home and families with
4 or more children
o Also included are family functioning characteristics, such as: martial
instability and violence
o Families interact with larger social units and these relationships may also
affect the risk of abuse
- Social Category: includes the quality of housing, presence of unemployment or
underemployment and formal/informal relationships.
o General community welfare, housing conditions, economic resources or
unemployment are all predisposing social factors – why poverty is strongly
associated with child maltreatment and is prevalent in SA.
- Cultural Factors: the all-embracing ideological fabric in which the individual, the
family and society are embedded. Most NB among these cultural values – those that
favour violence or corporal punishment. For example, SA is an extremely patriarchal
society, thus males are seen as dominant figures, leaving women and children more
vulnerable and submissive.
According to the ecological model, these individual, familial, societal and cultural factors
interact with the precipitating factors and result in child maltreatment
3
