Child Neglect: A Case Study

Children are the foundation of the future and need to be protected from any harmful abuse to deter any developmental deficiencies that may affect them as an adult. To understand and help raise awareness on child abuse we must define the different types of abuse. The first type of abuse I will define is neglect. Neglect is when there is a lack of attention in which parents must meet child’s basic needs (Leach, 2017). According to Crosson-Tower (2010), neglect can be divided into five separate subdivisions: physical, educational, emotional, medical, and mental health. Physical neglect is when there is a little or no supervision of the child, basics needs such as food, clothing, shelter, and failure to thrive. Educational neglect occurs when the

Li, Y. Zhong, K. Chen, Z. Zhong and J. Pan. Children who are neglected can experience serious developmental problems when becoming an adult. In this study, a cross-sectional survey was conducted in rural and urban Chinese cities from September 2012 to April 2013. A chi-squared test was used to compare the neglect rate between different groups. Participants were acquired from 21 schools and a total of 2,094 boys and 2,037 girls were involved in the study. Only children aged from 6 to 17 were allowed to participate in the study. Out of the 4131 children survey, an overall 55.50% of children fit the criteria of neglect. Comparing families, children of the traditional Chinese family (Han) experienced less neglect (53.07%) than the children of minority families living in China (68.76%). Children who have parents that work away from the home for a long period of time experience more neglect than children who are not left behind. There was a 12.55% greater difference among those children. Children who are born first in the family are 6.14% less likely to suffer from neglect than children who are not the first-born. There was also a significant difference found among one-child families (47.87%) and multi-child families (58.20%). Parents who have more children have a difficult time giving equal attention to all children in the family. The study suggests children living in rural areas where minority and multi-child families belong are at a higher risk of neglect than children who live in urban China with families who spend more time together as a whole. To help explain why these children are neglected, the causes of neglect must be addressed. There are four primary causes of neglect: economic, ecological, societal and individual factors. Economic neglect can be defined as, “ a response to stress, and poverty is an all-pervasive stress”